Scoring a Holiday Match (Mr. Match), Delancey Stewart [classic novels TXT] 📗

they’re looking for a man I look like, but am not. A guy like the men I hire to fish on my crew. Here, they’re looking for the man my mother wants me to be. But you’re different. You weren’t looking for any man.”

“I wasn’t,” I agreed.

“And you found me.”

I felt the weight of that statement. He wasn’t being coy or making a joke. And I understood the sentiment. “I think you found me too,” I whispered. “But what do we do about it? Our lives don’t exactly line up. We can’t—”

“We don’t know what we can do,” he interrupted. “And I’m not saying it will be easy. But in my experience, the best things aren’t easy.”

“True,” I agreed, my whole body tingling.

“Have breakfast with me,” he suggested, and I heard a hint of uncertainty there, which was what made me completely certain this was a man I wanted.

“Yes.” The word was out even before I thought to say it, as if my subconscious knew this was right even if the rest of my mind hadn’t caught up yet.

“Tell me when and where.”

God, I wanted to see him now. I wanted to tell him to come here, I didn’t want to wait through all those long hours ahead between morning and now. But PJ was asleep in my guest room. “Eight? At O’Hara’s Pancakes?”

“Pacific Beach?”

“Right.” Just down the street from my condo.

“See you at eight, Rose.”

“Okay. See you then.”

“Sleep well,” he said.

“You too,” I whispered. And I hung up, feeling the magic pulling at me again, lacing every second with possibility. I’d go to sleep now, and in the morning?

Ash.

Chapter 8

Breakfast Magic

ASH

I was at O’Hara’s at seven thirty. I hadn’t slept much after hanging up with Rose, but when I did, she filled my dreams. My mind pulled the few images I had of her from the short time we’d been together, and wove them into fantasies. In one, Rose was on my boat, in my cabin when I came down to grab a few hours of sleep after the crew hauled and reset the gear.

She hadn’t spoken, but had simply beckoned me to her, peeled my clothes from my body and ridden me until I came—and then she’d vanished, filtering into the air around us like a genie. I was still hard, thinking about that dream.

“Coffee?” the waitress wore an elf costume that made it hard not to smile. The entire place was decorated, Christmas music filtered through the bacon-scented air, and snowflakes hung in the windows. Even here in Pacific Beach where dogs and surfers filled the sidewalks, it felt like Christmas.

“Sure,” I said.

“Shall I clear the other setting?” She asked, moving to remove Rose’s fork and coffee cup.

“No,” I said. “I’m expecting someone.”

And I was, every cell in my body tinging in anticipation of seeing her again.

Twenty minutes later, I was scrolling through nonsense on my phone when the air inside the pancake house shifted, whirring to life and pelting me suddenly with energy that made me look up and around to see what had changed.

Rose.

She wore jeans and a long green sweater that wrapped her body, ending mid-thigh. It was tight, and looked soft, and I wanted immediately to run my hands over it. Her hair fell over her shoulder in soft waves, and those perfect lips were red. Again.

“Rose,” I said, standing as she stepped closer.

“Ash,” she said, looking up at me as she moved near. “It’s so nice to see you again.”

We sat, and for maybe the first time in my life, I couldn’t stop smiling.

But once pancakes and bacon, eggs and toast were gone, and we’d talked about everything and nothing for over an hour, Rose looked sad.

“When do you go back to Alaska?” she asked.

“After the holidays,” I told her. “January second.”

She didn’t respond, only stared down at her hands on the table, where her fingers were twisting a ring in circles around her finger.

“Rose.” She looked up at me, her expression sad. “Don’t worry about that.” I wanted to live in the now, to focus on what could happen over the next few weeks.

“That’s what I do,” she said. “I look for potential threats, try to anticipate problems before they happen. And with you, with us, I just don’t see solutions.”

I did, but I wasn’t ready to offer any of them quite yet. “Let’s live for today. Just for a little while. We’ll figure the rest out.”

She had lifted her gaze to mine, and she held it now, her warm chocolate eyes seeking answers as we stared at one another. “We’ll figure it out,” she said on a sigh.

“Okay?” I asked. It had occurred to me that she could decide things were just too uncertain, could tell me she wasn’t willing to risk it. But instead, she stood and reached a hand back to me. I took it, wrapping her small hand in my larger one, stepping away from the table with Rose at my side.

She led me from the restaurant and along the boardwalk lining the beach without speaking. We walked slowly, holding hands and letting the cool air, the sounds of gulls crying around us, and the far horizon of the Pacific create the soundtrack around us. I wasn’t sure where we were going, but with Rose’s hand in mine, I didn’t care very much.

We turned down a narrow street lined with trees and houses, and Rose led me up the path to a condo, two stories reaching up above the bungalows around it. She unlocked the front door and just before we crossed the threshold, she turned to face me.

“Okay,” she said.

And as I stepped through the door into Rose’s private world, my heart told me I’d never leave it again.

Chapter 9

Making Deals with Fish

Rose

EPILOGUE - Three Weeks Later

Giving myself to Ash hadn’t been easy.

Well, that’s a partial lie. Pulling him into my condo and slowly peeling the beautiful cashmere sweater from his strong shoulders,