Perfect Match Read online

  “We’re still okay.” Gracie loved it that Beth sounded so happy. She wished she could be that happy, to have that lilt in her voice again. Someday. Maybe. Then again, maybe not.

  “Did you hear from Fred?” Beth asked.

  “I did, and I responded just the way we always do.” Fred Fineberg was Beth’s first client. A seventy-two-year-old widower who had been lost when his wife passed away. A year after her passing, he turned to the Internet and Beth to find him a companion. It took both Beth and Gracie five months to figure out that Fred wasn’t exactly looking for a companion but a lady who could make noodle pudding and potato latkes the way his wife had made them. These days, he and the plump Sophie Gold were for all intents and purposes a couple with no fringe benefits. Fred checked in every day to report on Sophie’s culinary endeavors.

  Fred and Sophie were the reason Beth and Gracie started up a division that provided matchmaking services for the over-sixty-five crowd. Even they were amazed at the success and how it had taken off. With all the friends in various organizations Fred and Sophie belonged to, it didn’t take long before Gracie and Beth were so swamped, they had to hire additional help just to oversee the matchmaking needs of those over sixty-five. Flowers and fruit baskets arrived by the hundreds in thanks for making all their lives more interesting. Gracie and Beth donated it all to the hospitals and nursing homes in the area.

  “I miss hearing from him. Do you believe I’ve been here a whole month?”

  “Hard to believe,” Gracie said, yawning. Gizmo was on his feet in a second.

  “John and I have been going every night to all these local hot spots, where they allow all the wannabes to get up and do their thing. They call it improv. They’re awful, but we all clap and stomp our feet. You never know, one of them might turn out to be the next Nashville star. I’m gonna do it when I’m ready. I know I will be just as awful, but they tell me it’s a lesson in humility every wannabe has to go through. Okay, I kept you up long enough, so I’ll say good night. John says hi. Give Giz a smooch for me. Tell him I think about him every day.”

  “Will do.” Gracie yawned again and got up. She put her phone in the charger. To Gizmo, that was the ultimate clue that they were finally going to bed. “Okay, get your baby, and let’s hit the sack.”

  Gizmo poked through his basket of toys and picked up a ten-tentacle purple octopus with a squeak and headed for the second floor.

  Already dressed in her pajamas, her face creamed, her teeth brushed, Gracie slid under the covers as Gizmo stretched out on the king-sized dog bed that he slept on for ten minutes before he hopped onto Gracie’s bed, thinking she didn’t know he was there. He let loose with a soft woof of sound, his signal that all was well in the Sweet household.

  As tired as she was, sleep eluded Gracie. She tossed and turned, almost strangling herself in the bedcovers. Gizmo was on his feet, sensing things were not right. He hopped up on the bed and nuzzled Gracie’s neck. She stroked the dog’s big head and started to talk. “I talk a good game, Giz, but I don’t think I can make this all work. Beth has such faith in me, but . . . we always worked as a team, and that’s how we made it all happen. The brother . . . my gut is telling me it’s all going to be one giant headache, with me doing all the work and him doing nothing.” Gizmo whimpered as she stroked his head and kept on talking.

  “Just because he let me get a bead on him with the renovations doesn’t mean anything in the scheme of things. Even I could see that guy is in a dark place. Matchmaking is not something he is even remotely interested in. He might be smarting a bit that his little sister kicked him to the curb, sort of, the way he did her. What goes around comes around, as they say. He just thought Beth would always be there for him. He can’t come to terms with her turning the tables on him. I don’t know, maybe it’s a guy thing, or maybe it’s that wheelchair thing.” Gizmo whimpered again.

  Gracie could feel her eyes starting to burn, meaning tears weren’t far off. She stretched out her legs, then let out a yelp as the calf of her leg cramped up. She struggled to get out from under Gizmo and get her feet on the floor. She’d forgotten to take her magnesium tablet. Again. Come to think of it, she’d not taken the tablets for a few days now. She hopped around, the pain unbearable, as Gizmo followed her, barking and growling. He hated her crazy dance and the strange, pitiful sounds he was hearing.

  “It’s okay, Giz, it’s okay. Just a cramp in my leg. C’mon, let’s go downstairs so I can drink some water and eat a banana. It might help.”

