Buch lesen: «His Holiday Matchmaker»

Chapter One

“Daddy! Daddy!”

“Cupcake!” Nathan Cooper replied with a grin as he swung his six-year-old daughter, Katie, up into the air.

She burst into a fit of girlish giggles. “I’m not a cupcake.”

“Sure you are,” he said as he lowered her to the ground. Reaching out, he ruffled her unruly curls. “Look at all this chocolate frosting.”

“That’s my hair,” she said with another giggle, flashing him a smile that reminded him so much of her mother it hurt. So much of Isabel lived on in their daughter. Her dark eyes. Those long brown curls. That determined chin.

Nathan tamped down the memories of his late wife that threatened to surface. Forcing his focus solely on the tiny heart-shaped face looking up at him so adoringly, he playfully pinched his daughter’s lightly freckled cheek. “And I suppose these aren’t sprinkles?”

“No, silly. They’re freckles!” She pulled away with another giggle and ran back to the porch. “Watch what I can do, Daddy.”

He smiled as she dipped a large bubble wand into the bright yellow tray that sat on the sun-warmed porch steps and then spun in a slow circle, her motion creating a long, iridescent bubble. To be so carefree, he thought with an inner sigh.

The door to the small, ranch-style house creaked open, drawing his gaze that way.

“Nathan,” Mildred Timmons greeted with a warm smile. A smiling, robust woman in her midsixties, Mildred had been a Godsend to him after losing both his wife and his parents in the storm two years before.

He’d been a couple of towns away, working on a construction project with his brothers, when the F4 tornado touched down, leaving a path of destruction across several Texas counties. The near mile-wide twister had swept across the northernmost part of Braxton, ripping down power lines, damaging buildings and taking the lives of those he loved in a few short minutes.

“You’re done early,” she said, wiping her hands on the apron she had tied about her rounded waist.

“Not really. I have a break before I have to get back to the site. Thought I’d take Katie into town for a hot dog. That is, unless she’s already eaten dinner.”

“You’re in luck. She hasn’t. We were gonna make some fish sticks and fries, but I’m sure she’d rather be having dinner with her daddy. You two haven’t gotten to share many meals together lately.”

He nodded with a frown. As co-owner of Cooper Construction, a business he’d started with his brother Carter five years earlier, he’d had his hands full dealing with the reconstruction needs left behind in the area by the tornado that struck two Decembers ago.

“We’re working overtime to get the recreation center finished before Christmas Eve, but a few unexpected setbacks are pushing us down to the wire.” With so many people counting on him and his brothers to get the job done in time, the pressure was on. He couldn’t let the town down. Couldn’t let Isabel down. Not only did the town council plan to hold their annual community holiday festivities in the newly erected building, they had decided to dedicate the new rec center to the townsfolk that were lost in the storm. So while he hadn’t been there for Isabel when she’d needed him most, he was determined to do whatever it took to see to it the dedication took place as planned. That her memory lived on.

“I have faith in you boys,” Millie said. “You’ll make it in time.”

Faith—it was something he used to hold dear to his heart. That was before he’d lost those he loved in a violent, senseless storm.

“Just don’t stretch yourself too thin,” she warned, drawing Nathan from his troubled thoughts. “Katie needs you.”

And he needed her, too. But it was during this particular time of year he needed to bury himself in his work. Needed to forget about the future that had been so unfairly taken from him. From Katie.

“I might be a little late tonight,” he said, avoiding the issue of his demanding work schedule. “Will that be a problem?”

“Oh, goodness, no,” the older woman replied as her gaze followed the energetic six-year-old around the yard. “I love having Katie here with me. She’s such a breath of fresh air for an old woman like me.”

“You’re far from old,” he told her.

“Old enough,” Millie countered.

“You know, Millie, I don’t know what we would’ve done without you these past two years.”

“I could say the same thing about all of you,” she said, her voice catching. Her husband had been the only other tornado-related fatality in Braxton. He’d been out doing a check of the property’s fence line when the storm struck and he hadn’t been able to make it to shelter. “You boys, little Katie here, and Carter’s lovely wife and children have become my family. I just wish...” She looked his way, her expression doleful.

“Wish what?”

“That you would open yourself up to love again.”

He sighed. “Millie...”

“I know we’ve discussed this before,” she admitted. “But I can’t help it. I wanna see you meet a nice young lady like Carter did. Be happy again. You’re too young to spend the rest of your life alone.”

His brother was happy. No doubt about it. Audra and her two young children meant the world to Carter. But what if something happened to that perfect world he’d walked so willingly into? Like it had to his and Isabel’s?

