Make Me A Match. Cari Lynn Webb

family—especially Mr. Curtis—thanks for always believing.

Dear Reader,

      Welcome to Kenkamken Bay, Alaska!

      In K-Bay most men don’t shave but once a year. And when they do shave? It might be because a spring trip to Anchorage is in the making. Most men in K-Bay aren’t really pining for women. They like the isolation. So when Cooper Hamilton and his friends make a bet that they can successfully match six couples, no one really thinks they’ll succeed.

      But Coop has more than matchmaking on his mind. Last spring when the snow thawed, Coop made the drive to Alaska and met Nora Perry. Nora thought she might have met “the one.” And Coop? He wasn’t thinking along those lines. Now Nora has tracked Coop down before the most romantic holiday of the year—Valentine’s Day! Too bad romance is not on Nora’s to-do list.

      I hope you enjoy Coop and Nora’s journey. I love to hear from readers. Check my website to learn more about upcoming books, sign up for email book announcements and I’ll send you a free sweet romantic comedy read, or chat with me on Facebook (MelindaCurtisAuthor) or Twitter (MelCurtisAuthor) to hear about my latest giveaways.

      Melinda

       MelindaCurtis.com

CHAPTER ONE

      “A GOOD CAR is like a good life,” Cooper Hamilton said to his friends over a beer on Friday night in Kenkamken Bay, Alaska’s, Bar & Grill. “Make it affordable, make it practical, make it easy to trade in. And you’re all set.”

      “A good car starts up and goes no matter how bad the storm,” Gideon Walker added, tightening the knot on his don’t-leave-home-without-it blue tie. “Nothing keeps a good car stuck in your driveway.”

      Ty Porter scratched his full, dark beard—the one that gave half the men in town beard envy—and channeled his inner cynic. “Unless it runs out of gas.”

      Coach, the bar’s owner and bartender, rolled his eyes. And Coop couldn’t blame him.

      In their high school years, Coop, Gideon and Ty had strutted around town looking down their noses at K-Bay because they were destined to leave for better things in the Lower 48. Now they’d become a sad cliché. A fixture at the K-Bay Bar & Grill. Always taking up the three seats at the elbow of the bar near the kitchen.

      As demoralizing as the 0–0 score of the hockey game.

      There were other fixtures in the old bar, of course: the large brass bell that hung over the beer taps, the hand-painted sign above the mirror proclaiming it a Nag-Free Zone, and the other regulars at their regular seats. Mike and his fishing buddies around the pool table. Sam and other cannery workers in the booths near the front windows. Derrick and the cross-country truck drivers at the round wooden table in front of the big-screen television.

      Coop supposed there was nothing wrong with being a regular and keeping to your group of friends. It was just that Coop hadn’t expected to be one of them—the bearded, parka-wearing, windshield-scraping residents of a remote town in southwest Alaska.

      The hockey game on the big screen ended. There were calls for a change of channel. Coach worked the remote with arthritis-gnarled fingers. Other sports played silently on smaller TVs around the bar.

      Out of habit, Coop flexed his digits. His father had lost all the fingers on one hand in a fishing accident that had nearly killed him, right before Coop had planned to leave for college. Made Coop appreciate his limbs and everyone else’s, arthritic or not.

      A lifestyle report from an Anchorage station popped on-screen. The reporter was interviewing a woman wearing a turquoise business suit that looked as though it belonged in Washington, DC, not Alaska.

      “The possibilities for matchmaking in Alaska are limitless due to the ratio of men to women here.” Not one of the suited-lady’s highlighted curls moved in the wind. “When I meet a female client, I intuitively know what kind of man she’ll be happy with. You could almost say that love is guaranteed.” She flashed a calculated smile at the camera. “If you hire me.”

      Jeers rose from the crowd.

      Coop groaned. As a car salesman and used-car-lot manager, he knew a slick sales pitch when he heard one. “If that woman sold cars, she’d be doctoring repair records and rolling back odometers.”

      Coach found a basketball game and the patrons settled down.

      “‘There are no women in Alaska.’” Ty framed his statement in air quotes. “That’s a myth.”

      “A myth everywhere but here,” Gideon said. Since he worked as a loan officer at Kenkamken Bay Savings & Loan, he should know the area’s statistics. “K-Bay is seventy-five percent male.”

      “And some of the females...” Coop didn’t voice the rest of his opinion. The women in town were nice, but they weren’t the kind you’d see in beauty pageants or in a Lower 48 big city. Heels? Glossy hair? Artfully applied makeup? Not in K-Bay. “Why would they put a story about matchmaking on the news?”

      Coach slapped the lifestyle section of the Anchorage Beat on the nicked oak bar. “Because Kelsey Nash wrote an article about that woman.”

      Coop’s gaze cut to Ty. His friend looked away from the paper and touched the scar on his cheek, the one half-hidden by that thick beard.

      Kelsey was from K-Bay and had been the first to report on Ty’s career-ending injuries seven years ago. That wouldn’t have been so bad if she hadn’t slanted the piece to make Ty look like an irresponsible, immature fool. Never mind the puck to Ty’s face, detached retina, medically induced coma and the end of the man’s pro-hockey dreams—of all their dreams. Ty wasn’t a fool. He was just...Ty.

      “It’s a fluff piece. It’s not as if matchmaking would be hard in a city like Anchorage.” Coop tried to discredit Kelsey’s story. “Let that woman try matchmaking in K-Bay.”

      “We could do better than her.” Gideon was right there with him, adjusting the knot in his tie as if it was Monday morning, not Friday night. “I mean, come on. What does a woman like that know about what a man from Alaska likes? It’s not worth the space in the paper or the airtime on TV.”

      “Listen to yourselves.” Coach’s voice rumbled like a logging truck speeding over rutted black ice. “Talking as if you had any idea about life or love.”

      “I just said life was like a good car.” Coop sat up straighter. There was nothing that got his heart pumping like a good bar argument. “And women like a good car. Just look at me.” He spread his arms. “I’m good-car material.”

      “Sure you are.” Coach poured the sarcasm over Coop’s belief. “You’re cheap, boring and stuck in a rut. Just like my wife’s snowbound sedan out on Old Paris Road. Won’t get that out until spring. If ever.”

      And if that didn’t deflate Coop’s tires...

      Ty was still lost in thought when Gideon jumped to Coop’s defense. “Men know what they want in a woman. To make a match, you’d just have to dig down deep to discover what the heck a woman really wants. That matchmaker using her ‘intuition’ is farcical. If two people would just be honest about what they wanted—”

      “Exactly.” Coop leaped back into the fray. “If a woman would just say, ‘I do want a long-term commitment from a man that’ll likely lead to marriage and probably having babies,’ it would cut through all the awkward, getting-to-know-you part.” And transition Coop to the “sorry, that’s not me, been nice to know you” part.

      Coach chuckled, but it wasn’t the sound