The Matchmaker. Lisa Plumley

      He had a sudden impossible yet wholly irresistible image of himself together with Miss Molly. Alone. In his imagination, Marcus unfastened the first tiny pearled buttons on her dress. As he opened her gown, he kissed the warm, creamy skin he’d revealed at her neck. She tasted of spices as delicious as any he’d sampled…and of some, more exotic still.

      Transfixed, Marcus let himself be led toward the shade of a stand of pine trees a few feet from the mill’s main entrance. Beside him, Molly struggled with the covered wicker basket she’d brought. Marcus chivalrously helped her lower it to a ponderosa stump.

      Freed of her burden, she rummaged through its contents. Her movements sent her blue-checked skirts swishing against her legs, and the clump of men who’d followed them pushed closer. As one, their combined gazes dropped to her stocking-clad ankles.

      A stern glance from Marcus had them all busily examining axes, tightening suspender straps and looking purposefully toward the towering pines beyond. With a shake of his head, Marcus dismissed them to await the next phase of his plan.

      “I’m glad you could come on such short notice,” he told Molly when they were alone again. “I don’t often do things without planning first, but I—”

      “Oh, but you should! The things you don’t plan for are often the most enjoyable of all.”

      The very notion made Marcus frown. Fail to plan? Unthinkable. “Be that as it may, I did have some ideas in mind for us today.”

      She quit fussing with the basket she’d brought and looked up. Her eyes were blue, he noticed inanely. As though that mattered a whit to discovering if she was really the secret matchmaker.

      “You do?” Molly asked.

      “Yes.”

      “Well, then.” She smiled up at him, and turned so they faced each other fully. “I guess you’d better tell me what you have in mind. For us to do together, I mean.”

      Together. Suddenly, all manner of unified activities occurred to Marcus. Things they could do together—very close together. As though guessing his thoughts, Molly lowered her gaze coquettishly, encouraging him to lower his gaze, too…all the way to those remarkable feminine curves of hers. Lord Almighty. Was Molly Crabtree flirting with him? It would seem so.

      ’Twould be fitting, if she were truly the matchmaker.

      The matchmaker. Reminded of his mission, Marcus smiled back at her. He was no mere boy, to be dumbfounded by a feminine smile and a handful of enticing words.

      Was he?

      Hell, no. With new determination, Marcus cleared his throat and got on with his plan. “I couldn’t help but notice you outside the lumber mill yard these past weeks,” he began.

      It wasn’t strictly true. His foreman, Smith, had enlightened Marcus about Molly’s continued vigil outside the mill yard, and the rest of his plan had sprung from there. Looking at her now, though, Marcus couldn’t imagine how he’d missed the sight of her.

      Had business success turned him blind to the appeal of a pretty woman? Suddenly ill at ease, he wondered if his friends in the men’s club were right, and he needed to socialize more.

      “If you mean to make me leave that spot,” Molly interrupted, turning back to her basket with shoulders gone suddenly stiff and defensive, “I’ll have you know that the road is public land, and so is its edge. You can’t force me away from there. Why, the whole town would probably be in an uproar if you so much as tried.”

      “Hold on. There’s no call to get riled up. I never said I was asking you to leave, Miss Crabtree—”

      “Molly, please.” Her shoulders relaxed, slim and delicately curved beneath the blue checked fabric of her dress.

      “Molly.” He liked the sound of it. The intimacy of it. “Friends ought to call each other by their first names, don’t you think so?” She rose, holding a napkin-wrapped bundle in her small, elegant-looking hands.

      “Uh.” He experienced an unprecedented urge to take those hands in his and slowly pull her closer. With a frown of confusion, Marcus wrestled down that impulse and settled for answering her question instead. “Yes, I do. Especially if you agree to the proposition I have in mind.”

      “Proposition?”

      She raised her eyebrows, looking intrigued and not half as offended as she might have been, had Molly guessed at the kind of bawdy thoughts that had been going through his mind.

      “Yes. I want you to bring some of your baked goods to my lumber mill each day—at a time we agree on, of course—for sale to my men. It seems they’ve noticed your post outside the yard, too. To a man, they all clamored to have your sweets.”

      A smile even more dazzling than her earlier one lit Molly’s face. “Truly?” she whispered.

      “Truly.” Liar, his conscience jabbed. This was no more than a ploy, and Marcus knew it. It’s for a good cause, he reminded himself, and went on. “So I agreed.”

      “Why, Mr. Copeland!”

      “Marcus,” he insisted. Being on friendly terms with her could only improve his chances of discovering if she was the matchmaker, he reasoned. And of ending all this pretense quickly.

      “Marcus, then. You’re just a big old softie at heart, aren’t you? That’s so sweet! My word, I’d never have guessed that a man so…well, so very businesslike as you would treat his men so finely. I’m impressed, truly I am.”

      Her constant chatter made his head throb. Putting a hand to his temple, Marcus said gruffly, “My men fell more timber when they’re treated fairly. It’s just good business.”

      Molly’s impish grin told him she believed not a word of it. “So was calling out Nellie Baxter, so you could sample her baked goods, I reckon,” she said, naming the owner of Morrow Creek’s other, more established bakery. “I passed by her on the road on my way here. Nothing else lies out this way except your lumber mill.”

      Marcus tried to look abashed. He made a mental note to pay Smith a bonus for his suggestion that they pretend to consider the other bakery, lest Molly become suspicious of his sudden summons. “Well, now. Every man likes to do a little sampling, before deciding what’s right for him.”

      Her eyes narrowed, fixed on the bundle she held as she unwrapped the napkin. “According to the matchmaker, it’s thinking like that that gets a man into trouble.”

      Interest sparked inside him. “The matchmaker?”

      “Surely you’ve heard of the matchmaker. The whole town’s abuzz with news of all that’s been accomplished.” As though that fact were of little consequence, Molly finished her unwrapping, revealing a plump, golden-brown cinnamon bun. Crystals of sugar sparkled in the sunlight. “But all that aside, you’ve asked me here to discuss business, and that’s what I intend to do.”

      “Certainly.” And when we’re finished, I intend to ask you all about the matchmaker. More and more, it seemed as though Molly knew something about the subject. Something she wasn’t telling…

      “Here.” She offered him the cinnamon bun, along with an encouraging smile. “Once you try my goodies, you’ll never even think about anyone else’s.”

      Marcus nearly groaned. Did the woman have no sense of what ribald words like that could do to a man?

      Evidently, she did not. Neither did she realize what he was truly up to. It was all the luckier for him, Marcus told himself. He’d be finished with this business and back to work in no time.

      Putting one hand behind his back as he leaned forward to accept the cinnamon bun, he signaled for his men to begin the next step of his plan. Like magic, lumbermen of all ages and sizes surged forward. They encircled him and Molly, waving fistfuls of money and declaring raging hunger that only her baked goods could assuage.