“I’m not alone,” he said, fighting a frown. “I have Katie.” Though he’d nearly lost her, too, when his own perfect world came crashing down around him. Isabel had taken their young daughter out to his parents’ ranch to help put up their Christmas tree when the twister struck. Katie and his father had been pulled from the rubble and taken to the hospital. Katie survived. His father hadn’t, dying a day after his beloved wife and daughter-in-law.

“Have faith,” his father had said during his final moments in the hospital. “There is always hope beyond the storm.”

But was there really?

“Yes, you do,” Millie agreed with an empathetic smile. “All the more reason for you to start living again. Besides, Katie needs a woman in her life.”

“She already does. Two, in fact. She has you and Audra.” Turning, he whistled to get his daughter’s attention. “Park your bubble wand, Cupcake. Daddy’s taking you to Big Dog’s for dinner.”

“Big Dog’s!” she squealed in delight. “Yay!”

He turned back to Mildred. “Would you like to join us?”

“Thank you for the offer, but I have a hankering for fish sticks for dinner,” she told him with a kind smile. “You go spend some special time with your little girl.”

He nodded. “We’ll be back in an hour or so.” That said, he stepped from the porch. Scooping up his daughter, he carried the giggling little girl out to his truck.

He and Katie were fine just the way they were.

* * *

“Well, if it isn’t my two favorite customers.”

“Hey, Lizzie!” Katie said with a toothy grin.

“Hey, Katie,” the young waitress replied. “I see you roped your daddy into taking you out for dinner again.”

“She’s pretty good at wrangling me into doing her bidding,” Nathan admitted with a chuckle. Lizzie was a sweetheart who was loved by all. She had been waitressing at Big Dog’s ever since graduating from high school. “How’s school going?”

“It’s going,” she said. “A little challenging juggling work and my online classes, but I’m determined to get that degree before I’m too old to do anything with it.”

“You’re only twenty-four,” he reminded her.

“Sometimes it feels like I’m twice that.”

“You’ll manage,” he assured her with a nod.

“I wish I could be as certain as you are,” she replied. “It won’t be long before I’m working, taking online classes and squeezing in the required classes that have to be taken at school. My head is bound to be spinning soon.”

“Keep your eye on the goal,” he told her. “That meteorology degree you’re working toward will help save lives down the road.”

The worry left her face, replaced by a bright smile. “Thanks for the pep talk. Why don’t you go grab yourselves a table while I fetch a couple of menus?”

He looked to his daughter. “Where are we sitting today, Cupcake?” His daughter liked to pick a different one each time they came in.

“Over here,” she exclaimed, skipping to an empty table halfway across the room.

He followed, sitting on one of the chairs with its bright red padded vinyl seat. The bell over the restaurant’s front door jingled, drawing Nathan’s gaze in that direction. Two young women he’d never seen before stepped inside. Both looked to be in their midtwenties. The first had straight, dark hair that stopped at her shoulders. The one walking in behind her had long, red-gold hair that shimmered like flames under the fluorescent lighting of the diner as she moved toward him.

He tipped his cowboy hat with a polite nod as they walked by. “Ladies.” Then he removed it, placing it on the seat of the empty chair beside him.

Both offered up warm smiles, but where the first woman remained focused on finding a table, the fiery-haired woman slowed, her topaz gaze lingering in his direction for a long moment before she continued on to where her friend had slid into an empty booth.

The way the woman had studied him had Nathan wondering if they hadn’t crossed paths somewhere before. Surely, he would have remembered a face like hers if he had. Especially, those eyes. He’d never seen any quite that color. Like warmed honey with flecks of gold mixed in.

Lizzie returned with their menus and two glasses of ice water. “I’ll give you a couple of minutes to look the menu over.”

“Appreciate it,” he told her, opening one of the menus as she walked away. Try as he might, Nathan couldn’t keep his gaze from sliding over to the booth the two women were seated in. The one with the darker hair sat with her back to his and Katie’s table. The other, the one whose searching gaze had come to rest on him for the briefest of moments, faced his way. Her attention, however, was now focused solely on her friend and the conversation they had immediately fallen into, giving him plenty of opportunity to study her more closely.

Delicate features made up her face with the exception of her boldly lashed amber eyes. Bow-shaped lips pursed together as she cast a glance out the window beside her. A second later, perfectly straight, white teeth were sinking into her bottom lip as if she were deeply troubled by something.

It was none of his business, but Nathan found himself wondering what she was worried about.

“Daddy,” his daughter whined from across the table, drawing his attention back to the task at hand.

“Have you decided?” he asked her with a smile.

“Strawberry! Strawberry! Strawberry!”

Nathan chuckled as his daughter bounced up and down on the padded booth seat, excitement lighting her face. “I thought chocolate was your favorite milk shake flavor.”

She stopped bouncing and looked up at him from across the table. “Daddy, it’s a girl’s peroggertiv to change her mind.”

