Read ENCORE PERFORMANCE (THE MATCHMAKER TRILOGY) Online
Authors: Bernadette Marie
She was gone when he woke the next morning. That
wasn’t really a surprise. However, when he got downstairs
he found Katie and Sophia having a cup of coffee in the
kitchen. He turned his mouth up into a smile that felt
forced.
“He rises.” Sophia smiled and crossed the kitchen to
pour him a cup of coffee. She handed it to him. “You look
like you could use this. You always were a late sleeper.”
“Yes, but that doesn’t seem to bode well in this
house.”
“No, Carissa has been gone for hours. Left for a run.
She looked a bit frazzled,” Sophia added, and he didn’t
miss the motherly concern in her voice.
“I’ll bet she did.” He took a long sip of the hot coffee
and let it warm his throat, which was sore from all the
talking he’d done the night before, and no doubt the
screaming he’d done in his sleep.
He sat down next to Katie, then stretched to give her a
kiss on the cheek. “What are you two doing here?”
She was sitting in a wheelchair and he knew that
couldn’t have made her happy, but he’d never have known
it from the look on her face.
“I missed my house, dammit. I’ve lived here since I
was born, and I missed it.” There was a tear in her eye and
Thomas placed his hand over hers.
“Carissa misses you something awful too. I’m sure if
you wanted to come home . . .”
“I’m not coming home, but I damn well am going to
come visit.” She gave a regretful nod. “I’m old, Thomas. I
fell and I fell hard. I’m not dumb enough to think I should
still be here.”
“Carissa and I are here for you.”
“Thank you.” She patted his hand and held it there,
over hers. “You two have each other and something tells
me you have a lot to figure out with that one. You certainly
don’t need me in the way.”
Thomas nodded. He’d really screwed up, telling her
about his family. He wished he hadn’t, but what was he to
do when he’d screamed in the night and shaken like a
scared child? There was so much more he hadn’t told her.
How he had changed. What he’d become. Why he couldn’t
give into his feelings for Carissa. He’d realized this
morning that he had to make her understand he wasn’t a
man she could love. She could trust him to be her friend
and to help her with the dream of running her school.
However, no matter how she felt, or how he felt about her,
he couldn’t let her love him the way she wanted to. It just
wasn’t going to be fair to her.
Sophia’s stare caught him.
“She’s at the school helping David with the drywall.
They passed the electrical inspection.”
“It’s going so quickly.”
“David had some time off. He decided to take it and
get done what he could before he had to leave again. He
seems to think if she can get her doors open before
Christmas then some students could start during their
winter break.”
“That would be a good idea.” Thomas finished his
coffee and set his cup in the sink. “Maybe I’ll go down
there and see if they need some help.”
“Grandma.” Sophia stood. “I’m going to walk Thomas
out. I’ll be right back.”
Katie nodded. “If Carissa gets some time in the next
couple days, have her come see me.”
“I’m sure she’ll make it over this evening, and if not,
tomorrow morning. You haven’t been gone too long, but
she sure misses you.”
“I miss her too.”
Not having Katie at dinner on Sunday night had been
obviously painful to each of them even though they’d gone
on and made the best of it. But Thomas had lived his life
mourning a family and certain members of it. He knew
Katie, though she was just across town, was missed and it
was going to take a while to get used to the idea that she
wasn’t in the house, her television shows were not heard
from the living room, and her cups of medicine weren’t in
the cupboard.
Sophia walked out to the car as she said she would,
without a word, but Thomas knew her well enough to know
what she was thinking.
“I broke her heart,” he offered, and she nodded.
“Sophia, there is so much I just can’t give.”
“I thought all those years away from home, you would
have learned that loneliness isn’t a way of life.”
He snorted a laugh. “I agree.”
“When did you stop drinking?” He turned his head
with a snap. Her expression was neutral. “I’ve noticed,
Thomas.”
He swallowed hard. “Let’s say it got a bit out of
control. I had to fix it.”
“Then you should be able to fix the rest. She fell in
love with you the moment she saw you.”
“She told you that?”
“I may not have given birth to her, but I am her
mother. And she has secrets too. Maybe you should
compare stories and you’ll find they aren’t too different.”
