The Matchmaker's Happy Ending. Shirley Jump

worry. My goal at Matchmaking by Marnie is to give everyone a happy ending. So work with me, and I promise, I’ll help you find your perfect match.”

      The bachelors thanked her, and began to file out of the room. Dan lingered, chatting with Marnie’s mother. She laughed and flirted, seeming like an entirely different person, the person she used to be years and years ago. Marnie sent up a silent prayer of gratitude. Her mother had been lonely for a long time, and it was nice to see her happy again.

      The waitstaff began taking away the dishes and cleaning the tables. Marnie gathered her purse and jacket, then touched her mother on the arm. “I’m going to get going, Ma. Call me later, okay?”

      Her mother promised, then returned her attention to Dan. The two of them were still chatting when Marnie headed out of the restaurant. She stood by the valet counter, waiting for the valet to return with her car, when a black sports car pulled up to the station. The passenger’s side window slid down. “You’re like a bad penny, turning up everywhere I go.”

      The voice took a second to register in her mind. It had been a couple weeks since she’d last heard that deep baritone, and in the busy-ness of working twenty-hour days, she’d nearly forgotten the encounter.

      Almost.

      Late at night, when she was alone and the day had gone quiet, her mind would wander and she’d wonder what might have happened if he’d been someone other than Jack Knight and she’d agreed to that cup of coffee. Then she would jerk herself back to reality.

      Jack Knight was the worst kind of corporate vermin—and the last kind of man she should be thinking about late at night, or any time. Of all the people in the city of Boston, how did she end up running into him twice?

      She bent down and peered inside the car. Jack grinned back at her. He had a hell of a smile, she’d give him that. The kind of smile that charmed and tempted, all at once. Yeah, like a snake. “Speaking of bad pennies,” she said, “what are you doing here?”

      “Picking up my father.” His head disappeared from view, and a moment later, he had stepped out of the car and crossed to her. He had on khakis and a pale blue button-down shirt, the wrinkled bottom slightly untucked, the top two buttons undone, as if he was just knocking off after putting in a full day of work, even on a Saturday. He looked sexy, approachable. If she ignored his name and his job, that was.

      She didn’t want to like him, didn’t want to find his smile alluring or his eyes intriguing. He was a Knight, and she needed to remember that. She was about to say goodbye and end the conversation before it really had a chance to start, when the restaurant door opened and her mother and Dan stepped onto the sidewalk.

      “Marnie, you’re still here?” Helen said.

      “Jack, you’re here early,” Dan said.

      The pieces clicked together in Marnie’s mind. The timing of Jack’s arrival. Picking up my father, he’d said.

      She glanced from one man to the other, and prayed she was wrong. “Dan’s your father?” she said to Jack, then spun back to Dan. “But…but your last name is Simpson.”

      Dan grinned. “Guilty as charged. I’m this trouble-maker’s stepfather.” He draped a loving arm around Jack and gave him a quick hug.

      “You know Dan’s son?” Helen asked Marnie. “You never told me that.”

      “I didn’t know until just now. And, Ma, I think you should know that Jack…” Marnie started to tell her mother the rest, the truth about who Jack was, but she watched The light in her mother’s eyes dim a bit, and she couldn’t do it. The urge to keep the peace, to keep everyone happy, overpowered the words and she let them die in her throat.

      Dan Simpson. Father of Jack Knight, the man whose company had ruined her family’s life.

      Dan Simpson. The man her mother was falling for.

      Dan Simpson. Another Mr. Wrong in a family teeming with them.

      “You should know that, uh, Jack and I met the other night,” Marnie said finally. “We sort of…ran into each other.”

      “Oh, my. What a small world,” Helen said, beaming again.

      “Getting smaller every day.” Jack grinned at Marnie, but the smile didn’t sway her. “How do you know my father?”

      She gave a helpless shrug. “It seems I just fixed him up with my mother.”

      “You’ve got one talented matchmaker standing here,” Dan said, giving Helen’s hand a squeeze. “You should see if she can fix you up, too, Jack.”

      Fix him up? She’d rather die first.

      “You’re a matchmaker?” Jack raised a brow in amusement.

      “Guilty as charged,” she said, echoing Dan’s words.

      Her brain swam with the incongruity of the situation. How could she have created such a disaster? Usually her instincts were right on, but this time, they had failed her. And she’d created a mess of epic proportion. One that was slipping out of her control more every second.

      Beside her, Dan and Helen were chatting, making plans for dinner or lunch or something. They were off to the side, caught in their own world of just the two of them. All of Marnie’s senses were attuned to Jack—the enemy of her family and son of the man who had finally put a smile on her mother’s face. How was she supposed to tell Ma the truth, and in the process, break a heart that had just begun to mend?

      Jack leaned in then, close, his breath a heated whisper against her ear. “I’m surprised you didn’t try to fix me up the night we met.”

      “I wouldn’t do that to one of my clients,” she whispered back.

      Confusion filled his blue eyes, a confusion she had no intent of erasing, not here, not now.

      “I’m not sure what I did to make you despise me,” he said, “but I assure you, I’m not nearly as bad as you think.”

      “No, you’re not,” she said just as the valet arrived with her car. She opened the door, and held Jack’s gaze over the roof. “You’re worse.”

      Then she got in her car and pulled away.

      A matchmaker.

      Of all the jobs Jack would have thought the fiery redhead Marnie Franklin held, matchmaker sat at the very bottom of the list. Yet, the title seemed to suit her, to match her strong personality, her crimson hair, her quick tongue.

      His stepfather had raved about Marnie’s skills the entire ride from the restaurant to the repair shop to pick up the car the taxi driver had rear-ended, return the rental, then head home. The event had agreed with Dan, giving his hearty features a new energy, and his voice renewed enthusiasm, as if he’d reverse-aged in one afternoon. At six-foot two, with a full head of gray hair, Dan cut an imposing figure offset by a ready smile and pale green eyes. Eyes that now lit with joy every time he talked about Helen.

      “I never would have expected to fall for the match-maker’s mother,” Dan said. “But I tell ya, Jack, I really like Helen.”

      “I’m glad,” Jack said. And he was. His stepfather had been alone for a long, long time, and deserved happiness. Just with someone other than Marnie Franklin’s maternal relatives. The woman had something against him, that was clear.

      “Her daughter’s quite pretty, too, you know,” Dan said.

      “Really? I hadn’t noticed.”

      Dan laughed. “You lie about as well as I cook. I saw you checking her out.”

      “That was a reflex.”

      “Sure it was.” Dan shifted in his seat to study his son. “You know, you should use some of the arguments you used on me.”

      Jack concentrated on the road. Boston traffic in the middle of the day required all