His eyes widened at the unexpected response. “Prerogative?”

Katie rolled her eyes. “That’s what I said.”

“So you did,” he chuckled. “You know, that’s a mighty big word for a six-year-old.”

“Almost seven,” she reminded him. “And Granny Timmons says it every time she breaks her one-cookie-before-supper rule and gives me another one.”

Nathan couldn’t help but smile. Suddenly, Lizzie hurried back to the table. “Sorry to keep you waiting. I had to handle a carryout order.” She flipped open the order pad in her hand and poised her pen over it. “What can I get for the two of you?”

Dragging his focus back to the menu, he said, “Hmm...let’s see. We’ll take three super dogs, ketchup on one, mustard on the other two, a large order of fries and a strawberry milk shake.”

“Will that be all?”

He cast a glance at his daughter over the top of his menu. “How about we make that two strawberry shakes? But we’d like those after my little Cupcake here eats all her dinner.”

“You’ve got it, Mr. Cooper.” Shoving her pencil behind her ear, Lizzie went to place their order.

“Daddy, do you got to go back to work?” his daughter asked, her tiny lips forming a soft pout.

He nodded. “For a little while, honey.”

Her small shoulders sagged at his response.

Guilt tugged at him. “Tell you what. I’ll see what I can do about taking the whole weekend off so you and I can do something special. How’s that sound?”

Her face lit up. “Can we go Christmas shopping?”

An all-too-familiar twinge moved through his heart. One that came every year during the holidays. He didn’t want to shop for presents or put up endless strings of Christmas lights to make his house festive. If it were up to him, he’d bypass the season altogether. But he couldn’t do that to Katie.

“How about we take a walk over to The Toy Box after dinner and start putting together your wish list? Then maybe we can see a movie this weekend.”

“I already know what I want,” she replied with a toothy smile.

He leaned forward, arms folded atop the table in front of him. “Let me guess. You want a new swing set?”

She shook her head, sending her head full of dark brown curls bouncing. “Nope.”

“A doll?”

“Uncle Logan just bought me a new dolly. Guess again,” his daughter urged with youthful impatience.

Rubbing his chin as if in deep thought, he hemmed and hawed for several seconds before saying, “I know. You want a giant pink pony?”

Katie giggled. “That’s silly, Daddy.”

“Okay, I give up. What do you really want for Christmas?”

She leaned forward, folding her arms just like his were and said determinedly, “I want a mommy.”

Nathan was speechless. She’d had a mommy. And he’d had a wife. How could he make Katie understand that no other woman could ever fill the void left behind when Isabel died?

“You have your daddy,” he pointed out, trying to sound unaffected by the turn in their conversation, when in truth he was anything but.

“I know, but Bettina’s mommy braids her hair every morning before school.”

“I can braid your hair.” He’d done so for three of the birthday parties Katie had been invited to that past year and had done a pretty good job of it if he did say so himself.

“But her mommy makes a French braid.”

He hated feeling like he had somehow failed his daughter. Something he never wanted to do. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Her eyes lit up. “About getting me a mommy?”

“About learning how to French braid your hair.”

She sank back against the padded seat, crossing her tiny arms. “But I want a mommy.”

“That’s not gonna happen, Cupcake,” he told her, fighting to keep the turmoil going on inside him from his voice.

Her stubbornness kicking in, his daughter lifted her chin and pouted.

“Katie,” he began, only to be saved from saying anything else as Lizzie came back with their orders, instantly distracting his daughter from her mommy quest. Thankfully. Marrying again was not an option for him.

And it never would be.

* * *

December first had finally arrived. Alyssa McCall walked her best friend back to her SUV, a tight ball of anxiety in her stomach.

“Are you sure you wanna do this?” Erica asked.

She nodded. “Yes.” Despite her fears and reservations, Alyssa truly felt that this was where she needed to be. Where the Lord wanted her to be. Not only would she be helping to reconstruct a part of the town that had been destroyed by the tornado, she would be proving herself to the interior design firm she worked for.

Since the car accident that had nearly taken her life three years before, she’d gone from being a highly sought after interior designer working full-time to being placed on the back burner with her firm, only being given small, mostly part-time jobs.

Pure Perfection Designs, the firm she’d been working for since college, felt that her visual disability, damage done specifically to the visual cortex of her brain in the accident that left her medically diagnosed as <00201Clegally blind,” left her incapable of handling the more intricate design planning and extensive hands-on attention their customers were seeking. While the pathway sending visual messages from her eyes to her brain didn’t always function as it should, she could still manage to perform the tasks required of her job. So this opportunity in Braxton was her chance to prove herself. To her firm and to herself.

“Isn’t there some other way you can contribute to the cause without having to stay so long?” Erica asked with a frown as they stopped beside her friend’s shiny new silver Ford Explorer. “We’re talking about spending most of December in a town where you don’t know anyone.”

