A Very Merry Matchup

Prologue

Twas three months before Christmas and all through the hospital, not a patient was sleeping, not even Ivy s patient Beau

Ivy

Dear Ivy,

I was hoping to see you again before I headed back to Iowa, but unfortunately I had to get on the road sooner than expected.

Anyway, just wanted to say thank you SO MUCH for all the wonderful care you ve given Beau. I ll always credit you as the nurse who saved his life. (I know you re shaking your head right now, but you did save his life. YOU DID! Plus you saved mine.)

When that doctor came out to the waiting room that first night to tell me Beau had stroked out the entire right side of his brain, my heart stopped.

Absolutely stopped! If you hadn t rushed out to the waiting room when you did to explain that the doctor had mixed up his patients, I can assure you that it never would ve restarted again either.

I suppose looking back I should have suspected something was off when the doctor asked me if I was Beau s daughter.

I like to think at fifty-six years old I still look good for my age, but having a twenty-seven-year-old for a father would be quite the stretch, wouldn t it?

Obviously I wasn t thinking straight that night.

(And neither was the doctor!) But what are the odds that there would be two patients named Beau on the unit at the same time, one of them over a hundred years old?

(Now I m wondering if I should be offended the doctor assumed I was that patient s daughter.

If he was delivering bad news, couldn t he at least have tried softening the blow by asking if I was this extremely elderly patient s granddaughter?)

Anyway Ivy, I just wanted to say how absolutely grateful everyone in the family is for you... and remind you once again how absolutely single Beau is...

So single. So very single. And so very handsome, too, wouldn t you say? (I know you re shaking your head again, but I bet you re also smiling right now, aren t you?)

Now if I understood right, you said your travel contract at this hospital ends sometime in December.

So I was thinking that if you don t have plans for Christmas (I m sure you do, but you can t blame a mother for trying) you should come visit us in Nolly Grove, Iowa.

We d love to have you. Especially since you re pretty much already a town celebrity for saving Beau s life.

(Shake your head all you want, but you did! You totally did!)

I wrote our address and my phone number below if you need it. (Fingers crossed that you ll need it!) I ve been praying for years that Beau would bring a special girl home for Christmas. Maybe this is the year!

All my love,

Cecelia Wall (Beau s mom and your hopefully someday mother-in-law)

After skimming over the address, I lower the letter in my hands, unable to hide a small smile as I meet Beau s blue-eyed gaze peering back at me from his hospital bed. I m starting to think your mom loves me more than my own mother does.

What can I say? You leave an impression.

Yeah? Well, so does Beau Wall. As a six-foot-four Minor League baseball player who looks like a young Robert Redford straight out of my grandma s all-time favorite movie The Natural , how could he not?

Impressions aside, he s definitely not what I m looking for, even if his mother is doing a stellar job at wooing me.

Good thing I remembered to give you that note, says Beau, tugging his neck brace away from his square jaw. Mom said she d kill me if I forgot.

And I m going to kill you if you don t stop messing with that neck brace.

For being an innocent patient, I feel like I m getting an awful lot of death threats here.

I fold up the letter from Beau s mom and place it in the back pocket of my scrub pants as I fight a giant yawn and try to remember why I came into Beau s room in the first place.

Problem is, at three in the morning I have trouble remembering anything —like why I took on a travel contract that requires working night shift hours in a hospital outside of Chicago when I need sunlight and sleep to feel human.

Or why I already agreed to work extra shifts every week until this contract ends.

Ugh. How is this my life right now?

After rubbing my tired eyes a couple seconds, I snap my fingers and point at his monitor, finally remembering why I came into Beau s room. One of your tele leads came off.

And I suppose I remember why I took on this terrible night shift contract for thirteen weeks too.

Because I promised my best friend Lucy that I d take Christmas off, my first Christmas off in eight years, so I could spend it with her and her family down in Bugle, Tennessee.

This travel job ends at just the right time.

Pays great too. I m doing this for Lucy.

Lucy.

My gaze snaps to Beau, taking in his shaggy blond hair, good-natured grin, athletic build, and all-around aura of charm as I adjust the blood pressure cuff around his muscled bicep.

Why didn t I think of this right away? My matchmaker instincts obviously don t function at full capacity on night shift either.

I just realized I know the perfect girl for you.

About time you figured it out.

She s a nurse named Lucy.

Hmmm. He s peering back at me with the brightest blue eyes I ve ever seen on a man and a deep dimple creasing his right cheek. Jeez Louise, he s cute. Lucy s going to gobble him up. Sure you don t mean a nurse named Ivy?

You two will be perfect together, I say, ignoring his last comment.