  Back downstairs in the kitchen, Gracie uncapped a bottle of water and gulped it down in three long swigs along with the magnesium capsule. She looked at a bunch of overripe bananas on the counter and peeled one. She should have thrown them out days ago, but she managed to swallow the banana as she hobbled around, Gizmo right on her heels. Nothing was working. She wanted to cry but bit down on her lower lip to hold the tears in check. Only sissies cried.

  Beth once said that was bullshit, and it was cathartic to cry. Beth had gone on to say she had shed buckets of tears over her brother, and it did help to cry. Otherwise, how else could she have survived? Who was she, Gracie Sweet, to argue with such logic?

  Gracie limped into her studio and turned on the gas starter on her fireplace. She was glad now that she’d cleaned out the ashes and laid in fresh wood. She dragged a pile of cushions from the sofa and lined them up on the floor. Maybe the warmth from the fireplace would ease the cramping. She lowered herself to the cushions and let out a loud sigh. The cramping was abating. She made a mental promise to herself that no matter what, she would faithfully eat a banana every day, never again fail to take her magnesium pill, and drink at least six glasses of water daily. She finally slept, then, with Gizmo’s big head cradled in the crook of her arm.

  Gracie woke to soft licks on her cheek and the shrill ringing of the house phone and her cell phone. She cracked one eyelid to stare into the smoldering remains of the fire she’d built the night before. Her first thought was the pain in her leg was gone, with only a dull muscle ache remaining. Well, she could live with that. What she couldn’t live with was the 140 pounds of pure dog sprawled across her chest and the two ringing phones.

  Gracie managed to get to her feet without falling over. The horrible cramp was gone, but her leg ached. She made her way to the kitchen to let Gizmo out. She shivered at the blast of cold air that greeted her. She shook her head; it was November after all. Even in the South, it got cold during the winter months.

  Gracie looked at the clock on the microwave and did a double take—9:05. Impossible. Then she looked at the clock on the stove—9:05. She never, as in never, slept past six-thirty. Now her whole day was ruined, and she was down two and a half hours. If nothing else, she orchestrated her daily life and lived it to the minute. Damn. Now she was all screwed up.

  Gizmo rang the doorbell and she went to let him in, muttering and not for the first time that she had to teach him how to open the door. The big dog looked at her as much as to say, “Yeah, right, whatever . . . and where is breakfast?”

  “Okay, okay, we’re all screwed up, so let’s screw it up some more. How about scrambled eggs and bacon?” Gizmo let loose with his approval bark and sat back on his haunches to wait.

  As Gracie prepared the food, her thoughts took her to Alex and the e-mails he used to send from the other side of the world. He said when he and Giz got back, he was going to feed him porterhouse steaks every day for the rest of his life. And other table food, too. No more of those dog rations for Giz, the bravest dog he’d ever known. And that’s what Gracie did; she grilled Giz steaks until he didn’t want them anymore. From that point on, she just fed the dog whatever she ate. She gave him vitamins and some other junk the vet recommended, and the dog was healthy and happy.

  Gracie set the plate down, and the dog waited. “Right, right! Sorry, Giz. See what sleeping late does to me! I forgot the vitamins. She shook out two of what she called horse pills because they were so big and set them down near his d
ish. Giz knew he had to take the pills before he could eat. He gulped them down and literally inhaled the six scrambled eggs and four slices of bacon.

  Gracie tackled her own breakfast, but she wasn’t really hungry. She nibbled on the slice of bacon, took a bite out of the slice of six-grain toast, her concession to good eating habits, and stirred the egg on her plate. Her thoughts were everywhere, on Alex and what might have been, on the whiny puke Jake Masters, and on Beth and the fact that she’d slept so late. That had to mean something, and it had nothing to do with the cramp in her leg. She’d had cramps in the middle of the night before, and she’d never overslept.

  Looking around her kitchen for answers provided no insight into her immediate problem. Screw it, she thought as she got up to fill her coffee cup. The landline rang just as she set the cup down on the table.

  “Mandy!” Gracie said, grateful to hear a human voice. “Please don’t tell me you’re calling with a problem. If it is a problem, can you call me back this afternoon?”

