Matchmakers Box Set: Matchmakers, Encore, Finding Hope (24 page)

She unlocked the front door and pushed it open. It was like opening the door to a magical world. She walked in. The slightest sound from her sneakers on the floor echoed through the building.

“Isn’t it wonderful?”

The lighting was bad. The linoleum tiles on the floor were coming up, and what paint remained on the walls was peeling. It was one, big, open space with an office and a bathroom in the back, but all Carissa saw were endless possibilities.

Thomas stood to her side and swept a look around. He saw nothing but heaps of debris in a building that should be torn down and a better one built in its place. How did she think that in a few months she could turn the dilapidated structure into a music school and make money at it?

He let out a slow, steady, quiet breath. That wasn’t him thinking, it was his father, and it killed him that someone else’s joy could inspire such negativity in him. He turned back to Carissa, who was still gazing around the space as though she could see everything in its place. “What do you envision?”

“This will be a waiting room for the parents and a reception area. So we’ll put a wall here.” She raised her hands to help him visualize. “Then through the door…” she said as she boxed it in with her hands as she walked through, stepping over an old rolled-up rug, “there will be two classrooms on either side of the hallway. They’ll be private lesson rooms. Then…” Her eyes grew wide as she walked toward the back of the building. She skirted around a set of old display cases with broken shelves. “This area will be open space. We’ll do group lessons, orchestra, and band practice here.”

She settled her eyes on him, and he worked up a smile.

“Do you have a classroom that could be used for theory classes? Something with space where there could be a chalkboard and desks?”

“Well, that sounds like a public school, not a music school.” She laughed when she said it, and he couldn’t believe that an actual class of theory wasn’t important to her. She was still dancing circles around the room, taking it in. He’d talk to her about it later. But you couldn’t have a school without theory as a basic class.

Carissa spun back toward him. “What do you think?” Her hair was pulled back from her face, and it gave him full view of the wonder in her eyes. No matter what he thought of the dingy building with its peeling paint, he couldn’t help but get caught up in Carissa’s excitement.

“I think I’m honored to be here. The smile on your face is priceless.”

Her brows creased. “I guess we should get to cleaning, huh?”

“I think that would be a good idea.” Relief washed over him. He needed to be busy because standing there looking at her, in her pair of battered jeans, which hugged her narrow hips, and the plaid button-up shirt, which covered a red tank top and was left open, was enough to raise the heat of his body. Cleaning would be a good deterrent from the thoughts he was having about the collapse of the building—and the things he’d like to do to Carissa.

Carissa shook her arms to get the feeling back in them, then rolled her shoulders to work out the kinks that were forming in her back. She’d been wiping the soap off the front windows for the better part of an hour while Thomas hauled old pieces of scrap wood and shelving to the dumpster.

“This will be a good venture.” Thomas walked toward her. “Open your hand.”

Just as he’d asked, she held open her hand to him. Gently, he laid a fifty-cent piece on her palm. When she shifted her gaze from the dull coin up to his eyes, warmth flooded through her.

He took her hand and curled her fingers around the coin. “Just think, that’s worth fifty lucky pennies.” He winked, then turned back to finish his trash duty.

Carissa let her heart settle before opening her hand and looking at the coin. She couldn’t help but think he was right. It was a good venture.

They swept, dusted, and mopped. By one o’clock, they had the majority of the cleaning done.

Thomas blew out a breath and wiped the back of his hand over his brow. He pushed the hair from his eyes—those blue eyes that could pierce her in a way no one else’s ever had. His perfectly pressed T-shirt had worked its way out of his pants, and there was a streak of dirt on his cheek.

“You have a little something there.” She raised her hand to his cheek to wipe it off, but his hand was quicker.

He’d winced. She noticed it as he caught her hand. After a settling moment, he let her brush away the dirt.

“Thank you.” His voice cracked.

“My pleasure.” She smiled because it was. Carissa’s mouth had gone dry from being so close to him. She backed away from him and moistened her lips. “I could use a hamburger. What about you?”

“Shouldn’t we go home and shower?”

