Scoring a Holiday Match (Ebook)

TWO Mr. Match Novellas in ONE!

Story one: SCORING A HOLIDAY MATCH:

Rose Gonzalez is CEO of her own company and one-hundred percent fine without a man in her life. But her friend Tallulah—who is now running the popular Mr. Match website—sees it differently.

Rose agrees to meet the man the site has selected for her at the Jingle Bell Ball, mostly because the crab boat captain she’s being set up with could not possibly be her match. (★Even if he does look like a hot seafaring lumberjack.★)

Can one night of magic convince Rose that she’s met her match? And will her hero’s devotion to crabs get in the way?

♥♥ This story was featured in the USA Today Bestselling Jingle Balls Anthology.

Story two: SCORING WITH THE SURFER:

Tallulah Jeffries is the new "Mr. Match," and she's doing things her own way.

Tallulah: Nothing against Max Winchell. He’s the genius who created the site in the first place, and I’m not arguing that it worked for him.

But he put me in charge, and that means it’s time to put the fire back in matching. (See what I did there?)

Yeah, Max’s version was pretty by the book. People fill out the intake forms, the system parses them and does all that mathematical stuff Max was always going on about, and then it spits out matches based on statistical likelihood of agreement on various things. But there’s no wiggle room there. And I could be wrong, but I think making a love match is still something of an art. Maybe it’s just the woman’s perspective I’m bringing to it. Either way, I’m testing a new system. One with a little more human judgment applied.

It’s Tallulah Time. Welcome to Ms. Match. (Okay, I signed a legal document saying I wouldn’t change the name officially. But between you and me. Wink wink, nudge nudge.)

“Crabs, you say? Lu, that’s gonna be a hard pass for me.” 

“Okay, I did say crabs. But let me give you some context.” 

I sighed, settling into the deeply comfortable and very expensive office chair behind my desk. “Go on. Tell me about the man with crabs.” 

You could almost hear Tallulah gearing up for her hard sell on the other end of the line. She’d recently gotten involved with Mr. Match—the website every unmatched single person in the country was talking about, at least if they were trying to become un-single. I might have dropped a profile into the system six months or so ago, but I’d still heard nothing. Until now.

“So, he’s from Alaska, right? And OMG, Rose, this guy’s photo. He’s all mountain man and seafaring and lumberjacky with the beard and the flannel.” 

I sighed. “I don’t really see myself with a seafaring lumberjack. That’s probably why the system didn’t match us in the first place. Because we’re not a match. And what did you say about the crab thing?” 

“Right, he captains a crab fishing boat.” 

“Like Deadliest Catch?” 

“Exactly like that.” Lu added a squeal at the end of this, as if crab fishing was just that exciting. 

I was actually guilty of binge-watching that particular show, though I couldn’t have told you why. The guys did look tough, but a lot of them also looked like hard-living, low-level criminals. “I don’t think it would work out.” 

“You haven’t even met him yet. And the system almost did match you! As Ms. Match, it’s my job to quality check the matches we offer, and I just didn’t happen to agree with yours when it popped.” 

“Wait, that stupid computer finally found an actual match for me?” 

“Yes, but it was wrong.” 

I stood up. I had been pretending not to care much, acting as if seeing every single one of my friends get engaged, married, or at least sexed up on the regular didn’t bother me, but after thirty years of singlehood, I was ready. “How about I get to meet my actual match, and then if that doesn’t work out, we’ll try your runner up?” 

“He wasn’t actually the runner up either.” 

“How far down the list did the crab man fall?” 

“Sixth.” Lu sounded sad when she said this. 

“Why are you so dead set on me meeting this guy? Why not my actual match?” I paced around the front of my desk, staring out at the harbor beyond my office windows. 

“I have a feeling,” she said. “And I’m testing a theory.” 

“So, I’m a guinea pig.” 

“Look, can you just meet him? I’ve already set it all up for you. You just have to show up. In a cocktail dress, okay?” 

“That’s kinda fancy for a first date. Can’t we just do coffee?” 

“No. It’s a ball.” 

I sighed, hanging my head. Tallulah and I had been friends for a long time, but sometimes she was just . . . Exhausting. 

“A ball?” 

“The Jingle Bell Ball. Mr. Match is putting it on with the Sharks and the Stars, and there’ll be a whole bunch of matches meeting there, and all the proceeds go to testicular cancer. Do it for the balls, Rose.” 

“Two pro soccer teams and a bunch of people who are almost but not quite good matches meeting for the first time. What could possibly go wrong?” This was how it was. Lu wore me down every time she wanted something. And I always gave in. She was cute and convincing. Like a very tenacious prairie dog. 

“So you’re in?” 

“Fine. When and where?” 

She gave me the details and we hung up, just as my office door swung open. 

“Boss?” PJ, my assistant, stumbled through the door, looking uncertain as ever. His shirt was rumpled, and I was pretty sure he’d mismatched the buttons because his collar was awkwardly lopsided. 

“What’s up, PJ?”

“So there’s this thing . . .”

“What kind of thing?” I should never have agreed to hire my partner’s nephew to be my assistant. 

“So, like, a guy called, right? And he says the server crashed and so their entire system is down, and he like, he thinks it was our software, and so like, there’s lawyers and stuff he’s calling, and—”

“Can you just put me through to this guy please? I’ll figure it out.” I walked back around my desk and sat as PJ nodded his assent and disappeared. Odds were fifty-fifty he’d accidentally put me through to the place he usually ordered our sandwiches from. 

My extension beeped and I picked it up. “Putting you through now to Kenneth Ellis at Calico Solutions.” 

That was almost professional. Maybe PJ wasn’t so hopeless. 

Someone picked up on the other end: “Hello, you’ve reached the Fun Dungeon, San Diego’s hottest underground social club, this is Maddie.” 

Oh lord. “Wrong number, sorry.” I did not want to know what PJ did in his off hours. 

I hung up and then redialed Calico Solutions. Kenneth Ellis had been a pain in the ass for as long as my company had been selling security solutions to his. I almost hoped he’d try to sue us and then just go away. But that would probably be bad for business. 

“Kenneth, hello,” I said when he picked up. “It’s Rose Gonzalez, CEO of Airlock Security Solutions?” 

I listened to Kenneth whine, rocking back and forth in my chair. It was the usual stuff. His own IT team was a mess, and I often sent my guys to fix their systems so that ours could be properly integrated. As he went on at great length, my cell phone lit up on my desk with a message from Lu. 

And a photo . . . 

Of the hottest man I’d ever laid eyes on. He had a dark beard, a head of cropped dark hair, and penetrating eyes that were almost black. A tiny scar cut across one eyebrow, and the lips, which were curved up in a sexy half-smile, were full and sensuous. His nose, which had clearly been broken once or twice, was long and proud, and something about his entire expression made me feel like he was staring straight at me. I felt a blush hit my cheeks and then I blushed harder as I considered how ridiculous it was that I was actually becoming shy in front of a photograph. 

Another text popped up beneath the photo. “Crab man.” 

I realized, maybe too late, I’d agreed to meet the guy without ever getting his real name.

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