Page 109 of Perfectly Matched: Harbor Falls Romance Collection

“I can’t believe you didn’t like her chocolate.”

Scott grimaced in the back seat of Brad’s Jeep. He really didn’t want to get into this.

“It was bad chocolate.”

Both Suzie and Brad glanced back at him with one word, “What?”

Then Suzie added.

“You are insane.”

He didn’t know how long he was going to be able to hold onto that argument. Both Brad and Suzie had excellent tastes. They knew good flavors when they tasted it. And their palates were discriminating. Right now, he was a little confused, so lying was the only defense he could come up with about why he spit that second chocolate in the planter. In his line of work, spitting out chocolate was not a good thing.

However, it wasn’t that the chocolate was that bad.

It was that it was that good.

Too good.

Surprisingly good.

And familiar.

“I suppose your palate is better than mine,”

Suzie added.

“I mean, I’m not a world-renowned chocolate taster for Bianchi chocolates by any means, like you are, but I do know what I like, and I liked those truffles.”

Like I used to be...

“They’d set out in the sun too long.”

“Perhaps, but the goo factor was excellent.”

“Goo factor. Now there is a technical term for you.”

Suzie sneered at him.

“You know what I mean, Scott.”

Shit, he didn’t want to go upsetting her too.

“There was a bitter bite to the chocolate that I didn’t like. Something a little off. A chemical taste.”

Brad interjected, watching the road in front of him.

“It’s been a long time since I took a confection class, and sweets are not my forte, but damn, bro, I sure didn’t taste anything off in that bite of mine.”

“What do you know about this woman, Suzie?”

Changing the subject wasn’t a bad idea about now.

“Jillian?”

“Yeah.”

Suzie turned in her seat. Brad drove on, bumping over the gravel road toward his cabin.

“Jillian Bass. I don’t know much about her. She moved down here from New York a few weeks ago. The shop is going to be mostly candy but she serves chocolate and coffee drinks on the side for right now until her candy-making equipment arrives.”

That stirred the pot a bit. No equipment on the premises.

“She’s going to make the truffles here? In Harbor Falls?”

“That’s what she said.”

“Interesting.”

He leaned back in his seat and stared out the window.

“Scott, what’s going on?”

Suzie’s gaze was putting a burning hole through him, but he kept his gaze trained out the window.

He avoided the question.

“That’s all you know?”

“That’s all I know. Other than she seemed pleasant enough the other morning when

Sydney and I stopped by her place. And you spoke to her some when her ankle was hurt, right?”

Yes, he had. She was pleasant. And attractive. In his limited time around her, she had seemed all that. Interesting that she was a New Yorker. That added to the mystery.

“You like her?”

He looked back at Suzie then and hooked into her gaze.

She winked. “Do you?”

What? Do I like her? That was beside the point.

“I asked you first.”

Well, hell, he did like her, from what he knew about her, but…

She nodded.

“I do. I like her very much.”

That’s what he figured. The chocolates were tasty, and Suzie was a foodie. She could recognize good stuff. However, his instincts told him to be wary, cautious, and he would be just that. Suzie liked her, and that gave him a modicum of concern.

He just wasn’t sure how to tell his sister-in-law that her new friend, Jillian, was a fake.

****

The feeling in the pit of Jillian’s stomach wasn’t a good one. Worse, it was the first time she’d had that feeling since her move to Harbor Falls.

She eyeballed the men out front as she stood in her shop doorway and waited for the head guy to come her way. The truck with her equipment sat parked, taking up four parking spaces along Main Street. Not good. This was not the time to tick off her neighbors. Finally, the guy she’d been communicating with about the equipment rounded the truck. She hobbled onto the sidewalk.

“Hey, Marvin,”

she said to him.

“I was thinking we should probably unload around back in the alley and not block Main Street. What do you think?”

He nodded.

“Let’s walk back there and take a look, okay?”

Leading him through the store, she hoped her calculations were accurate and they could get the equipment in the back door without removing any doors or the frame. If the dimensions were correct in the catalog, she should be fine.

They entered the back room and Marvin glanced around.

“I think we’ll be fine here. Let me peek in the alley to make sure we can get the truck through there.”

He headed for the back door, measured the width of the doorframe, glanced outside and surveyed the back entrance, and then turned toward her.

“It’s good.”

“You’re sure?”

He nodded.

“Positive.”

“Great.”

That was a relief. She picked a clipboard up off a nearby counter.

“Here is my floor plan.”

There were several pieces coming. She wanted to make sure they would all fit and that his men placed them pretty much where she wanted them. It would be difficult for her to move them later by herself. She had ordered two cooling tables, two commercial mixers, and two mold-filling workstations, as well as a melting and tempering system, a one-man packing station, and a fondant beater. With the counter space that was already here, and the sundry candy-making and hand-dipping supplies she had ordered and brought with her from New York, she should be in business very soon.

“Looks like it should all work,”

Marvin said.

“Good.”

A different voice remarked from the doorway between the two rooms.

“Just now setting up shop?”

Jillian’s gaze rose to the man standing there. Scott Matthews? What in the world was he doing here? “Scott?”

****

“Hello, Jillian.”

He couldn’t help himself. Try as he might, Scott could not get the woman and her chocolates off his mind. He’d thought about it…her…all through the night. That’s why he found himself borrowing his brother’s Jeep and driving down the mountain on the pretense of picking up a few personal items at the local grocery store. Ralph’s, they called it, which turned out to be a cross between a country store and a grocery. In truth he found it rather quaint and homey and amusing, in an odd sort of way.

