The Perfect Match

  Rowena checked in her jeans pocket for the Ziploc bags she kept in case one of the shop dogs left a little reminder of their presence someplace. As usual, she was a good girl scout. Prepared.

  She paid at one of the entrances in the temporary fence and had her hand stamped, then she and Destroyer headed in. It was the kind of fair she’d read about in storybooks—homespun, the tents a little faded and down at the heels if looking at it with a grownup’s critical gaze. But to the kids scrambling hither and yon, Rowena knew it seemed like fairy land.

  She kept an eye out for Charlie and Mac as she wandered, and was embarrassed to admit that when she did finally spy them, it was because she’d allowed herself a moment to ogle one of the best-looking men she’d ever seen.

  The guy looked like a throwback to another era, his long black hair tied at his nape with some kind of Celtic-inspired silver interlacing, his eyes piercing, his movements surprisingly graceful for such a large man. She’d seen him in her shop once with his daughter. A comical little button of a girl with a take-no-prisoners aura who said she wanted a kitten for Christmas.

  Hadn’t Charlie said something about her best friend wanting the prettiest kitten in the world for her birthday?

  Rowena strained up on tiptoe, and sure enough, there was the pink glitter of MacKenzie’s wheelchair. Keeping Destroyer at heel, she made her way in that direction.

  The kids were sitting at a craft booth, making something out of dry pasta. A petite woman with short dark hair and an elegant, catlike face balanced Mac on her lap while the little girl tried to thread rigatoni onto the ends of her tiara. The woman was already wearing a brightly painted dry noodle necklace while Charlie and the girl Rowena recognized as Mr. Celtic Fantasy Man’s daughter finished stringing things on bright colored yarn.

  Rowena sucked in a breath to call to the girls, but before she could do it, Destroyer emitted a Newfie-sized woof of joy. Charlie’s head jerked up, her mouth round with disbelief before delight set in.

  “Destroyer!” She leaped up, pasta necklace in hand. Before Hope’s mom could stop her, Charlie bolted out of the booth and raced toward Rowena. Destroyer tried to muscle his way toward his girl, but Rowena made him sit, wait for her. By the time Charlie reached them, worry had settled back between the child’s brows.

  “You’re not supposed to be here,” Charlie said as if the dog had made a jail break and gotten to the park on his own. Charlie glanced up at Rowena. “Daddy’s not going to like this. He said Destroyer being at the Harvest Fair is just asking for trouble.”

  “Well, your daddy’s at work, isn’t he? I’m in charge.” Rowena tugged on one of the French braids Hope’s mom must have put in Charlie’s hair that morning. “Your puppy missed you and so did I.”

  Rowena was surprised just how much. She didn’t want to think what it would be like a few weeks from now when her time with the children was over.

  “I missed you, too, boy,” Charlie told the dog earnestly. “I made him a necklace, but it smells like food, you know. He’d probably just eat it.” Charlie looked up at Rowena and fingered the craft she’d made. “It’s not very pretty and it’s just made out of noodles and stuff. Hope gave hers to her mom.”

  Rowena’s heart hitched at the wistfulness in Charlie’s voice. Wanting to drive it back, Rowena slid the palm of her hand under the necklace, angling it so the sunlight made the glitter sparkle. “Charlie, this is beautiful,” she said with a warm smile. “Just look at how it shines.”

  “The glitter comes off pretty quick. But maybe you could wear it instead of Destroyer, Rowena. Only if you want to.”

  “I’d love to. You put it on me.” Rowena knelt down and Charlie carefully slid the loop of yarn over her head. When Charlie surveyed her handiwork and actually smiled, it hurt Rowena’s heart.

  “So you’re the great Bear Tamer we’ve been hearing so much about,” a gruff voice said nearby. Rowena looked up to see the Celtic sex god looming over her with a wicked grin that could melt any red-blooded woman’s knees. Did they put something in the water around here that produced such a crop of gorgeous men?

