Page 88 of Calling on the Matchmaker
“Is that a fact?” Bellamy tallied another number.
“Oh aye, so ’tis.” Georgie nodded at Riley as though giving him permission to proceed with his business.
Riley took off his hat and fiddled with the brim. “I lost Finola again.”
Georgie shook his head sadly and made a humming noise at the back of his throat.
Bellamy wrote down another mark. “So I heard.”
It was downright uncanny how much Bellamy knew. Riley wouldn’t be surprised if Bellamy McKenna had gotten wind of the breakup even before the angels in heaven had. “I need your help to win her back.”
“Naturally you do.”
“Naturally,” Georgie echoed.
Bellamy didn’t look up, but his lips quirked with humor.
“This is life or death, Bellamy.”
“Is it now?”
“Yes, I need her. I can’t live without her.” It was the truth. He couldn’t fathom his future without Finola Shanahan in it. “Tell me what I can do to convince her not to go into the convent, to give me more time to win her.”
Bellamy finally stuck his pencil behind his ear and looked up from his ledger.
“You orchestrated getting us back together last time and did a right good job of it. Surely you can think of something again.”
The matchmaker’s eyes sparkled with merriment. “If I remember correctly, the last time you accused me of scheming.”
“I need you to scheme again.”
“How much scheming do you want?”
“Enough that Finola will fall in love with me.”
Bellamy crossed his arms and leaned against the bar. “Maybe the love’s already there, Saint Riley. And maybe like a jammed spigot, it needs a wee nudge to get it flowing.”
Riley prayed Bellamy was right. Not that Finola loved him. Bellamy couldn’t be right about that. But maybe she cared about him and just needed him to show her that more clearly.
Riley put his hat back on and then rubbed his hands together, eager to get started. “Do you have any ideas?”
Bellamy’s grin was slow and crooked. “Do I have ideas? Now, Riley Rafferty, I wouldn’t be the world’s greatest matchmaker if I didn’t have ideas, would I?”
Riley quirked a brow. “World’s greatest matchmaker?”
Georgie was sporting a toothless grin wide enough to span the Mississippi River. “Oh, aye, Oscar is good. But let me tell you, I’ve never seen a matchmaker better than Bellamy.”
Bellamy grabbed a bottle and began to fill the man’s glass. “You don’t have me fooled, Georgie McGuire. I know you’re lavishing on the praise to get a free drink.”
“No one is better,” the old man insisted with wide, innocent eyes. “Who better than me to know it?”
Bellamy chuckled as he topped off the glass. Then he motioned toward his brother-in-law at one of the tables with customers before he wiped both hands on a towel and leveled a look at Riley. “Oh, aye. It’s time to finish making the perfect match. And I know exactly how we’re going to do it.”
30
Finola’s knees were numb on the prayer cushion. She hadn’t moved from the spot at the front prayer rail of St. Vincent de Paul’s for the past two hours. Not only were her knees sore, but her back ached and her stomach was starting to growl.
She’d thought the time of prayer would comfort her and clarify what she needed to do. But her thoughts were as jumbled as when she’d left the Visitation Convent and the Sisters. She probably should have gone with them to the Kerry Patch, but her heart had been too heavy.
