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

because of their guidance, their care.”

He leaned close to me and wrapped an arm around my waist. “You are the wisest woman I’ve ever met, Rose Gonzalez.” And after planting a kiss on my cheek, he took both my hands in his and slid off the bench, dropping to a knee in front of me.

Caroline turned just in time to see this happen, and a hand flew to her mouth. She tapped the captain to turn and see too.

“I never thought I’d find someone I really wanted to be with,” Ash said as everything inside me shook. “I never thought I’d find a woman who understood me, who challenged me, who encouraged me and with whom I would want to forge new adventures every day.

“But you, Rose . . .” he paused, and I could see him struggling with emotion as he said the next words. “I love you. I know it’s all too fast, and it’s crazy. But I also know it’s right. Rose, will you marry me?”

He was right. It was too fast. And it was crazy. And it was right. “Yes,” I said.

Caroline shrieked and came across the deck to embrace us both when we’d finished kissing. She and I were both crying, and the captain was busy digging in one of the cupboards up front for something.

“What are you doing?” Caroline asked him.

He pulled out a notebook, the pages flapping in the breeze. They were covered with marks, like he was keeping score. He flipped to a half-filled page and made another mark. “That’s three hundred and six,” he announced.

“Three hundred and six what?” Ash asked, his arms tight around me.

“Proposals on this boat. It’s why I renamed her the Deal Sealer.”

As we motored back into the harbor that evening, Ash’s arm around me and the warmth of his body pressed to my side, I dared to ask the question that had been on my mind all day, and for the weeks that had passed. “Are you still leaving in two days?”

He looked down at me fondly, and then leaned in, kissing the top of my head. “I’ve asked my substitute to stay on for the season,” he said. “And I’ve listed the boat for sale.”

I pulled away so I could see his face. If he looked upset, or sounded sad, there was no way I could let him do it. But he looked serene and peaceful as he gazed down at me. “You’re staying?”

“I’m staying.”

And as we drew up into the slip, surrounded by the merry bobbing of masts and lights all around us, I kissed my fiancé and squeezed his mother’s hand. “I didn’t know fishing could be so life changing.”

“Someday I’ll take you to Alaska,” Ash said. “That’s real fishing.”

“Ash,” I told him, “I’ll go anywhere with you.”

Scoring with the Surfer

A Mr. Match Story

Chapter 10

Margaritas and Racoons

Tallulah

Look, it’s not that I’m dead set on breaking the rules. It’s just that half the rules in my world were created by moronic people who weren’t affected by them.

The league? Rules originally created by commissioners (men, by the way) who were looking to make a buck. Thankfully, that’s changed and women’s soccer is on the upswing, though we’re still not making what the men make. (The men didn’t win the world cup this year either, so stay tuned…)

My own life? I was raised by a single dad, so his rules tended to be a little over the top. (No dating until you’re forty, no makeup until high school, and no hair or beauty implements that look like ancient torture devices. This last one was remedied by an extensive educational program for Dad on the various techniques women use to do things like curl their eyelashes and hair. After all, as a single dude, he liked the results, he just didn’t have any idea how they were created. Raising me made him a more cosmopolitan dude.)

And Mr. Match.

That’s a whole other can of worms.

Nothing against Max Winchell. He’s the genius who created the site in the first place, and I’m not arguing that it worked for him.

But he put me in charge, and that means it’s time to put the fire back in matching. (See what I did there?)

Yeah, Max’s version was pretty by the book. People fill out the intake forms, the system parses them and does all that mathematical shit Max was always going on about, and then it spits out matches based on statistical likelihood of agreement on various things. But there’s no wiggle room there. And I could be wrong, but I think making a love match is still something of an art. Maybe it’s just the woman’s perspective I’m bringing to it. Either way, I’m testing a new system. One with a little more human judgment applied.

It’s Tallulah Time. Welcome to Ms. Match. (Okay, I signed a legal document saying I wouldn’t change the name officially. But between you and me. Wink wink, nudge nudge.)

And what better way to test the new system than by making some matches for the most willing participant I’ve been able to find?

Me.

In my mind, there are three absolutely critical characteristics required for a guy to get my attention.

1) He’s gotta be athletic. I’m a pro soccer player. He’s gotta keep up.

2) He’s got to be hot. Not necessarily in a perfect kind of way, but there has to be at least one really mind-blowing physical attribute on any guy I choose. The Hemsworth factor. A girl needs something to focus on.

3) He’s got to be smart. I dated a guy once who was geographically challenged, and it was a huge deal breaker. He suggested we could travel, take a vacation to South America. My mind lit up, thinking about Patagonia and Rio. Then he suggested we go to Louisiana. I bought him a world map and told him we were done.

So as I sat down at the table in Old Town and ordered a