  “That was quite a controversy you stirred up over at the playground,” he continued with a wink.

  “Daddy, that was over ages ago!” his daughter complained, giving him a nudge with her elbow. “So it’s not a bear. All right, already! Me and Charlie got that all straightened out.”

  Charlie leaned over and whispered in Rowena’s ear. “You’ve got to bow to him.”

  “Huh?” Okay, maybe the guy did look like some High King. But he was standing in the middle of Illinois, for crissakes. Wasn’t bowing to the man a little over the top?

  Still, it seemed important to Charlie, so Rowena climbed to her feet and did as the little girl asked.

  “Bo Stone,” Charlie introduced, “this is Rowena.”

  “Yeah!” Mac put in her two cents’ worth. “She’s lots prettier than Mr. Google, huh?”

  The man’s eyes twinkled. “Lots.”

  Rowena extended her hand a little sheepishly. “Nice to meet you, Bo.”

  “I’m Jake. Bo is the word for teacher in Korean. My Tae Kwon Do students have to call me that and bow when they see me, right, kiddo?” He shot Charlie one of those charming winks. “Charlie here was champion board breaker in her class.”

  “Hope was real good, too,” Charlie added hastily.

  “We both miss having Charlie in the dojo—classroom. We can’t wait until she comes back. The girls used to have a great time together when they were sparring partners.”

  Rowena remembered the photograph in Cash’s hallway, Charlie adorable in her little karate suit. She’d bet breaking boards had helped the child channel some of her stress. The poor kid would probably have to decimate a whole lumber yard to mellow out now.

  Charlie shifted from one foot to the other, uncomfortable. “I’m real busy, Bo Stone, so I can’t come to class right now. Mac’s got therapy and I got schoolwork and stuff.”

  “Well, try to keep in practice so when you come back you’ll be in shape. I don’t want you to turn into a fluffy on me, got it?”

  “A fluffy?” Rowena’s eyes narrowed in confusion.

  “Never mind, it’s a long story. A family thing.” The wispy-haired woman handed Mac off to her husband. He set the child up on his shoulders. “I’m Deirdre Stone. I hear you’re on the lookout for the perfect Christmas kitten for someone who shall remain nameless.”

  “See,” Charlie reminded Rowena. “I told you people only want the cute ones.”

  “Well, I’ll keep my eye out, but I still say beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

  “My older daughter, Emma, sent Hope a calendar from Scotland with all kinds of cat breeds dressed in medieval clothes on it. The Persian princess seems to be the current favorite.”

  Rowena chuckled as Jake nabbed the kids and herded them over to the fish pond game. Armed with cane poles and all jazzed up on sugar, kids tossed the lines over a curtained pond where volunteers clipped prizes onto clothespin “hooks.”

  Destroyer, with his girls in sight, settled down to watch them with such a relieved aura Deirdre laughed out loud.

  “You’d think he was a mother hen, the way he watches those girls.”

  “Newfies are natural babysitters.”

  “So are you, from what I hear.” Deirdre appraised her with frank blue eyes.

  Rowena thought of Cash and made a face. “You’re obviously not talking to the right person.”

  “Who better to judge than MacKenzie and Charlie? Don’t get me wrong. Cash is a wonderful father and Vinny is great, but the girls are so hungry to have a woman around it’s hard to watch them sometimes.”

  “I know.” Rowena remembered a dozen little things the girls had said or done that hinted at the loss in their lives, the absence of a mother.

  “I kept hoping that Cash might hook up with someone. He’s still so young, and with his looks I know a dozen women in town who would love to strike up a relations
hip with him.”

  “Mac’s teacher for one.” The sour words slipped out before Rowena could stop them.

  Deirdre laughed. “Make that a dozen and one. Jake even tried to set him up once or twice with women from the self-defense classes he teaches, but Cash’s whole world is his girls now.”