He was bored and needed something to do. He figured while he was here, he could check out this woman and those damn, in Suzie’s own words, to-die-for chocolates.

“Thought I’d drop by.”

He sauntered on into the room and glanced about. The man she was speaking with nodded to her and left.

“How’s the ankle?”

She glanced at her foot, then nervously after the delivery person.

“Let me know if you need me for anything, Marvin,”

she called after him.

Scott glanced toward the door and back. The guy was already gone.

He smiled.

Jillian smiled too.

“Your ankle?”

he prodded, taking another couple of steps into the room.

Seemingly caught off guard, she looked to her booted foot, grimaced, and said.

“Well, it’s okay. Had better days, but hopefully after a few weeks it will be fine.”

“Good.”

He really wasn’t there to talk about her foot, although he was concerned. She had taken a little tumble and she did appear to be in pain when it happened.

“I’m really sorry that it happened.”

She stared at him, and he wondered if she was still disappointed by his reaction yesterday. Finally, she said.

“Thank you. But it is nothing for you to be concerned about.”

Pulling his gaze from hers, he took that as a let’s change the subject statement, and he decided to take a stroll around the room instead. It was pretty much a full-service kitchen, he noted.

“Hmm, countertops, water, refrigerator, gas stove,”

he looked back at her.

“Looks like you have all the makings of a kitchen here, ma’am. What do you propose to cook in here?”

Damn. Was that freakin’ obvious? Last thing he wanted to do was rouse suspicion. All he was out for today was a little information. To satisfy his curiosity about who Ms. Jillian Bass really was.

“Um, candy?”

The look on her face was priceless.

He grinned.

“Of course.”

Then he slapped himself on the forehead.

“Where is my brain?”

“Perhaps it’s still jet lag.”

Did she know about him coming from Italy? He didn’t remember any conversation about that.

“Perhaps, but it’s been a week. Usually doesn’t hang around that long for me.”

“Oh.”

Pause.

That went well. Try again, Matthews. For some reason she didn’t seem very communicative today. Did she suspect that he knew something.

“So, you’re getting a delivery?”

She nodded her response.

“Equipment. For making candy.”

He cocked his head and glanced off. “Ah.”

Equipment. For making candy. Hmm.

He thought he might as well get the question sticking to the insides of his lips out of his mouth. Now or never. He looked her square in the face.

“So, Jillian. Just curious. If you didn’t have all the right candy making equipment here the other day, how did you make those fantastic truffles?”

Her gaze narrowed.

“You mean the fantastic truffles that you spit in the planter in front of my shop? The chewed-up truffle that drew ants and bugs to my front door? That truffle?”

His neck grew hot.

“Yes. Those would be the truffles.”

And this conversation was not very smart.

“You saw that?”

“I glanced back at the inopportune moment. Yes, I saw that, and the look on your face.”

“Oh.”

“Which makes me wonder what the hell you are doing here today, sniffing around.”

Sniffing around. Hell. She was on to him.

“I’m not sniffing.”

“You most certainly are. What do you want, Scott Matthews?”

He hedged.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

Her gaze narrowed.

“And what question would that be. I don’t remember one.”

Wow, she was really pissed at him, and that bothered him more than he cared to admit.

“How did you make the chocolates if you didn’t have equipment?”

She rolled her eyes.

“Good gracious. I had them made off-site. Although I am not sure why you are so interested.”

She turned then and started for the back door, where the rough rumbling of a delivery truck sounded through the screen. Then over her shoulder, she muttered.

“Since you spit yours out in disgust.”

Well hell. Not going very well at all. Okay. Time to take a different tack. Quickly rounding her, he leaned against a counter near the door and fully faced her. Jillian still stood in the middle of the kitchen, looking distracted and annoyed.

“So, I hear you’ve recently moved here?”

She nodded, looking toward the door at the back. Some commotion was going on there.

“Um, yes,”

she responded, not really giving him her full attention—which was a bit irritating, to tell the truth. Women usually gave him their full and very undivided attention. “Jillian?”

“Oh!”

She dragged her gaze back to his.

“I’m sorry. Yes. I’ve just moved here. And you...you are visiting?”

She did remember something. He wondered had she thought about him any at all since yesterday? Or about that tingle that passed through his lips to hers a few days ago.

“Yes, visiting, which is exactly why I came by.”

He could tell she was having a difficult time keeping focused on him. More commotion.

“If you will excuse me….”

She hurriedly passed him then, and he reached out to snag her arm, which brought her to a complete stop. “Wha—?”

“Dinner?”

There, just get right to it.

“Wha—?”

“You know, eating? Late in the day? Conversation between two people?”

“Oh, yes.”

She looked surprised. Hell, he was surprised. He hadn’t intended to go there. Why had he?

“I figure we’re both new around here. Maybe we can get to know the town together.”

“Oh, well, I don’t know.”

“Unless you have other plans for this evening.”

“Well, besides getting settled in here, I don’t, but…”

“Then it’s settled. We two newbies will take on Harbor Falls by storm then.”

Her face looked like it had just been taken by storm and he hoped he would get her commitment quickly in the middle of it. There was more he wanted to know about Jillian Bass—on more than one level. She both intrigued him and worried him.

“Oh. Okay, sure. When?”

“Tonight?”

Her eyes skittered back and forth across his.

“No. Tomorrow.”

Right. There were things going on here today.

“Absolutely. Tomorrow it is. I’ll pick you up at, say, seven o’clock?”

With a slight dip of her chin, she replied.

“That works.”

“And I’ll pick you up where?”

“Oh, right here,”

she told him.

“I live upstairs in the loft apartment above the store.”

Grinning, Scott replied, “Perfect.”