Dating for Two (Matchmaking Mamas) Read Free Page B

Cecilia replied. “He seems friendly enough, but he is a rather private person when he’s not working.”
    “What does he do?” Theresa asked.
    “He’s a lawyer specializing in business litigation and—” Cecilia got no further.
    “A lawyer?” Maizie echoed. It wasn’t so much a question as it was a triumphant declaration. “That means he’s probably got a photo and a profile online with his law firm.”
    Pulling up a popular search engine, Maizie lost no time rapidly typing in the man’s name. She leaned back in her chair as Steve’s photograph and minibio came up on screen. She was clearly impressed.
    She emitted a low whistle and said, “Not bad, Cecilia. Not bad at all.”
    Curious, Theresa leaned in over Maizie’s shoulder to get a look at the man. “Not bad? If I were ten years younger, I’d give him a tumble myself.” She glanced up to see the skeptical, amused looks on both of her friends’ faces. “Oh, all right, twenty years,” Theresa corrected.
    “Better.” Maizie laughed. “Besides, I’ve already got someone for him,” she told Theresa as well as Cecilia. When Cecilia had called her, she hadn’t had a chance to tell either of her friends about Erin O’Brien yet, but she quickly filled in the details now.
    Finishing, she looked back at the lawyer Cecilia had brought to her attention. Her smile was wide and infinitely hopeful. “If you ask me, this seems like a match made in heaven. She’s a toymaker who loves children and he’s a widower with a child who by definition loves toys. It doesn’t get any better than this.”
    Neither of her friends disagreed. “But how do you suggest we go about bringing these two made-for-each-other people together without them knowing it was a setup?” Theresa, ever practical, asked.
    Maizie chewed on her lower lip for a moment as she gave that little problem her undivided attention. “The difficult we do immediately. The impossible takes a little longer,” she said, reciting an old mantra.
    “That’s Maizie-speak for nobody goes home until we come up with a plan for them to meet,” Theresa said with a sigh, bracing herself for a long night.
    Maizie patted her friend’s hand as she rose to her feet. “You know me so well. I’ll put up a pot of coffee,” she told her friends before crossing to the kitchen.
    * * *
    Erin O’Brien hung up her phone, still a little bewildered at exactly how Felicity Robinson had gotten her name, much less her phone number. But then, she supposed in this day and age of rampant nonprivacy, anything was possible for someone with a reasonable amount of tech savvy if they were determined enough. And if there was one thing she had come away with from this conversation, it was that the assistant principal of James Bedford Elementary School certainly sounded extremely determined.
    “Guess what,” Erin said to the friendly-looking stuffed T. rex on her desk, one of several that she owned. The T. rex had been the first toy she’d ever made, and the original, now rather shabby for wear, was locked away in a safe. “We’re going back to school. Seems that somebody wants me to talk to a roomful of seven-year-olds about how I got started making toys.”
    She cocked her head, giving the T. rex a voice in her head and having him make up excuses for why they couldn’t go. The T. rex embodied her insecurities. He always had. It had been her way of dealing with them as a child.
    “Oh, don’t give me that snooty face,” she said, addressing the dinosaur. “You’re a ham and you know it. This’ll be fun, you’ll see,” she promised, using almost the same words that the assistant principal had when she’d called her.
    “Yeah, for you,” the high-pitched voice whined. “Because you’ll say anything you want through me.”
    Erin leaned over her desk and pulled the stuffed animal to her. Affectionately dubbed Tex the T. rex, the stuffed dinosaur had been her start, her very first venture into the toy world.