All Night Long (5 page)

"County Social Services," she said before she could think not to. There was something about the way he asked that compelled her to answer.

He brushed aside the spurt of satisfaction being right gave him and pushed for more information. "How long?"

"Almost five years. Five frustrating, infuriating years," she added before he could ask. "And, yes, I burned out, as you so eloquently put it." It was still a sore spot with her that she hadn't had whatever it took to hang in there for the long haul. "It finally got to the point where I couldn't take it anymore and I quit," she said baldly, daring him to make something of it.

His lifted eyebrow managed to look mocking. "It?"

"The endless red tape and paperwork, the long hours, the bureaucratic lack of compassion for the very people I was supposed to be helping. I got tired of spinning my wheels and going nowhere."

He gave her a deliberately disparaging look. "And so now you're safely out of it and you think the system and the people in it stink."

"No, not the people," she said indignantly. "Most of the people who work in Social Services are hardworking and well-intentioned—"
at least, at first, before the hopelessness of it gets them down
"—doing the best they can with what they have to work with. But the system...?" She paused, afraid of offending him, and then decided to just go ahead and say it. He hadn't appeared to worry in the least about offending her. And it was, after all, what she truly believed. "Definitely, yes," she said with an emphatic nod. "I think the system pretty much stinks. It has too many loopholes and lets too many people fall through the cracks. People like Judy. And the homeless. And teenage runaways." Her hands fluttered up into the air as she got into it. "Battered women and children. AIDS patients. Disabled veterans. The impoverished elder—"

"So what are you doing to make it better?" Matt demanded, suddenly fed up with bleeding-heart liberals who whined about the way things were but didn't do a thing to try and make them better.

"What?"

"You stand there," he said, not bothering to hide his sarcasm, "bellyaching about all the ills of the present system. But instead of trying to improve it, you jumped ship. I want to know what you're doing to make things better."

"I was planning on voting for you," Susannah shot back, her tone equally sarcastic. "But now I'm not so sure!"

Her answer surprised them both and they stared at each other for a long moment, shocked at the excess of overheated emotion zinging back and forth between them.

"Good Lord," Susannah said, putting a hand to her throat in a vain effort to calm her runaway pulse. "How'd we get into this? No, never mind." She made a vague brushing-away motion. "Don't tell me. I don't want to know."

"Good. Because I don't think I know the answer," Matt admitted. "I'm not in the habit of..." He lifted his broad shoulders in a halfhearted shrug, feeling uncomfortably like a tongue-tied schoolboy who'd started a silly argument with the girl sitting next to him just to get her attention—and then didn't know what to do with it when he had it. "I don't usually fly off the handle like that," he finished.

"No. No, me either," Susannah said, instantly and instinctively understanding all that he wasn't saying. "Well, then..." She made a loose fist, bouncing it nervously against the notepad on her desk a couple of times as she searched her mind for something to say. "I guess that concludes our, um, business. I'll call you when I have someone lined up. That is—" she hesitated, recalling the words
tight-ass
and
bellyaching
"—if you still want me to?"

For just a second, Matt considered the wisdom of changing his mind. And then, inexplicably, he decided to ignore what was surely his better judgment. "I still want you to," he said with a brief nod.

"Okay, good," she said, too brightly. "That's good. I'll call you when I have someone lined up." She moved around the desk toward the door, unconsciously walking a little faster as he rose from the love seat to follow her. "We can decide what to do about setting up a meeting between them then."

She reached out with her right hand to open the door. He reached out with his left and covered hers on the old-fashioned brass doorknob.

"There's just one more thing," he said softly.

Susannah was afraid she knew exactly what that one thing was. Knew, too, that it was probably in her best interests to avoid it. But she made no move to do so.

"I probably won't have any candidates for you before next week at the earliest," she said, as if he hadn't spoken. As if he wasn't standing there with his hand on hers. As if she wasn't standing there, staring at it, transfixed.

It seemed huge, covering hers completely. His fingers were long and square-tipped, the nails clean and lightly buffed, the wrist thick and substantial beneath the snowy-white cuff of his shirt. Except for the neatly manicured nails, they could have been the hands of a laborer, tanned, strong and capable-looking. Susannah tried to tell herself she wasn't the least bit affected.

"It usually takes at least a week to find a suitable match," she said. "Maybe longer in your case since I—"

His fingers tightened on hers, just slightly, and he lifted her hand from the ornate doorknob.

"—since I haven't meet your mother one-on...ah..." her voice faltered as he pulled her to him "...one..." It died away completely when he cupped her cheeks in his wide palms and turned her face up to his.

Their eyes met for a fleeting second, long enough for her to see the searing heat and purpose in his. Long enough for him to glimpse the answering heat in hers. And then her lashes fluttered down and his lips took hers in a kiss more carnal than any first kiss should be.

His mouth was skillful and insistent against hers, rife with masculine hunger, blatantly masterful, allowing no room for argument or refusal. Susannah offered none, choosing instead to answer fire with fire. Her head fell back under the aggressive onslaught of his lips. Her mouth opened to accept his seeking tongue. Her hands clutched at the lapels of his navy-blue suit to hold him as securely as he was holding her. She stood toe-to-toe with him for hot, endless seconds, giving as good as she got, taking as much as she gave. When he finally lifted his head, he was breathing as heavily as she was.