She walked away and left him wondering what Carissa’s
story was and why Sophia would want a man like him to
love her daughter.
She caught Thomas’s eye before he even had the car in
park. She was on a ladder, her father only feet away on
another. Her hair was pulled up high atop her head in a
ponytail, and a tool belt dangled from her hips. Damn, she
was sexy.
His heart was already racing as he climbed from the
car and neared the front door of the school. It was wide
open. The October chill hadn’t slowed the Kendals down.
The entire school was almost dry-walled.
“Thank God!” David hollered when he saw Thomas
walk in. “I was just telling Carissa if we had one more set
of hands we could have this damn thing done by dinner.”
He was smiling, but his daughter was still looking at the
wall.
David finished drilling the screws into his side of the
board. He walked his hands across the wallboard to keep it
in place before handing Carissa the drill. She drilled in the
to finish the area they were working on. She slowly started
down the ladder and David looked over at Thomas.
“I think she’s a natural at this. Maybe you should go
into remodeling work instead.” Carissa gave him a shake of
her head, and David laughed. “Well, I’m going to run down
the street and get a couple waters. Need anything else?” he
asked, but she shook her head again silently.
Carissa dusted her hands against her pants and wiped
the dust from her forehead. She looked up at Thomas
watching her, studying her.
Thomas shook his head and gave a forced smile. “Your
mom said you passed your electrical inspection.”
“Uh-huh.”
“What time do you start students?”
“Four.”
“What time are you done?”
“Eight.”
“Want to go to dinner after?”
“Thomas, why are you even bothering?” She rolled her
eyes and dropped her shoulders.
“Carissa, this isn’t how I want things. I didn’t mean to
hurt you by the things I told you about my life.”
She held up her hand. “That’s not what bothered me.”
Walking toward the back of the school, she pulled the belt
off her hips and set it on a folding chair.
“Carissa, I never meant to upset you. It’s too much to
take in. I understand that. It’s not like I want you to worry
about my past. You have a school to build and . . .” Carissa
watched his eyes shift as he looked around the room.
He’d noticed the covered piano in the corner. “You got
the piano?”
“Yeah, Mom talked the school into donating it.
Imagine that.” She wiped the back of her hand over her
brow then looked up at him. “Go ahead.”
“Really?” His lips broke into a thin smile.
“Yeah.”
Before she could even help him, he had the cover off,
the stool down, and he’d started to play. She could see him
wince once in a while when a note wasn’t just right, but she
knew he’d fix that. He’d have the thing tuned in no time.
That would be good, she decided. It would give him
something else to think about.
He’d perfected his art and she now understood why.
He’d channeled his life into his music. Every beating he
ever took, every harsh word ever spoken to him, the life
that his father took away from in front of him filtered
through his fingertips and into the music that flowed from
the instrument. She was envious. She could make music,
even make other’s feel the song, but she couldn’t put
herself into a piece or even randomly string notes together
to play the melody that was in her heart.
David walked back through the school and handed her
a bottle of water. She thanked him with her eyes as they
both sat and listened to the musician play.
Whatever was in his head were the notes that he
played, not something he’d written or any piece she’d ever
heard. It was what was in him. She almost felt a pang of
guilt trickle through her. She’d stolen him to teach music
and he should be giving the world his talent.
A bit of envy flowed with the guilt. She’d never be
good enough to play as he did. Her mother was, but not her.
It had never mattered. She liked what she did, but she did
envy raw talent like the one Thomas Samuel had.
It hit her at that moment she would give anything to
play with someone like Pablo DiAngelo just once. Just
once, to know what kind of power surged through a person
to be with others so talented.
Then the guilt and envy settled and determination
washed through her. There had to be a way to make him
learn to love. He deserved to love, and dammit, he deserved
to love her.
When he stopped, it took her and David a minute to
stop staring at him, mesmerized.
“I got a bit carried away,” he said, pushing his fingers
through his hair. “I tend to do that.”
David stood and handed him a bottle of water. “Sophia
used to do that too. So does this one,” he said, putting his
hand on Carissa’s shoulder and giving her a squeeze.