  Mandy Franklin managed the New York satellite office and had been hired by Beth and Gracie the day they’d decided to expand the company. Mandy was a business whiz and ran the office just the way Gracie and Beth ran theirs.

  “Whoa! Whoa! Calm down and take it slow and repeat everything you just said.” The fine hairs on the back of Gracie’s neck moved. She could hear Mandy draw a deep breath.

  “Okay, okay, here’s what happened. Sometime between eleven o’clock, when I shut down for the night, and this morning, all hell broke loose. We were hacked. Someone is posting ugly trash stuff on social media. I called the Web people, and they’re on it. The first thing they did was to shut down the Web site. I called Callie in Chicago and she was just about to call me, but I got to her first. The same thing happened to her. Someone is gunning for us, Gracie. I’ve been trying to call Lily Wexler in California, but it’s just six in the morning out there, so I’ll keep trying. I wanted to know if the same thing happened to the home site. Did you check this morning?” Gracie hated how jittery Mandy sounded.

  “Not yet, I’m running late today. I’ll do it now and call you back. I don’t understand how that could happen with all the security and firewalls we have in place. Please tell me your backup is current. Please tell me that. I’ll call you back.”

  “Absolutely it is in place. Beth drummed it into my head from day one. Before I shut down for the day, I make sure the books are updated.” By updated, Mandy meant the pen to paper backup because Beth didn’t trust computers a hundred percent. “My client list is safe and sound.”

  Gracie’s relieved sigh could be heard all the way to New York. She leaned back in her chair, in no hurry to go to her home office. She knew what she would find. This had always been hers and Beth’s biggest worry. That someone would find a way to hack into their system and steal their clients, and that’s why Beth had decided to keep that particular list in actual ledgers. What they hadn’t worried about too much was the trash talk that could and would be posted on social media. Their big mistake. Industrial espionage.

  If not brought under control, it would be the kiss of death for Perfect Match. Gracie debated with herself for one whole minute as to whether she should call Beth or not. That was a no-brainer, she thought as she punched in the numbers to Beth’s cell phone. The minute she heard a sleepy hello, she went at it full bore.

  The sleepy voice in Nashville was instantly alert. “Our worst nightmare, and wouldn’t you know it’s happened now, after I left. Makes me wonder. Are you wondering, too, Gracie? I’ll get dressed and be home in a few hours. You can hold on till I get there, right? Thank God we didn’t computerize our client list.”

  “Hold on, Beth. I can handle things here. Stay where you are and do what you’re doing. If I run into something I can’t handle, I’ll call. For now, let’s take it slow and easy. We might be able to nip this in the bud. People aren’t stupid. . . . Let me back that up a little. Most people are not stupid, and they’ll see right through this attack. We’ve always had a stellar reputation. Our testimonials from our clients are heartfelt and not just photo ops.

  “I really debated about calling you, but you and I have always been on the same wavelength. Let’s see how all this plays out in the next day or so. Do you want me to alert your brother or handle it on my own for now?”

  “He’d be useless is my first thought. Play it by ear. Are you sure you don’t want me to come home?”

  “Beth, I am absolutely sure. I can send you hourly texts if you want.”

  “I want,” Beth said, relieved and yet somehow disappointed that she didn’t have to make the trip back to Garden Grove. “Call me after you check our site and speak with Lily in California.”

  “I will. Give me a couple of hours to sort through all this. Are you really sure you don’t want me to mention this to your brother?”

  “Gracie, think about what you just said. You met my brother. What kind of help do you think he could offer you? Moose is no better. But if you think he should know, then by all means tell him. You’re in charge here. Do whatever you think is best.”

  Gracie ended the call and stared down at Gizmo, who was sleeping on the small carpet in front of the sink. He looked so peaceful.

  Gracie sipped at her coffee, which was now cold. She barely noticed because her brain was racing at warp speed.

  She needed a plan.

  Chapter Four

  While Gracie was stewing and fretting about a plan, Jake Masters was, as he put it, sweating his ass off with his physical therapist. “Three hours is enough, goddamn it! I need some fresh air. And something to eat.”