She swallowed hard as she pushed away the mental image of Thomas in the shower…with her. Her neck heated, and she averted her gaze to the window until she caught her breath. The sky was blue.

“This place is outdoor seating, and it’s still nice enough out. What do ya say?”

He tucked his shirt back into the waist of his jeans.

“Okay, but my treat if you’re buying breakfast tomorrow.”

“You’re on.” She grinned, hoping her true feelings weren’t plastered all over her face for him to see. “And then we’ll go get Hope and take her for that juice I promised her. Maybe we could discuss the remodeling plans,” she added, hoping to focus her mind back on her work and away from the thoughts about working on Thomas.

He’d laughed when she’d ordered a quarter-pound hamburger with extra ketchup, a large size onion rings, and a chocolate shake.

He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen a woman order that much food. His mother never would have ordered anything other than a child-sized hamburger, if they’d ever eaten out, that is.

“Got some appetite.” They set their trays down on the table.

“Yeah, well, you were buying. Wanted to get your money’s worth.”

He wondered where she’d put it all. Obviously, she didn’t eat like that all the time. Her body was so perfect. Every curve was in the right place, but it was taut and tight in all the right places, too.

Moving his eyes from her was becoming harder to do—even as she dragged an onion ring through a mound of ketchup and bit it in two. The delight in her eyes from the simple act of enjoying a meal was something he’d never seen in a woman. His mother spent mealtimes catering to her children and her overbearing husband. The women with whom he’d toured in Rome were too worried about their appearance to find pleasure in the fine art of a simple meal.

None of that seemed to matter to Carissa.

A few wayward strands of hair had fallen from the ponytail at the back of her head, and there was a smudge on her forehead. Carissa lived in the moment and reveled in each minute she took in. Watching her lifted his spirits. The desire to feel that passion with his very own hands was overwhelming. He diverted his eyes and focused on a long sip of his soda.

Carissa bit into her hamburger and ketchup spurted from its side and landed on her chin. Laughing, she set down the burger and wiped off her face.

“So tell me, Thomas Samuel, where did you call home before you traveled the world?”

He choked on the soda. He coughed, cleared his throat, and set down the cup. Trying to keep his voice steady, he answered, “Um, I lived in Chicago.”

“Chicago?” The word purred from her throat, but still left him with a bitter taste. “Oh, I’d love to go to Chicago someday.”

“You’ve never been?”

“No. I really haven’t been anywhere but here.” Her eyes glossed with tears.

“You don’t like to travel?”

Carissa shrugged. “I never really wanted to be anywhere but here. Here I was safe and taken care of.”

It was a vulnerable moment, and his heart urged to ask questions.

He didn’t.

He’d like to have known what she meant, but if he asked, then so would she. It was better to leave some rocks unturned.

“What time does Hope get out of school?” he asked instead.

“She gets out at two-thirty. We’ll head over to my parents’ house to pick her up.”

He looked down at the dust on his shirt and then back up at her with a flick of his head to move the hair from his eyes.

“Do we have time to swing by home and get a shower?”

“You are worse than a woman.” Her laughter was like a crescendo in a musical movement that dictated his life. He waited for the pause, for the beat to change, but with Carissa, it didn’t.

“That’s what happens when you live around a man like Pablo DiAngelo for most of your life. He wears off. Trust me, until he demanded I constantly be so perfect, I wasn’t.”

He’d once thought that being Pablo DiAngelo’s prodigy was the path to a new and better life. It had only been a detour, he now realized.

His life had been orchestrated like a fine movement, in tune with everyone else’s lives and personalities. He’d thought he was happy, but perhaps it was only contentment. Pure happiness was what he saw in Carissa’s eyes when she was with her family, when she spoke of her school, and when she ate a hamburger with too much ketchup.

Carissa shot him a glance and a smile that knocked his heart rate up. He wanted what she had, that zest for life. Even more than that, he wanted her.

They sat in the quaint juice shop where Carissa had worked as a teenager. Thomas sipped on a drink that Hope promised him he’d love and listened as she rambled on about her day in third grade.

He wondered if the little person in front of him would take a breath before delving into another tale, but she just kept going.

