Page 3 of Make-Believe Match

“I don’t know about those things, darling.” Gran shuffled back to the table and sat down. “But she’s working reception tonight, so you’re free to meet Dr. Smalley.” She picked up her tea. “Now let’s talk about what you should wear. How about that pretty white dress you wore to my birthday dinner last month?”

Defiant, I folded my arms. “Gran, I’m not going on a date with Dr. Smalley tonight. Or any night.”

My grandmother’s eyes grew misty, and she put a hand over her heart. “Oh. I’m—I’m short of breath, all of a sudden. My heart, it’s—it’s beating so fast. Bury me in my pink suit please. The one with the pearl buttons.”

“Gran!” I jumped up and went around to her side of the table, crouching down beside her. “Are you okay? Should I call an ambulance?”

“No, no, darling.” She patted her chest. “I’ll be fine. I think it’s simply that I’m soconcernedabout you. I’m getting older, you know, and soon I’ll be gone, and I don’t like to think of you alone. My heart can’t take it. Sometimes I can’t even sleep at night, I’m so anxious.”

“Oh.” Seeing through the act, I slowly rose to my feet. “So you’re all right?”

“I will be.” She looked up at me, her expression pained. “If only you’d ease my worries by seeing Dr. Smalley tonight. Then maybe my heart would slow down, and I could breathe again. Isn’t that what you want for me? To be able to breathe properly?”

I clenched my teeth. “Fine. I’ll see Dr. Smalley tonight—on one condition.”

“What’s that, darling?” Gran was perky again.

“You bring me with you to that lunch on Tuesday. I want to make sure some smooth-talking shark in a suit doesn’t think he can just chew us up and spit us out.” Fired up all over again, I looked down at my list of ideas. “I want to negotiate. Snowberry might be small, and it might be struggling, but it’s worth fighting for.” I looked across the table at her. “Deal?”

“Deal.” She beamed. “I think you should wear your hair down tonight, don’t you?”

* * *

On the fifteen-minute walk from my grandmother’s house back to my condo, both of which were on the grounds of Snowberry Lodge, I got a text from my friend Winnie.

Well?? How did it go?

My life is in the toilet. And I think my grandmother just flushed.

Did she sell before you could talk to her???

No, but she refuses to consider giving it to me. She thinks I need a husband to run this place. In fact, it’s in her will. Her WILL!!! And she went behind my back and set me up on a date with her widowed dentist. TONIGHT.

What??? Hang on, I’m going to call you.

My phone vibrated in my hand a moment later. “Hello?”

“What on earth?” Winnie shrieked. “You need a husband to inherit the family manor? What is this, Bridgerton?”

“Apparently. And she’s arranged a match for me with her widowed dentist.”

“She could have at least tried for a duke. I’m insulted for you.”

“Thank you,” I huffed.

“Have you ever met the dentist?”

“Once, when I took Gran to an appointment.” I kicked a rock as I walked along the shoulder of the service road that circled the resort.

“How old is he?”

“Thirty-five, with two kids.”

“Is he cute?”

“He’s notbad-looking, but he’s no duke of Hastings.”

“Well, maybe it won’t be terrible,” Winnie said, always an optimist. “I fell for a single dad with two kids. And look at us now.” Winnie and her husband Dex, a firefighter, shared two daughters from his first marriage with their mom and had their own two-year-old son, Michael.