Daddy's Little Matchmakers

There. She’d said it. Aloud. Amy held her breath and waited for Nana’s response.

“Well, of course you didn’t,” her grandmother said lightly. “You came for me and now that I’m on the mend, you’ve got to decide what the Lord’s asking of you next.”

“Yes,” she said on an exhale of breath. “That’s it exactly.”

“So what’s He telling you, sweetie?”

“That’s the problem,” Amy admitted as she rose and moved down the hall toward the front door. “I keep asking, and I even sent out a few job inquiries, but so far He hasn’t responded and neither have the employers.”

“Yes, He has,” Nana said. “Surely you understand that no response is also an answer.”

Amy stood at the front door looking through its beveled glass to the beach and the shimmering water beyond. “I suppose,” she said. “But what I don’t understand is what I do about it.”

“It?”

“Staying in Vine Beach,” she said. “What’s God telling me about that?”

“In my experience when God isn’t telling you to do something new, He means for you to keep doing the last thing He told you to do.”

“Nana, I don’t even remember what that was,” she said as she saw a familiar truck pull into the driveway and stop.

“Sure you do, sweetie,” Nana said. “He told you to come to Vine Beach. Well, here you are and I suppose it’s here you stay until He says otherwise.”

“Yes, well, enjoy your day,” Amy said as she watched Eric Wilson climb out of the truck.

Eric slammed the truck door then took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Coming here was a bad idea. But then so had going to the church support group for widowers. He’d managed to get all the way into the parking lot before good sense prevailed and he drove back home.

Back home, he’d found the quiet—brought on by his mother’s insistence on having a girls’ day with his daughters— impossible to bear. So he’d gone to work.

Another mistake, for the moment he drove into the parking lot, he was set upon by a woman who had hoped he kept office hours on Saturday. Suspiciously, she carried not a pet but a copy of yesterday’s Gazette.

That had sent Eric hurrying back to his truck. And somehow between Main Street and Vine Street, he’d decided to speak to Amy Spencer personally about the current state of his life. At least the part that was her fault.

He’d circled the block three times. Finding out where Amy Spencer lived had been easy, given the size of Vine Beach and his mother’s propensity to talk about who was related to whom.

Before he could change his mind again, Eric bounded toward the front steps of the picturesque home then stopped short of his destination when the door opened and Amy Spencer stepped out onto the porch. His gaze collided with blue eyes the color of the afternoon sky, and the speech he prepared—where he told her exactly how he felt about her part in everything from the humiliating headline to the near mutiny his office staff staged yesterday afternoon—completely evaporated.

Unlike her professional appearance yesterday, the classifieds girl’s curls had been captured in a somewhat messy knot at the nape of her neck, leaving her shoulders bare beneath the pale pink floral sundress. As the screen door slammed behind her, Amy’s eyes narrowed.

He hadn’t thought of it until just now, but Christy’s eyes had also been blue. Eric saw them every day in his daughter’s faces. But unlike the color of soft denim that his late wife had handed down to the girls, Amy Spencer’s eyes were the startling pale shade of robin’s eggs.

Eric expected she might speak first, and truly she appeared to consider it. When the silence stretched too long, he said, “I guess you’re wondering why I’m here.”

She worried with a small heart-shaped locket, strung on a thin gold chain at her neck. “If it’s about the job…”

Leaning against the rail, Eric felt the worn wood sway slightly. A quick look told him it could use a coat of paint, as well. Signs of a lack of attention that could easily be remedied. He forced his attention back on Miss Spencer. “The agency told me you turned my job offer down.”

“I did.”

Eric waited for an explanation, one that was obviously not forthcoming. “Any reason?” he finally asked. “I thought the salary was generous, and I can guarantee there will be plenty to keep you busy.”

Thanks to you and your snooping, he wanted to say.

“Yes, actually.” She stopped toying with the locket and allowed her hand to fall to her side. “I’m leaving Vine Beach soon.”

The news hit him with an unexpected stab of disappointment. And then he recalled just how much trouble Amy Spencer could pack into a short time.

“Soon as in when?” he said. “Because thanks to a certain article in the local paper, my office is swamped with women whose pets don’t have a thing wrong with them beyond the fact their owners are single. And my office staff? I’ve gone from wondering how I will pay the women I inherited from the vet who retired to wondering how I can keep them from quitting. So if you’re still here on Monday morning, I think it would be a good idea for you to come and help fix what you’ve caused.”