Alyssa laughed softly. “Hey! Weren’t you the one giving me the you-can-do-this pep talk back at Big Dog’s when I went into that teeny tiny panic attack?”

“Sorry,” her friend apologized. “I have all the faith in the world you can do this. Really I do. It’s just the mom in me coming out. It can’t be helped.”

“It’s okay,” Alyssa said with a grateful smile. “It’s nice to know I have someone in my life that truly cares about me.”

“The right man is gonna come along,” her friend assured her, knowing that Alyssa longed to have the kind of family Erica had.

“Not if I keep dating Mr. Not-So-Rights.” Not that she had dated much since the accident. As soon as her dates found out she was legally blind, they bailed. She supposed she couldn’t blame them. A relationship with her would involve some major adjustments. But at least her visual impairment wouldn’t get any worse than it was now. She could live with that, even if the men she had dated couldn’t.

“Don’t give up on love,” Erica beseeched her. “Mr. Right is out there.”

Reaching out, Alyssa opened the back passenger door to collect her suitcase. “I suppose I’ll just have to take your word for it.”

She leaned into the vehicle and grabbed her suitcase. Lowering the black spinner onto the sidewalk beside her, she stepped away from the SUV and turned to her friend. “I guess I’ll see you in a few weeks. Maybe sooner.”

Erica gave her a hug. “If you change your mind about doing this—”

“I know,” she said, cutting her off with a grin. “You’re only a phone call away.”

“I’ll miss you,” Erica called out as she made her way around to the driver’s side door.

“Same here,” she replied, lifting her hand in a wave as her friend drove away. Then she stood watching as the blurred image of her friend’s SUV disappeared from sight. A sudden surge of panic had her entire body tensing.

Her hand moved over the soft leather of the purse she had draped across her as she fought the urge to dig inside it for her cell phone. No, she thought determinedly, she would not call Erica to come back for her. Fear would not control her. She could do this. Closing her eyes, she prayed for the Lord to give her the strength to do what she had come to do. As she did so, a sense of calm slowly settled over her.

Opening her eyes, she let her gaze drift down what she knew to be the main street of town. Braxton, much smaller than San Antonio according to the information she’d found on the town’s website, stretched out before her in a distortion of shapes and colors. The closer buildings she could almost make out, just not the fine details. Never since the damage done to her vision from the accident had she felt the loss of her perfect eyesight more. She was far from familiar surroundings in a town where she knew no one. At the same time, she was grateful that her impaired vision would get no worse when so many others were forced to live their lives in total darkness.

“Hurry up, Daddy!” a tiny voice squealed behind her.

Alyssa turned just as a flash of red whooshed by, bumping into her with enough force to knock her off-balance.

“Sorry!” the little girl called back over her shoulder as she raced away.

A strong hand closed around Alyssa’s arm to steady her. “Sorry about that,” a deep, very male voice apologized. “I’m afraid my daughter had a little too much sugar at dinner.”

Her gaze climbed up the giant of a man standing before her. He had broad shoulders, a black cowboy hat shading a charming smile as he towered over her five-foot-two-inch frame. As their gazes met, Alyssa was startled by the intensity of the man’s blue eyes. “It’s all right,” she managed.

He released the grasp he had on her arm and held out his hand. “Nathan Cooper.”

“Alyssa McCall,” she said, smiling as she placed her much smaller hand into his. “You were in the restaurant.”

He nodded. “It’s one of my daughter’s favorite places,” he explained with a warm smile. “Best milk shakes around if you find you have a hankering for one.”

She laughed softly. “I’ll be sure to keep that in mind.”

“Daddy, come on!” The excited cry was followed by the sound of bells tinkling as the store’s door swung open.

Releasing her hand, his gaze shifted toward the store. “I’d best get in there before my hyperactive little bull takes out the entire china shop.”

“This is a china shop?” she replied in confusion.

“What?” he asked with a chuckle.

Alyssa’s brow creased with worry. “I’m supposed to be at The Toy Box.”

He studied her for a long moment before pointing to the sign that hung over the storefront. One that was little more than a blur to her. “You’re in the right place. Largest mom and pop toy store in the county.”

She let out a sigh of relief. “You had me worried for a minute.” She reached for the handle of her suitcase, but he was faster.

“Allow me.”

“There’s no need—”

He held up his other hand, effectively cutting off her refusal of his help. “It’s the least I can do after my daughter practically ran you over.”

She relented, allowing him to carry her suitcase for her. And he didn’t stop there. He opened the door and held it, motioning her inside.

“Thank you,” she said as she moved past him into the store. If everyone in Braxton was as kind as Nathan Cooper, her stay would be far easier than she’d prayed it would be.