Thomas nodded. “Well, I didn’t come here to play, I
came to work. What do we need to do?”
“How do you feel about taping seams?”
Thomas’s brows knit in confusion, and David put his
arm around his shoulders and herded him toward the truck.
Thomas heard the whir of the drill as Carissa and
David anchored more wallboards to the beams. David had
given Thomas the specific job of taping the seams of the
walls they had finished, but he struggled to grasp the
concept of his new skill.
There wasn’t a lot of chatter between them. At two
thirty Carissa said she’d better get home and get ready for
her students.
“I’ll bring Thomas home in a little while,” David said.
“If we can just finish that last wall we’ll be ahead of the
game.”
“Okay, that will be fine. Can I have the keys to my
car?” She held out her hand and Thomas produced them
from his pocket. “Thank you.” Their fingers touched and
finally she looked him in the eye. Her cheeks were tear
streaked and her eyes were misty.
His heart slammed into his chest. Had she been crying
all day?
“Dinner when you’re done?” He lingered his fingers a
moment more.
“I’m pretty tired.”
“I’ll have dinner ready for you, then, when you’re
done.”
She nodded, kissed David on the cheek, and left the
two men in awkward silence.
David gave him the courtesy to have fifteen minutes of
manly grunts and the scraping sound drywall knives against
the boards as they mudded the seams before he asked, “So
what did the two of you fight about?”
Thomas was glad his feet were on solid ground and his
work up on the ladder was finished. He wouldn’t have
wanted to fall from the highest rung of a ladder to his ass
when David confronted him. “Just seems like we see things
differently, that’s all.”
“Yeah, her mother and I did that for a while too.”
Thomas nodded and continued following David’s lead
spreading drywall compound.
“What did you do? I mean while she was gone for so
long?” He was curious how a man waited ten years for the
woman he loved.
“I didn’t think about it, really. Autopilot, excuse the
pun.” He smiled and Thomas, still in his zone, only nodded.
“I had Carissa to raise and when she came to live with me
she was a handful. I sometimes wonder if Sophia had
stayed, if that would have driven her away anyway.”
“Carissa was that bad?” He couldn’t imagine.
“Not in her heart.” David found his bottle of water and
finished it off. He threw it into the trash can and settled his
hand on the tool belt, adjusting it on his hips. “She’s always
been a good kid, but she tested her boundaries. She wanted
to make sure finding me wasn’t a mistake. She was seven
years old and had been tossed around by her mother.
Finally she found me and she needed to know if I was just
going to toss her out too. As far as she knew, I’d already
kicked her to the curb.”
Thomas was bound to figure out what was wrong with
Carissa if he could just ask the right questions. But he’d
best tread lightly.
“Why didn’t you see her before she was seven? If her
mother was so bad, why didn’t you have custody of her?”
David laughed. “Sure as hell would have, had I known
she existed.”
And there was her issue with trust.
David continued. “Her mother told me she was
pregnant with her when she was five months along. Right
about the time she told me she was seventeen.” He blew out
a breath and shook his head in disgust. “Talk about
thinking with your dick.”
Thomas sucked in a fast breath, but David just
laughed.
“I was never that stupid again, I can guarantee you.”
He leaned against one of the walls. “She thought I’d marry
her on the spot, but that wasn’t what I wanted. If I was
going to be someone’s father, fine. I’d take that
responsibility. I played and now I pay, ya know?” he asked
as though he were testing Thomas.
Thomas nodded and hoped it was enough for David.
“Well, then she told me she lost the baby. She told me
she had many medical bills, and I was more than willing to
help with that. After all I was the one who did it to her, as
she kept reminding me.” He took off the belt and hung it
over a rung of the ladder. “After a few years I got wise.
Figured she’d had enough medical bills and I went on my
way. My aunt knew this girl.” His eyes lit up and he
smiled. “The first time I saw Sophia I fell in love.”
Then he laughed. “Well it was the second time, but my
heart flipped in my chest.”
David pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and ran it
over his face.