“Sylvia Parker is going to invite me to her sleepover. She just got a new dog, and I want one, too.”

“I don’t see that happening.” Carissa shook her head. “Mom isn’t much of a dog person.”

“Well, I think I could ask.” Finally, Hope sipped on her juice.

Carissa smoothed Hope’s hair with her hand. “We should probably get you back home to finish your homework.”

Hope protested with a grunt. “It’s Friday. I’m not doing spelling words on Friday.”

Thomas winced. He’d uttered those same words once. Homework had never been his favorite thing to do. Hadn’t he learned the hard way to make sure it was done early each night? He watched Hope sip on her drink. There were better ways to teach a child to have responsibility than how he had learned.

“Just think, if you do your homework on Friday, then you have all weekend to play,” Carissa said.

“Fine.” Hope rolled her eyes. “Can I spend the night at your house?”

“Not tonight. I have students in the morning.”

Thomas felt a tug at his heart. Carissa had said no, but Hope wasn’t upset. She’d simply nodded, and the smile stayed in her eyes.

Once, small eyes had looked at him so trustingly. He swallowed hard and pushed back the memory where it belonged—in his past.

CHAPTER THREE

Carissa tidied up the kitchen after dinner while Thomas sat with Katie and watched Jeopardy. He’d asked if he could help, but she’d shooed him away, claiming she needed her space.

What she’d needed was a few moments alone to breathe and collect her thoughts.

Her mind should have been on the business license application that needed to be finalized, the call to the insurance agent that was to have been returned, and the list she’d started of instruments she wanted to purchase. Scheduling meetings at the local schools and thinking of advertising should have been her main concerns. Instead, she was thinking about the man in the other room answering questions to some game show.

Since he’d come down the stairs that morning, her heart hadn’t stopped racing.

That blond, disheveled hair and those blue eyes had burned into her mind. His soft voice, with the carefully chosen words, had her head spinning. It wasn’t like her to see a man and have her skin grow hot, but she wasn’t one to take her time either. She didn’t want to complicate things with someone who was there to work with her, but she couldn’t help but want to taste him.

“Katie says it’s time for her medicine,” he called. “I told her I’d come and get it.”

When she heard his voice from the other room, she bit her lip. “It’s in that cupboard. It’s the little cup.” She scrubbed a plate in the sink, trying to occupy her mind.

“You set it all up for her?”

“Yes. One time my aunt took her medicine three times because she couldn’t remember that she’d taken it. She was in the hospital for a week.”

“That’s very thoughtful of you.” He smiled before opening the cupboard door. He grabbed the cup and walked back out to Katie.

Carissa let out a breath. She thought about the night before when she’d turned and walked right into him. She’d felt his hands on her hips, his body pressed to hers, and his breath on her skin. God, she wished she’d just kissed him. She wished she’d pressed her lips to his. She wished she’d pulled him closer to her. Oh, if she’d only…

“Carissa.” She gasped and spun around when Thomas said her name. He winked. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“Just in deep thought, I guess.”

“I’m going to head to bed. I think all my travels are catching up with me.” He walked toward her. “Thank you for the day and for dinner. You’re a wonderful cook.”

“Thank you.” She stuttered and nearly dropped the plate in the sink when she realized how close he stood to her.

“I’ll be ready for that run and coffee before you start teaching tomorrow.” He stepped closer and kissed her cheek. Carissa’s breath hitched. “Goodnight.” He left the whisper echoing in her ear.

Thomas admired Carissa from inside the house. She lifted one leg onto the railing of the porch and stretched over it. He could see plenty of her, and every part was toned and beautiful.

She wore a tiny pair of running shorts and a fitted shirt that clung to her curves. He bit his lip. A run was exactly what he needed now. Perhaps a run into an icy river. He squared his shoulders and joined her on the porch.

“Good morning. I thought you were a no-show.” She smiled at him, and her eyes seared him. She’d pulled her long, dark hair back in a ponytail away from her face, and her eyes were larger, he swore it. She had full lips, the kind that a man could find pleasure in for hours. He shook it off.