  “Except for today, when he can’t be bothered to—” Rowena checked herself, wary of letting her irritation show. The last thing she wanted to do was make Deirdre Stone uncomfortable. Especially since Rowena felt an instinctive tug toward her, as if she and the woman could become friends.

  But Deirdre’s intelligent blue eyes sharpened. “Be bothered to what?”

  “Don’t get me wrong. I think it’s wonderful that you and Jake were willing to take care of the girls today. But they should be with their father.”

  Deirdre gave her a funny look. “That could prove inconvenient.”

  “I know. He’s working. Overtime. But he volunteered for it. And the girls—Charlie, especially—need him on a day like this.”

  Mischief danced across Deirdre’s animated face. “Maybe we could…uh, take the girls over to, um, say hello to him.”

  Rowena could have sworn Deirdre was the blunt, outspoken type. So why did she seem to be fighting to keep her voice level at the moment?

  “You mean Cash is here?” Rowena glanced over to where Charlie and Hope huddled over their brand-new secret decoder rings.

  “Jake?” Deirdre hollered to her handsome husband. “Let’s take Rowena and the girls over to see Cash.”

  “You mean at the—oof!” Jake winced as Deirdre ran the wheelchair she’d just retrieved over his foot.

  “My daddy’s in the drunk tank.” Mac waggled her head in disapproval.

  That was the overtime he’d volunteered for? Rowena’s outrage grew. The man was wrangling the town drunks instead of spending the day with his daughters?

  Gripping Destroyer’s lead so hard her knuckles turned white, she followed Deirdre and Jake Stone through the crowd. It thickened in front of one particular booth, hoots and hollers erupting all around.

  “Three balls for a dollar!” A soccer mom hawked as she pointed to the contraption above. “Dunk the deputy!”

  “Dunk?” Rowena choked as her gaze locked on Cash. He sat on a seat about four feet above a giant tank of water. A metal arm with a bull’s eye painted on a disk operated the mechanism that would plunge Cash into the tub. “That’s a dunk tank, not a drunk tank.” Her cheeks burned. Wow, had she ever misjudged Cash Lawless this time. She couldn’t help but grin, she was so glad he was here.

  “Didn’t Cash tell you he volunteered…?” Jake asked, his surprised exclamation drowned out by Cash’s taunts.

  “My grandmother can pitch harder than you can, Potter!” Cash shouted as a portly man in a Hawaiian shirt fired off his last softball, missing the target completely. “I’m getting downright bored up here. Who wants to take a crack at me next?”

  “Talk about your dream opportunity!” Rowena shot a pointed glance at Deirdre Stone. “Would you mind holding the dog for a minute?”

  “Not a bit.” Deirdre grabbed the leash and Rowena shoved her way to the front of the line.

  She loved the stunned expression on Cash’s face when he saw her lay her money down. But he retreated to his banter moments later.

  “Shouldn’t you head over to the merry-go-round, honey? You don’t look like the fast-pitch type. You don’t want to hurt yourself, throwing a big bad baseball or anything.”

  “That’s a risk I’ll have to take.” Rowena scooped up the first baseball and winged it at the target. The ball fell short, plopping into the tank. He laughed out loud, mocking her. “Hey, Charlie, want to give the little lady a hand? My hair’s turning gray up here.”

  Who would have guessed Cash Lawless had such a sense of humor? Rowena could hardly believe how good he was at goading her. She threw a second ball. Then a third. He leaned back in his little seat and put his folded hands behind his head, pretending to snore. But all it did was accentuate the breadth of his chest, the muscled planes Rowena had felt against her own far too briefly.

  Rowena dug into her pocket, regretting her decision to leave her purse at the shop. Five dollars disappeared, then ten, and still Cash perched on the seat, laughing at her.

  “Give it up, darlin’, you’re hopeless.”

  He echoed the taunts of kids in her gym classes decades ago. Rowena channeled all that old anger, all that old frustration.

