Page 26 of The Merry Matchmaker

“Yeah. Got your phone ready? I’ll give you my sister’s number.”

He looked puzzled. “Your sister?”

“I thought maybe...”

He nodded, getting where the conversation was going. “Yeah, Stef’s great. She’s probably got a ton of men after her.”

“She can always use a ton and one,” Frankie quipped.

“She’s nice, but I’m not really interested in her. I didn’t feel a connection.”

Hard to connect when someone stomped around the kitchen and then left early. Darn her silly sister anyway. But all right, so he and Stef hadn’t clicked. There was still Elinor. Once Frankie got her polished up she was going to be a real gem.

“Actually, I stopped in to see if you’d like to get something to eat after work,” he said.

“Me?” she squeaked.

“Well, yeah.”

“Sure, she’d love to,” said Natalie, who had better hearing than most dogs.

“You don’t have plans for tonight,” Adele informed Frankie.

Frankie scowled at both of them, then took Brock’s arm and led him a little ways away. “Look, that’s really sweet of you, but you don’t need to pay me back for last night.”

“This isn’t payback. Just hoping to keep a good thing going.”

A good thing going. What did that mean?

“Do you like Italian? I hear La Bella Vita has great food.”

“Um, Brock. You may not be aware of this...” how could he not? “...but I’m a bit older than you.” A big bit.

“Not that much,” he said. “Anyway, what does age matter if two people like hanging out together? There’s an age difference between you and Mitch.”

“True, but we’re just friends. We’ve known each other for years.”

“So, let’s go out to dinner as friends,” Brock said.

He wasn’t giving off casual-friend vibes. That smile, that tilt of the head, they both said,Casual is the starting gate, then we’re off to the races. She was not about to go racing off with a man ten years younger than her.

“You don’t have any objection to being friends, do you?” he added.

“Well, no.”

“Great. How does seven work? I can pick you up,” he offered.

No, no picking up. Then this would feel like a date, and it was not going to be a date.

“I’ll meet you there,” she said firmly.And we will have a serious discussion where I make it clear to you that friendship is as far as we go.

“Okay, see you there,” he said, and sauntered back out the door.

Frankie marched over to where her mother, her daughter and Elinor were all standing. Elinor looked at the expression on Frankie’s face and seemed to realize she needed to go stock some shelves on the store’s upper level.

“What did you think you were doing?” Frankie demanded of Natalie.

Natalie looked back at her, wide-eyed. “What?”

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