Page 260 of Cowboys & Navy SEALs

Although it was one thing to help good people and quite another to help Brooke. Brooke was a nasty, self-absorbed snob who was always cutting people down, and Gracie couldn’t stand the sight of her.

According to Gertrude, helping Brooke would allow Gracie to become more compassionate and less judgmental. “You have to learn to help all people,” Gertrude said, “not just the ones you like.”

She scowled. While some minuscule part of her suspected that Gertrude might be right, the majority of her was still furious over the whole situation! Gertrude was her mentor and guide—the one who was supposed to have all of the answers. Why couldn’t she see that this thing with Brooke was going to end disastrously? After all, Gracie had three long weeks invested in this assignment and was still no closer today in finding someone for Brooke than she’d been when she first started.

She spent the first week and a half, shadowing Brooke and getting to know her patterns. The second week and a half was spent trying to find a suitable guy for Brooke. She’d gone through two prospects already and was now on the third. The first guy had shown up at one of Brooke’s favorite restaurants. She chomped him to bits and stormed off. Gracie had arranged for the second guy to have a chance meeting with her at the mallduring one of Brooke’s marathon shopping trips. Brooke sweet-talked him into carrying a mountain of shopping bags to her car and then callously gave him the boot.

Gracie stood by helplessly, watching the scenes play out like train wrecks. All the while, she was seething. She’d never before seen anyone as cold and unfeeling as Brooke. Brooke had been bad to begin with, but ever since Dawson broke up with her, she was on a rampage. The most challenging part of the assignment was being forced to orchestrate everything from the periphery. She couldn’t approach Brooke face-to-face because Brooke would recognize her from the inn. Brooke could never find out that Gracie was behind her and Dawson’s breakup, or else this whole thing would explode in her face.

The woman got off the treadmill, and Gracie sprang into action. She jumped off the elliptical machine and hurried over to the treadmill in order to grab it before anyone else could. She started out slow, then tapped the arrow on the treadmill to make it go faster.Oops! Too fast!If she kept going at this rate, she was bound to barf up a lung.

She slowed the machine to a more reasonable pace, then glanced stealthily at the target on the treadmill next to her. A mixture of hope and guilt rose in her breast. She hoped this guy might be the one who could turn Brooke’s head so that she could be done with this stupid assignment. At the same time, she felt guilty for trying to set him up with her. The poor sap didn’t deserve to be saddled with the likes of Brooke. And yet someone had to end up with her! Like it or not, it was Gracie’s job to find the unlucky contender.

She’d been watching this one for a couple of days. His name was Derek Singleton. She used her device or her heavenly iPad,as she’d taken to calling it, to run a check on him, but it had yielded a mere paragraph of information.

Gertrude explained that the device only gave information on a need-to-know basis. “You’re lucky it gave you a paragraph,” she said. “The device will only give you detailed information about the people that are assigned to you.”

The whole thing was absurd. After all, what good was a heavenly iPad if it failed to give her the information she needed? Gracie was left with no alternative except to do the majority of research on her own. From what she could tell, Derek seemed like a decent guy—a good-looking radiologist who enjoyed working out at the gym, playing racquetball, and going boating on the weekends. He’d never been married, wasn’t involved with anyone, and was about Brooke’s age. Surely she would find him attractive.

Gracie’s pulse picked up a notch as she glanced at the clock on the wall. Brooke would soon be arriving for her 10 a.m. Zumba class, which meant she had less than thirty minutes to convince Derek that Brooke was the one for him. She pasted on her friendliest smile and was just about to say something to Derek, when he increased his pace to an all-out sprint.

Gracie wanted to scream. Of all the times for him to start sprinting! Why couldn’t anything be easy? After what seemed like an eternity, he slowed to a jog. It was now or never.

“Hi.”

He didn’t hear her at first because he was so focused on the Fox News segment playing on the overhead TV. Even though the volume was low, subtitles ran across the bottom of the screen.

“Excuse me,” she said, a little louder.

He removed the ear bud from his left ear. “Are you talking to me?”

“Yeah, sorry to interrupt your workout, but does it feel hot in here to you?” She tugged at her shirt.

A puzzled look came over his face. “Uh … it seems normal to me.”

“Maybe it’s just me?”

He replaced the ear bud and turned back to the TV.

This was going to be harder than she thought. “My name’s Gracie.”

“Huh?” He removed the ear bud.

“My name’s Gracie,” she repeated.

A slight pause. “Derek.”

“Do you come here often, Derek?” Geez. This was awkward.

“What?”

“The gym. Do you come here often?”

Annoyance crossed his features. “Yeah … why?”

Her mouth went dry, and she had the crazy feeling she was throwing herself at him, even though she was trying to fix him up with Brooke. There was no delicate way to put this. “This may sound strange, but I have this friend … she’s a knockout … and I’m wondering if you would like to meet her … maybe go on a date?”

He frowned “I’m sorry?”

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