“Fix what I’ve caused?” She shook her head. “Look, I’m sorry for any trouble the newspaper article caused but I assure you it was not my intention.”

His patience snapped. “A reporter from the Houston Chronicle called yesterday, and my office manager told me she’s fielded phone calls from a half-dozen television stations in a four-state area as well as CNN and Fox News. And every one of them wants to know about my search for a wife. For a wife,” he repeated before taking a deep breath. “And never mind the fact I’m trying to figure out how to tell my daughters they’ve done something wrong without breaking their hearts. I’d call that trouble whether you intended it or not,” Eric managed in a calmer tone.

Color rose in Amy’s face, belying the cool breeze that danced through her curls. “I did not ask to be any part of this, Dr. Wilson. Your daughters called me.”

“They are children,” he said, though he suspected those children had more than a little help from his mother. How much help he’d yet to pry out of her. “And you are an adult.”

“As is your mother,” she said evenly.

That reminder caused him to pause a moment. “While I’m sure they were only trying to help me,” he said after a moment, “I can’t say that I believe that’s what you were thinking.”

“Oh, really?” The former classifieds girl straightened her spine and eyed him as if he were the most distasteful thing she’d seen all day. “What is it you believe I was thinking?”

“I believe you were asking yourself how you could get out of the classifieds department and into the big time as a real reporter. And along came my three girls. Bam! You had your story.”

“And I planned all that?” Sarcasm seeped from her words. “Really?”

Logic took a little of the bluster from his response. “No,” he said slowly as he struggled to think on the fly, “but you seized the opportunity when it was presented to you.”

“Seized the opportunity,” she echoed. “That’s an interesting theory, Dr. Wilson. But if I’m so interested to rise to the coveted ranks of reporter at the Gazette, explain to me why not only do I no longer work there as of Thursday at 4:00 p.m., but I am also planning to leave Vine Beach.” A pause, punctuated by a triumphant stare. “How do you explain that?”

He picked at a flake of white paint on the stair rail then sent her a look. “I’d explain it by saying you got a better offer. My guess is Houston or Dallas.”

Her laughter caught him by surprise. “I hope you’re better at diagnosing animals than you are at figuring out people.”

Eric had no response for that. A passing car honked and Eric turned to see Riley Burkett, a friend he’d met at church. He returned Riley’s wave then looked once again at Amy Spencer.

“So, you’re not as quick to speak now?” she said.

“I’ve said enough.” He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “And I stand by what I said.”

“Then you’ll be surprised to know that I am a florist by trade, not a reporter, and I have no intention of having anything to do with a newspaper of any kind other than reading one on occasion. I came to Vine Beach to take care of my grandmother after her fall.” Her expression sobered. “I thought your mother had fallen. That’s how all this started.”

Her statement took Eric aback. “What are you talking about?”

She gave him a pointed look. “When the girls called, I thought it was a prank call. I worked in classifieds three months. You’d be surprised at what people think is funny.”

Rather than respond, Eric remained silent.

“The call came in while I was out at lunch.” She paused. “Talking to you in the park, actually.” Amy appeared to let the statement sink in a moment before continuing. “So when I got back to my desk, there was the sweetest message. I returned the call. Your mother answered, and she passed the phone on to one of the girls. All three of them, actually, but anyway, before we could complete the wording of the ad, there was a crash and some noise that sounded like breaking glass. Then the screaming. And there was barking, which I now know belonged to Skipper. The dog.”

“Yes, I know my own dog’s name,” he snapped. “Sorry. You were saying.”

“The line disconnected, and when I tried to call back no one answered. I assumed…”

Realization dawned. “You assumed my mother had fallen.”

Her nod was almost imperceptible. “No one was there when my grandmother fell. She lay there for hours until…”

An image that didn’t quite fit his idea of who Amy Spencer was rose in his mind. Until now he’d imagined she’d gone to his home in search of a story.

“Anyway,” she continued, “as it turns out, the dog knocked a platter of sandwiches off the counter. That was the cause of the sound of breaking glass as well as all the other noise. And lest you think your mom was being negligent, she told me she was just outside the back door watering her roses.”

Eric took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Then I owe you an apology. For being wrong about why you went to my home.” He held up his hand to silence her response. “However, the fact remains that you sold my daughters and me up the river with that article, and now my office is full of women thinking they want to be the next Mrs. Wilson.”

Laughter again, this time with much more humor in it. “Isn’t that what the girls wanted?”

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