I know these things. Matchmaking is in my blood.

I did an ancestry project back in high school and discovered not one, but two, official matchmakers in my genealogy pool.

I ve been setting couples up since middle school.

I could name at least sixteen couples just off the top of my head who are married because of me.

I can feel his blue eyes watching me as I unsnap the sleeves of his gown to figure out which lead isn t picking up. Lucy worked as a phlebotomist before she became a nurse. Trust me, she s going to take one look at your veins and fall head over heels.

If good veins aren t the foundation for everlasting love, I don t know what is. But what about you?

Me? I continue searching for the missing lead. His chest and abdomen have the classic seat belt sign. Bruises and contusions in the pattern of a seat belt from when it locked on him during his recent car accident. The bruises I don t mind. It s the muscles I m trying hard to ignore.

I don t see a ring on your finger, Beau says, his voice much too soft and close to my ear. Does that mean the matchmaker needs help finding her own match?

It means I already know my perfect match. Which is why I ve got a plan and I m sticking to it. There. Red lead has come unclipped. I clip it back in place, then twist to make sure the green wave for his heart rate reappears on the monitor.

Tell me the plan. I need a distraction.

It s three in the morning. You need sleep. We all need sleep.

But since this conversation is the most awake I ve felt all night, I tug a chair closer to his bedside and sit. Fine. My plan is to work like a dog in my twenties. Marry a nice man in my thirties. Then settle down to raise a few kids while I work as a school nurse until I retire.

Does this future husband of yours have to meet any certain criteria other than being nice?

He needs to be a teacher. That way we ll have the same work schedule, plus all our evenings, weekends, and summers free to be with the kids.

What happens when you fall in love with me first?

I blast out a short trumpet laugh. To semi-quote one of my favorite literary heroines, You, Beau Wall, are the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed upon to marry.

Ever? Ouch. What have you got against baseball players?

Not just baseball players. All athletes. My dad coaches football, my brother plays hockey. Trust me when I say I don t want anything to do with athletes or the lifestyle that comes with it. Give me a teacher any day.

Even a teacher with bad veins?

His work schedule will make up for his poor vasculature system, I m sure.

It s the neck brace, isn t it? You don t think I can kiss adequately without any neck rotation.

Here s Lucy s contact information. I grab the menu off Beau s bedside table so I can write her name and number down. Time to get out of here so I can do some charting—and not think about Beau s capability in the kissing department.

I think you d be surprised what I can do with my lips even while my neck is immobilized. He apparently wants me to keep thinking about his capability in the kissing department.

I scribble faster. Call her. She s just your type. And your mom is going to absolutely adore her too. In fact I may just go ahead and send his mom a little text later simply saying I ve got a good feeling her prayers are going to be answered this Christmas.

Beau frowns at the menu I shove into his hands. Before I can escape out the door, he says, Wait, wait, wait. Let s make a deal. How about I agree to call up your friend Lucy if you agree to promise me one thing first?

I m not promising anything, but I m listening.

When you fall in love with me—

And now I m done listening. I turn for the door.

Hey, hey, hey. Hear me out or I m taking this collar off.

I fold my arms and hit him with my best you-better-not expression.

All I want is for you to promise that when you fall in love with me, you ll scrap your plan about only marrying a teacher.

I m not scrapping the plan. Marrying a teacher has been the plan since I came up with it in middle school.

Since my parents divorced. Since I vowed I d never have anything to do with athletes, sports, or unreliable work schedules when it comes to my future husband.

Beau, listen to me. There s no way I m falling in love with you, because there s no way I would ever even date you.

His ridiculously wide shoulders shrug. Then it sounds like you shouldn t have any problem agreeing to my condition. He holds out his hand for me to shake on it.

I stare at his hand. Why do I feel like there s a catch? There can t be a catch. I m not interested in athletes. I m not interested in dating at all until after I turn thirty in another couple years. I have a plan, and Beau Wall is not part of that plan.

But if this is what it takes for him to call Lucy and for me to get another matchmaking-success-story notch on my belt, which I m not going to lie, has turned into one of my greatest joys in life, then fine.

I step forward and slide my hand into his, meeting his blue-eyed gaze. Lucy is going to love him. And soon, he ll love Lucy.

I ve been trying to find Lucy s perfect match for years. I would ve sworn her last boyfriend was the one, but now I can see that it s Beau. How could he not be? He s everything a girl could want.

I mean, everything a girl like Lucy could want. Obviously a girl like me doesn t want Beau.

I realize we re still holding hands when his right dimple deepens and he says, You re totally copping a feel of my hand veins right now, aren t you?

I drop his hand. Because I totally was.