“I met her at Jeremy’s wedding. She was cute, but
young. Four years later, I was a pilot and she was the most
amazing musician I’d ever heard. She’d just auditioned for
the symphony. I proposed to her three weeks after we met.
She said no for three years.”
“Three years?”
“She couldn’t have her own children. She didn’t want
me to give that up. She felt like it was selfish to burden me
with that.”
“You didn’t feel that way?”
“Hell no. Sure, I’d like to have had my own child, who
doesn’t, but it didn’t matter. There were thousands of
children looking for homes. We could give a couple of
them a family.”
“She didn’t want Carissa when you found out about
her?”
“I’m sure you know Sophia well enough to know she’s
a little on the stubborn side.”
“Yeah,” he let out and then wanted to retract it, but
David had nodded in agreement “She left. She thought I’d
lied to her about having a child. Truth is she never stayed
around long enough to ask about her. She didn’t know I’d
had no idea Carissa existed. So for ten years I raised my
daughter and pined for Sophia.”
“What about her mother?”
“I took her in with Carissa. She needed more help than
Carissa did, and Sophia had fled. I didn’t take her back in a
romantic way, but I took her in. When Carissa was ten,
Mandy finally left. She’d wanted me to marry her and I
refused. She wanted me to get her a place of her own. I
refused. Then she tried to commit suicide by slitting her
wrists. Made a damn mess.”
“And then she left?”
“More or less. She told Carissa she’d hated her since
she’d been born and she was glad she had me to be a pain
in the ass for. Then she left.”
“No,” Thomas breathed. And there was another piece.
She had been told by a parent she wasn’t wanted. A parent
who had done nothing but hurt her.
Heat rose in his cheeks. It was hard for her to trust
because she hadn’t had that early in life. It was hard for her
to think anyone would ever stick around because those
she’d loved, or those who should have loved her, had left.
First her father and then her own mother had walked out.
And the scar! Oh, the bicycle accident had scarred her, but
he thought back to her expression when he’d first seen it.
No one believed her. He knew it.
“Carissa’s scar . . .”
“She wrecked on her bike, but anyone who had spent
the few years with her mother thought she’d tried to
commit suicide. A counselor at school nearly decided to
have her locked up.”
“But she crashed?”
“Yep. Hid those scars until Sophia came around. I
think they said they were warriors and they uncovered
them.”
“The school”—he was digging for information now—
“this is what she wants? This is what she’s always
wanted?”
David shrugged. “She’s talked about this since she
finished college. She’s a certified music teacher.” There
was pride in his smile. “But she wanted to take care of
Aunt Millie and Katie. I think she felt she owed it to them
to be with them.”
“Millie died shortly after you were married?”
“Her cancer came back. She was with us for two more
years. It hurt Carissa for a long time. Then she began
hovering over Katie, who doesn’t like it as much as Millie
did.”
“She’s afraid she’ll leave her too,” he whispered as if it
was an epiphany. “Didn’t she ever want to play
professionally?”
“Maybe once, but I think she was afraid to leave.
Afraid . . . well, I don’t know what she was afraid of. I
would always have been here when she got back.”
“Are we almost done?” Thomas unbuckled his tool
belt and looked around the school. No longer was it an
open space. It was taking form into small rooms just as
Carissa had envisioned.
He could identify the walls he’d taped and mudded.
They weren’t as neatly done as those David had done. But
he hadn’t stopped him, so he must have thought he could
work around his unhandy work.
“Sure. Let me get my things.”
Thomas nodded anxiously.
David threw his things into the car and started the
engine.
“She sure fell for you hard and fast.”
“What?”
“My daughter isn’t an easy sell. But in just over a
week, you’ve won her heart. She’s so in love with you it
makes
me
giddy.”
Thomas let out a deep, long breath. How could two
people have come from such messed-up lives and think
they could be good for each other? Neither one of them
trusted anyone fully. How were they going to make it work
between them if they couldn’t trust each other?
There just seemed something so right about them. He
and Carissa really did need each other. But he’d seen the
look in her eyes. He’d belittled her experiences by dwelling
on his own. It was selfish, but he’d fought it his entire life.
How could he possibly think he could love someone? And
now he wondered how she could possibly love him back.