Page 95 of The Sebastian Guarantee
He narrowed his gaze as he headed over. He could make out Bernadette and Claudette in their matching black turtlenecks, but a third woman sat with her back to him. The breeze picked up, and the woman’s red scarf flapped, dusting her shoulder.
A red scarf.
Red and flappy.That’s what Tula had said, and there was no question as to the woman’s identity.
As if on cue, Madelyn Malone, the famed nanny matchmaker, looked over her shoulder. “I see you’re wearing the tie I got you for your birthday,” the woman commented in her flowing Eastern European accent.
He pressed his hand against his chest. In the crazy melee of the day, he’d forgotten he had it on. “It’s my favorite.”
“Here, take a seat, Sebastian. Sit with us,” she said, then eyed the tie. “The color is what drew me to it. It’s the perfectmatchfor you.”
His ears perked up as he sat, noting how she’d phrased her reply. “It’s so good to see you, Madelyn. You look fantastic.” She did. The woman had to be pushing ninety, but she barely appeared to have aged a day since they’d met years ago when he was a boy. Her mass of dark curls, with a lone silver streak, framed her face and highlighted her dark, perceptive eyes.
She twisted her lips into a coy smirk—a signature expression he recalled from when he was younger. “Matchmaking keeps me young. Love is its own fountain of youth.”
He didn’t doubt it. “I had no idea you were in town. Are you in Denver to meet with a client?”
“I am,” she replied as her eyes glinted with mischief.
He looked between the Marieuse sisters and the matchmaker, and a revelation hit. “Are you the silent investor, Madelyn?”
Madelyn and the twins exchanged a round of curious glances.
“No, no, dear,” Madelyn said with a chuckle in her rich vibrato tone, “my work is in matchmaking, but I am a facilitator of fate, and that affords me the opportunity to meet many people in my pursuits. I’ve known the Marieuse sisters for a long time. My dear friend, their silent partner, introduced them to me years ago when I was in Denver doing a little background research for a nanny match. And there’s my friend now,” the woman added, peering past his shoulder. “Mae, I’m so glad you could make it.”
Mae?
And holy twist of fate!It was Mae Edwards from Glenn Pines. Was she the silent partner? No, that couldn’t be.
“Are you here to get your truck?” he asked, his mind working overtime to figure out what the hell was going on.
“No,” Mae said, suppressing a grin, then greeted the women and took a seat next to Claudette.
“Are you here for a quilting event?” he tried.
“No,” the woman repeated.
“Sebastian, I told you who she was,” Madelyn supplied, looking pleased as punch with herself. The matchmaker patted Mae’s hand. “Our Sebastian is having quite an eventful day. I promise you, dear, he’ll lose the deer-in-the-headlights look as soon as he figures it out.”
What was this? A setup?
Sebastian gazed around the group of women. Madelyn was wrong. He absolutely felt like a deer in the headlights, and he didn’t see that feeling letting up anytime soon.
“Oh, I know he will,” Mae remarked. “He’s a smart one, and he’s a fan of my work. Well, my work with Shirley, Theodora, and Enid. That speaks volumes.”
“Mae is the silent partner?” he repeated, his brain feeling as nimble as a bowl of three-day-old oatmeal.
“It’s coming,” Madelyn cooed.
He held Mae’s gaze. “You have a company with Shirley, Theodora, and Enid?”
“Yes,” Mae replied.
“Something in addition to selling quilts?”
“Warmer,” Claudette chimed in with a sly smirk.
“He’s so close I can feel it,” Bernadette added, mirroring her twin sister’s expression.