  She scrounged for pocket change, but before she could piece together enough to buy three more balls, Jake slapped a five-dollar bill down for her.

  “Hey!” Cash crabbed. “You’re supposed to be on my side, Stone.”

  “Money’s for a good cause, isn’t it, buddy?”

  “Well, you’re just throwing good money after bad, Jake. The lady couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn.”

  Rowena gripped the softball, felt the weave under her fingers and fired the ball at the target with all her might. The loud clang of leather hitting the bull’s eye surprised everybody. A whoop rose from the crowd as Cash plunged down into the tank, his mouth hanging open in shock.

  He came up coughing and sputtering while the crowd around him hollered with glee. Rowena wheeled to give Deirdre a high five, but a mountain of black fur almost knocked her on her backside, Destroyer shooting past her as if he’d been fired out of a cannon.

  Destroyer!

  Rowena dove for the dog’s leash as it tore from Deirdre’s grasp. The leather yanked taut, all but dislocating Rowena’s left arm as it jerked her into the vendor’s table, softballs bouncing wildly onto the ground. Rowena yelled at the charging dog—sit, stay, come—any command she could think of, but the Newfie bounded up onto the table and launched himself like a canine version of Superman into the tank of water where Cash was struggling to get his feet back under him.

  Destroyer landed on Cash, shoving him back under the water, the tank barely large enough to hold the two of them as Rowena rushed around the table, trying to get hold of the lead. But the dog was in full rescue mode, trying to grip Cash’s arm, haul him to the surface.

  Rowena boosted herself on the edge of the tub, grabbing the sopping wet dog around the neck, but before she could muscle Destroyer out of the tank, the dog made another dive for his “victim.” Rowena yelped as the metal rim of the tub raked her stomach, Destroyer hauling her with him into the tank.

  She went in the cold water headfirst, colliding with Cash in a tangle of arms, legs and paws. Her lungs were exploding as she tried to surface, but there was no room to turn herself around. She seemed to be stuck forever when suddenly a roaring splash sounded in her ears, the metal gong sound of something striking the tub’s exterior. Pain raked her chest as something—probably Destroyer—clawed at it. Then suddenly hard hands closed around her waist, pulling her upward.

  Air. It hit her in a wave—the autumn crispness she’d enjoyed before suddenly chilling her to the bone. She tried to suck in oxygen, but her nose was still full of water. She snorted, choked until someone whacked her on the back.

  Cash. He held her up, the two of them, chest deep in the water, the dog struggling in Jake Stone’s powerful grasp. The crowd cheered wildly, her head still spinning.

  “D-damn…dog…” Cash swore, thumping her back again to clear her lungs.

  “He was…trying to…save you!” Rowena choked out.

  “Save me? He almost drowned me! And you, too!”

  Rowena tried to get the water out of her ears. The man almost sounded shaken.

  “Daddy?” Mac seemed to take it somewhat in stride, but Charlie sounded on the verge of tears. “Daddy! You okay?”

  “I’m fine, Charlie,” he called to his daughter, then he turned his searching eyes on Rowena. “How about you?” he asked, smoothing her hair back from her face, where it was clinging like a mass of seaweed. “Did that demon dog hurt you?”

  Rowena felt a little sick. Were they back to Destroyer the incorri
gible already?

  “It’s not the dog’s fault,” she said, her teeth starting to chatter. “I st-started his water rescue training…last summer. He was…just doing what…I taught him.” A shiver rocked her. “I’m f-freezing! What are you? Crazy? Who would…volunteer for this?”

  “I would. Where’s your car?”

  “I w-walked. Thought it w-would wear Clancy out b-before we got here so he’d behave.”

  “You mean Destroyer,” Cash teased, but his eyes were warm. He helped her out of the tank to the crowd’s shouts of approval, then climbed out himself, his athlete’s body perfectly outlined by his wet jeans and sweatshirt. For once Rowena was too tired to argue with him.