And trying just as desperately not to show it.

Susannah gulped back a shuddering sigh and loosened her hands on his lapels. "Was there a point to that?" she asked with credible calm, just as if her head wasn't spinning. And her heart wasn't slamming against the inside of her chest. And she couldn't feel the rock-hard erection pressed against her stomach.

Matt let his hands drop from her face and stepped back. "Just in case you had any lingering doubts," he said raggedly, and let himself out of the office before he did something
really
stupid like tearing her clothes off and taking her down to the floor beneath him.

Chapter 3

"He's the third dud you've sent over."

Susannah frowned at the telephone. "None of those men are duds," she objected. "All three of them are very nice, conservative, well-bred—"
boring
"—gentlemen. Exactly the kind of man you said your mother would be interested in."

"Well, she wasn't," Matt complained. "She turned them all down flat. She hasn't been out on a single date yet."

"And who's fault is that? I told you I probably wouldn't be able to find someone suitable this way," she reminded him. "I need to meet her, Matt. There are things I can only tell about a person,
in
person. That's why I call this business The Personal Touch, you know. Because that's what successful matchmaking takes—personal one-on-one contact."

There was a long pause on the other end of the phone. "All right." He sighed. Loudly. "You can meet her."

"Oh, good," she said, pleased and relieved that he was finally willing to listen to reason. "The sooner the better. Let's see..." She flipped a page on her desk calendar as she spoke. "How about lunch tomorrow? She can come here or I can meet her at a restaurant. Unless you think she'd be more comfortable being interviewed at home? I don't usually do that but—"

"No."

"Not tomorrow?" She flipped more pages. "Well, the rest of this week is booked pretty solid but I could—"

"I don't mean 'no, not tomorrow,'" Matt interrupted. "I mean 'no, you're not going to interview her.'"

"But you just said—"

"I said you could meet her. I didn't say you could tell her I hired you to find her a date."

It was Susannah's turn to sigh. "Your mother's hardly likely to tell me what I need to know unless she knows why I'm asking. I don't think 'Hello, Mrs. Ryan, I'm so pleased to meet you. Tell me, what do you look for in a man?' is going to work. Not unless she's a lot different than you've led me to believe."

Which, Susannah reflected, she, might very well be. The woman Matt had described should have been pleased as punch with any one of the first three candidates. That she hadn't been pointed to a serious flaw in her son's powers of observation or, at the very least, a blind spot where his mother was concerned.

"I think you should tell her what you're up to, Matt," she advised. "You never know. If she's as lonely for companionship as you think, she might actually like the idea."

"No." Matt was adamant on that point. "She wouldn't. She's very old-school, very proper and dignified. In my mother's world, things are done a certain way or they aren't done at all."

"All right," Susannah conceded, knowing her own mother would feel exactly the same way.
Plebeian
was one of the least scathing adjectives Audrey Stanhope Bennington Harper had used when Susannah announced she was going to turn her grandmother's legacy into a dating service. "When and where do I meet her?" She'd find
some
tactful way to elicit the necessary information.

"Are you free tonight?"

"Tonight? Well, let's see..." She hesitated, some primal feminine instinct warning her not to reveal just how empty her evenings were. She rifled through her calendar, making sure he could hear the rustle of the pages. "Yes, tonight's open," she said, making it sound as if it were a rare occurrence. The truth was, except for The Personal Touch's regular get-acquainted parties and the occasional night out with ex-colleagues from her old job at Social Services, almost every night was open.

"Good. I'll pick you up at six-thirty."

"Pick me up? There's no need to pick me up," Susannah protested. "Just tell me where and I'll—"

"I'll pick you up," Matt insisted. "My mother's having a few friends over for cocktails before they all head off to some concert at Davies Hall tonight. We'll tell her you're my date."

Susannah felt her stomach clench. "Date?" She couldn't remember the last time she'd been on an actual date. It had been at least a year. Maybe longer. And never with a man who could make her blush with just a look.

"You want to meet her one-on-one. Get to know her, don't you?"

"Well, yes, but—"

"This is perfect, then. As my date, you'll have ample opportunity to talk to her. Size her up. Whatever it is you need to do. In fact, just to make sure, we'll get there a little early. Give you some extra one-on-one time with her before everyone else arrives."

"But—"

"Can you be ready by six o'clock?"

Susannah knew she should say no. Gut instinct was telling her that spending any time at all with Matthew Ryan—even as his pretend date—was just asking for trouble. Big trouble. It had been a long time since a man's kiss had made her toes curl.
Like since never.
"Yes, six o'clock is fine," she said.

"Good. See you then. Ah..." He hesitated. "My mother dresses up for these things," he said delicately, not wanting to offend her. "Nothing formal. No long dresses or anything like that. Just..."
What did women call those kinds of clothes?
"...cocktaily kinds of dresses. Fancy but not too fancy." And nothing like that offbeat outfit she'd been wearing in her office. "Do you know the kind I mean?"

"I know," she said, wondering if she should feel insulted. She decided to let it pass. The poor man was the product of an environment where perfectly creased navy serge suits and spit-polished wing tips were considered to be on the cutting edge of fashion. "I have the perfect dress." She'd bought it for those times when she couldn't get out of some function her mother had invited her to. "I promise, you won't be embarrassed to be seen with me," she said dryly, unable to resist the dig.