  Calvin Winters, the therapist, looked at Jake and said very quietly, “No pain, no gain. I am simply following your doctor’s orders. You want to wuss out, it goes on the chart. It’s your call, Jake, not to mention you have to pay me for the full time I’m here even if I just sit here drinking herbal tea.” Three long years of therapy and familiarity allowed Calvin to take verbal liberties where Jake was concerned. “If you’d just go for the operation, we could be done with this in six months. You’re fast approaching the point of no return, buddy. Either do it, or reconcile yourself to the fact that you’re going to be in that chair for the rest of your life.”

  “He’s right, Jake,” Moose bellowed from the other end of the home gym Jake had had installed at the beginning of his career in the NFL.

  Jake clenched his teeth, and bellowed back, “Help me into the chair.”

  “Get in it yourself. You’ve done it before. I’m not here to coddle you. I’m here to work your ass to the bone. But here’s a thought for you today, Jake. What if Moose and I walk out on you and you’re left on your own? How are you going to manage? That’s another way of my telling you I’m getting sick and tired of your verbal abuse when all I’m trying to do is help you. Just so you know, I’m on my last nerve where you’re concerned,” Calvin said in his best pretend-fed-up voice.

  Moose walked across the room and stared down at Jake. He wanted to say something warm and fuzzy, something kind and encouraging, but the words wouldn’t come. He loved Jake like the son he never had, but he, too, was on his last nerve where the young man was concerned. And now with Gracie Sweet and Beezer’s business, he wasn’t sure he could hang on if Jake didn’t man up. “I’m with him,” he said gruffly. “I’ve had it, Jake. I might love you like a son, but even I have my limits. And if you think that young woman, and I am referring to Miz Sweet, is going to cut you any slack, you’re way off base. She’s going to chew you up and spit you out, and you are going to have to take it, because like Calvin said, you’ve turned into a wuss. It pains me right here,” Moose said, thumping his scrawny chest, “but Beezer was right. You are a whiny puke.”

  Moose turned on his heel, and added, “I’m going to make some lunch, Calvin. Come talk to me and let this poor excuse for a man find his own way.”

  “I thought you’d never ask,” Calvin said, trotting behind Moose. They could both hear Jake cursing a blu
e streak, some of the curses actually so laughable that both men ignored them entirely.

  While Moose busied himself at the refrigerator and stove, Calvin sat down on one of the stools at the counter and let loose with a long sigh. “I can’t believe I said what I said. Just so you know, Moose, what I said was the truth and way overdue. Jake is almost to the point of no return. There’s just so much therapy he can do. The surgeons I spoke with are almost one hundred percent certain Jake can walk again. No foolproof guarantees, but what they’re offering sounds pretty damn good to me. Do you know something I don’t know, Moose? Why is he so adamant about not going for this final surgery?”

  Moose dumped some pasta into a pot of boiling water. He gave it a quick stir. “The pain. The drugs they gave him. He was the next thing to a junkie after the third operation. Then it was the withdrawal from the drugs, more pain. The next two operations didn’t help, more drugs, more withdrawal. He’d had enough.”

  “He’s drug free now. He’s as healthy as an ox. His upper-body strength is phenomenal. I’m worried about his mental health, almost as worried as I am about his physical health. When you told me about his . . . ah . . . new business, I sensed a change in him, a spark of something. I’m not going to give up on him, but he doesn’t have to know that. I say we unite, Moose, and really sock it to him.”

  “You got my vote, young man.” Moose cackled. “Wait till you meet Miz Gracie Sweet. If anyone can give Jake a run for his money, it’s that young woman. And now he’s got Beezer on his mind and is trying to come to terms with her opinion of him. To hear that young woman tell him that Beezer called him a lazy laggard, a king-sized pain in the ass, and a whiny puke didn’t do anything for his ego, nor did her reference to the fact that he was full of himself and had daily pity parties. Believe it or not, Jake loves and adores his little sister.

  “I’m not defending him, but truth is truth. He lost sight of all of that for a while, and when it reared up and hit him in the face, he didn’t—Strike that, doesn’t know how to deal with it. Beezer is all he has aside from me. He never had a lot of friends, but the few he did have got fed up with him and went on their way. They tried; it was Jake. He said he didn’t need their pity. It wasn’t pity; they just wanted to be there for him, but he wasn’t buying that. So he shut himself up here. Days, weeks, months go by, and you and I are the only people he talks to.”