Page 111 of Perfectly Matched: Harbor Falls Romance Collection

Five minutes before seven o’clock later that evening, Jillian stood at the top of the back stairway to her apartment and looked down the long row of steps. If she fell on her way down and broke her neck, how long would it take anyone to find her?

She wondered.

Seriously, that was the thought running through her head.

With a high-heeled black pump on her left foot and her black-satin covered boot on her right, she figured it would take one miscue on the wooden steps and she would be a goner.

Splat. Flat-on-her-ass broken at the bottom of the stairs.

Yes, that would be her.

Was this all just too much effort? Why was she going on this date anyway? She barely knew Scott Matthews and the times she’d been around him were brief. While he was a likeable enough man, it seemed there always was some sort of conflict surrounding them. She’d smacked blindly into him for one, and for two he had spit out her chocolate. For three his comment in the bakery this morning was a bit unsettling.

The nerve. Why would he think it surprising that she had done a nice thing for Sydney?

Why did he even want to take her to dinner, anyway, and why had she agreed?

Good question. He’d caught her off guard, that was it. She’d been busy and he popped the question quickly, and she’d said something cute and there it was—a dinner date. Besides, she had been a little lonely lately. There was that. And she missed male companionship, at times. Not to mention, there had been those tiny, intriguing kiss-sparks after he had tenderly rubbed her foot, and so....

She was attracted to him. There was that, too.

Therefore, she was going on the date.

With a sigh, she sat on the top step, slipped the black pump off her foot, stood again, and using the handrail as a prop, began a slow descent down the stairs. She made it halfway down when she snagged her hosiery at the heel on a huge splinter. A splinter which decided to embed itself in the heel of said foot—oh, probably about a half-inch deep—which caused her to yelp at the top of her lungs. The foot slid out from under her, her pantyhose ripped, and her rump hit every single one of the remaining dozen or so steps on the way down.

Splat. Flat-on-her-ass.

“Oof.”

She wanted to say a bad word, one that rhymed with fudge, sort of, but she’d promised her Grandma Jean once that she would never say that word again. That was when she was fourteen and she hadn’t broken that promise since.

But she wanted to say it really bad now. Her ass hurt like hell. Her foot felt like a two-by-four was wedged into it.

Instead of dropping the F bomb though, she curled onto her side and did something she rarely did and hated to do, but probably needed to do since she’d not given in to tears for a very long time. She let out a good, long wail and simply cried.

****

As Scott crossed the threshold into the shop, he wondered where they should go for dinner. She said to pick her up here because she lived upstairs, but he didn’t have a clue where the entrance to her apartment was. When he realized the door to Bittersweets was unlocked, he decided to come on inside and wait for her there. He assumed she’d be there shortly—

He stopped, cocked his head to one side. What was that sound?

Curious, he stepped toward the rear of the store. Strolling into the kitchen, he noticed all the appliances and equipment were in their spots, and then…

There it was again.

Crying?

The series of hiccups and sniffs and sobs came from his left, where he spied an opening into another room. He rushed across the space. Not a room, a stairwell. At the bottom of it, lying there in a whimpering heap, was his date.

“Jillian?”

He rushed to her side. Her tear-streaked and startled face jerked up to look at him.

“What happened? Are you okay?”

She lifted a black high-heeled shoe into the air, sniffed twice, and swallowed a small sob.

“No. Y-yes. Maybe.”

He wasn’t sure and for a moment thought his heart might leap from his chest.

“Did you fall?”

She nodded, tears falling.

“Oh, babe...”

At that, she started crying louder. Her crying had unraveled him a bit—a woman crying always sent him into protector mode, and there was nothing different here with Jillian. Only one thing for him to do—scoop her up, take her back upstairs to her apartment, and make sure she wasn’t hurt.

So that’s what he did.

But Jillian protested, a little.

“What are you doing? Where are you taking me?”

“Sh, now,”

he told her.

“You’re going to be just fine. Hold onto me now. Okay?”

****

Jillian didn’t need to be told twice. She held on to him with everything that was in her. While he picked his way up the steps, cradling her close in his arms, she wrapped herself about him and clung.

He smelled nice. Her nose was poised at his neck, right at his earlobe where a lingering hint of his shower remained—fresh soap, clean water, and just an ever so light skiff of aftershave.

Very nice.

She’d missed that smell. Rand had always smelled good too. But something about how Scott smelled was starting to turn her hormones all atwitter. Her pulse raced in her upper chest.

They reached the top of the steps and Scott glanced about. “Where?”

“If you put me down, I can walk now,”

she told him. He didn’t listen and stepped forward.

“Door to the left,”

she added, resigned. He was carrying her whether she liked it, or not.

There were two apartments and the second one was vacant. Jillian had thought that in the future she might remodel so she could have the entire suite up here to herself, but that was down the road. Any remodeling to her personal space had to happen after she had the candy kitchen finished out, and the remodeling to the front store. Then maybe….

She’d also contemplated renting out the other side. Time would tell.

But at this moment, she was focused more on being in Scott’s arms.

