Page 10 of The Matchmaker
Ennisbawn wasn’t always so tiny. It was a pretty sizeable market town back in the day, with dances and auctions and fairs. We still hold most of them, though they’ve shrunk in size and importance over the years. But they’re an excuse to bring people together and for me to put up decorations and for Adam to roll his eyes at said decorations, and so we still host some, if only to get everyone together on a random Tuesday night.
My parents met at the matchmaking festival.
It’s one of our oldest traditions, stretching back as far as the late seventeen hundreds when bachelor farmers would descend on the village, seeking a wife among the young women who holidayed with their families by the lake. Legend goes you would drop a coin down the well and wish for your true love. Granny likes to spin a romantic tale about my parents doing just that, but now that I’m older, I know that, while they did fall in love, it probably wasn’t the well weaving its magic that drew them together. More than likely, it was the fact that Kelly’s was the kind of place that would have turned a blind eye to two seventeen-year-olds looking to buy a beer back then and they signed up to be matched with nothing more than a good night in mind.
But it’s nice to pretend.
To believe in a little bit of magic.
I trace over the familiar letters, saying a silent hello before reaching for one of the coins in my pocket and dropping it inside. I wait for the gentle plop of water that always serves as an acknowledgment and, when it comes, I take a breath, inhaling the damp smell of stone and water and earth, along with the metallic taste of God knows how many coins myself and others have dropped in over the years.
I’m so caught up in my little ritual that I don’t pay any attention to the sudden pinpricks at the back of my neck, that innate sense of being watched.
I’ve completely let my guard down and the faint rustle of clothing a moment later is the only warning I get that I’m not alone, but before I can do anything about it, a man’s voice murmurs behind me, far too close for comfort:
“What did you wish for?”
CHAPTER THREE
I scream.
Or I almost scream. It comes out like a kind of strangled yelp as I whirl around in full-on attack mode, hands flailing and ready to hit. Pain ricochets through my wrist as I connect with something, a nose, judging by the grunt from my assailant, but I barely have time to feel victorious as I lose my footing on the wet pavement slabs beneath me. My right foot slides in front as I hit the back of the well with anoomph, and for one stomach-dropping moment, I teeter over the edge before I’m jerked up, pulled not into the murky darkness below but straight into the broad, hard chest of a stranger.
Strong hands grip my shoulders, easing me back from where I’d faceplanted against his jacket, and I look up to see the dark-haired man from this morning peering down at me.
Callum.
His name pops into my mind at the same time I realize I’m clutching onto his coat like I’m holding on for dear life. The whole episode took about five seconds, but in those five seconds I went from weary calm to hyper-alert and my brain does not know what to do with that.
Move, I command as my body takes its sweet time connecting to my nervous system.Move. But I don’t. I don’t do anything and when a few moments pass and still nothing happens, Callum’s brow creases in concern.
“You okay?”
The sound of his voice is what does it, unblocking the weird barrier in my mind so that every instruction roars through me at once. As a result, I don’t so much let the man go as I do shove him away, scrambling to the side as I reach for the phone in my back pocket. Before he can so much as take a step, I switch on the torch, shining it right at him.
“Jesus,” he mutters, shielding himself from the light. “Are those things supposed to be that bright?”
“What are you doing here?”
“Losing my vision, apparently. Do you mind?” He squints my way, and I reluctantly lower my weapon, angling it so it’s no longer blinding him but still illuminating the space enough that I can make him out in the dark. Not to be all small-town stereotype, but it’s rare to have someone not from here roaming about, especially in the middle of a power cut. Not to mention that the man is dressed for skulking. Dark jeans, dark winter coat, dark beanie pulled low over his head. Almost like he’s—
“Ow.”
I flash the phone back in his direction as he steps forward and he immediately rears back, his palms shooting up as though to prove his innocence.
“I thought country people were supposed to be friendly.”
“Not in the middle of the night to men they don’t know.”
“We met this morning,” he says. “And I just saved you from falling down a well.”
“I wouldn’t have fallen down the well.”
“That’s sure what it looked like.”
I move the phone to my other hand, registering a slight twinge before remembering what happened. “I hit your nose.”
“You broke my nose.”