Balancing her, somewhat, Scott reached for the doorknob, twisted it, and carried her inside her apartment and into her living room area. He placed her on the sofa then immediately sat across from her on the coffee table, grasped what used to be her good foot, turned it slightly, and sighed. “Wow.”

“Yeah. Splinter.”

“That’s big.”

“Uh-hm. Hurts like hell.”

“Should I try to remove it?”

She grimaced. “Please?”

“All right. I may need something to extract it.”

“Tweezers?”

“Perhaps. But maybe I can get it with my fingers.”

“Oh...”

Jillian waited. Scott simply stared down at the thing. She supposed he was pondering the best way to get it out. He wasn’t in any hurry, and really, she wasn’t either. The thing went in easy enough, although it was a mite painful when it had happened. She had to wonder if it would exit with pain or without.

Finally, with the tips of his forefinger and thumb, Scott pinched the object and gave a tug.

“Ow!”

A sliver of hurt ripped up through her.

“I’m so sorry, Jillian but it had to be done.”

Another tear popped over her lower lid and ran hot down her cheek. “I know.”

The splinter was out, and she was glad of that.

“That is big.”

Scott held it up.

“That thing could kill a horse! Are you okay? What happened?”

He looked at her then, searching her face, with sincere caring in his eyes. And all of a sudden, words that she’d been holding back—hell, thoughts that she’d been holding back for a long, long time—came out all in one big tumble, among tears and a few choked back sobs.

She nodded. “Uh-huh.”

Sniff.

“I… I had on the black heel.”

She held it up, still clutched in her left hand.

“And I knew I couldn’t make it down the stairs wearing the heel and this ugly boot because I’d been wearing my tennis shoe up until today. Which would have been ugly too, with this dress, because we were going out to dinner, as you know, and I hadn’t been out to dinner for a while…not a real dinner with a man, anyway because, well, I broke off my engagement before I left New York. However, I had no idea how much I would miss being taken to dinner and such, you know, by a man. So even though I was a bit nervous about our date and didn’t,”

snif, snif.

“really understand why you asked me out, I decided on a whim to go, and then I remembered the boot and didn’t know how I was going to dress up with it. And well, geez, I wanted to look nice, so I decided I would try the heel but then I realized it was ridiculous. Especially, as I looked down at the stairwell and wondered how long it would take someone to find me once I’d died, so that’s when I took it off, tried to make it down, impaled my heel with monster splinter there, and busted my damn ass.”

Scott sat back and didn’t say a word.

She added.

“Hells bells. I’m a mess. And here I thought I had it all together. Thought I had gone and made my dream come true. Made myself a living wreck wanting to fit in here in this town. Was sure your sister-in-law would hate me. Was worried that my dad would find me. Didn’t want Rand showing up here, of course I don’t want to see him again. Then I have to go break my foot and run a baseball bat up my other heel.”

She looked him square in the face.

“I have a business to get off the ground! I need my feet!”

Her voice rose somewhat then, and she looked at him. Dead on, glared.

“And you! You spit out my truffle!”

Finally, she stopped. Everything that needed to be said, was said. She guessed, anyway. Scott swallowed and she watched his Adam’s apple bob. In the next motion, he moved to the couch beside her, put his arms around her shoulders, and pulled her head onto his chest.

It was warm there. And nice. Sort of like she was nestled into a man cocoon.

“I’m sorry,”

he whispered.

“Take a minute, catch your breath, cry into my shoulder if you need to. I’m here.”

Jillian started to let herself fall into that warm, man-space of protection and caring and then jerked herself out and stared him in the face. “Why?”

Pulling back, Scott asked.

“Why what?”

“Why do you want to comfort me? Why are you here for me? Why would you want to be here for me? You barely know me.”

His stare back was intense.

“Maybe I want to know you more than barely.”

Jillian tried not to be skeptical and searched his eyes. “Why?”

Scott blinked and sighed. His shoulders noticeably dropped in what looked like surrender. Was that it? Was he surrendering to something.

“I’m attracted to you, and intrigued by you, Jillian. I want to spend time with you to get to know you better. Not to mention I was impressed the way you gave up your coffee business to help out Sydney.”

“But you said you were surprised, not impressed. There’s a difference.”

He nodded.

“I was surprised. I thought you were different—lacking some scruples, perhaps, in your business sense, but that one gesture toward Sydney told me differently.”

She sat up straight.

“Lacking in scruples? Why in the world would you think…?”

He silenced her with a finger to her lips.

“I was wrong. Forget it, please. Your scruples are just fine.”

She waited for a moment to respond. His finger lingered a little longer before he dropped it from her lip.

“Oh. Okay.”

Then she surrendered something as well and sank onto his shoulder again. Scott wrapped his arms around her and held her close.

“Just relax a minute, Jillian,”

he whispered.

“Take a breath.”

Burrowing closer into him and inhaling the wonderful scent of him fully into her lungs, she tried to do just as he said—take a breath. She was confused a little, yes, but this place he offered her right now was nice, so why not take advantage of it? She shuddered once, relaxed, and pondered how she had gone from near-death experience to the pleasant nest of his arms all in the span of about two minutes.

“There,”

he cooed.

“Take a moment and just breathe. We’ll go from there. That’s right, sweetheart. Breathe.”