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“You don’t knowher.”
I tossed my hands up, laying the napkin down on the table beside the plate. Where the hell was that waitress? “Fine. You win. Your life is really hard, and you deserve all of this. Is that what you want to hear?”
“I want you to fix it,” Vanessa snapped.
“How the hell am I supposed to fix this?” I asked. My sister wasn’t just distraught. She was insane. “I can’t do anything to change this. I have my own problems to worry about.”
“Right. Saving the world. So hard,” Vanessa said. “You chose to be a firefighter. It’s not my fault your life has no stability.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. A flash of red caught my attention, and I quickly recognized our waitress from across the way. I flagged her down like a man dying from dehydration on the side of the road on a desert highway. If I flapped my arms any faster, I probably would have even flown a few inches up into the air.
“Check, ma’am. Please,” I said. When the waitress nodded, I added, “Bless you.”
Vanessa sighed across from me. “Look, I’m just upset is all. I know you’ve been worried about finding someone, but it isn’t necessary to get married just because you’re taking over for Daddy.”
It wasn’t just that.
I made a promise. To my father, to myself.
This family was already in such a state of confusion and chaos lately. And Lord knows me working in one of the most dangerous professions in the country wasn’t helping my mother with finding stability in her own life. If something were to happen to me, Vanessa would be left to pick up the slack. And seeing that she’d just admitted to waiting for someone to die for money, it wasn’t likely my sister would turn into Mother Teresa overnight.
“It’s fine, Vanessa,” I said finally. “I’ll take care of it on my own.”
“I mean, your biggest problem is finding someone because of the hours you work, right?” she asked, to which I only shrugged. “You know what you want; it’s just a matter of finding the right fit. So, why don’t I just place you with one of our matchmakers and have them set you up with someone?”
“Isn’t that for, like, rich people?”
Vanessa waved a dismissive hand out in front of her. “We have a whole range of clients. My point is, you aren’t really picky at this point. You just want to find a moderately attractive woman who is content with your schedule and family-oriented. Which is what the service is all about. We take out the whole drama of passion and romance and just get down to what people really want, someone to build their life with.”
“That doesn’t sound right.” Wasn’t passion and romance supposed to be a part of the equation? How could you spend the rest of your life with someone without it?
“You’re looking for a companion. Like Kyle and I,” Vanessa explained, slipping into her business facade with ease. She regarded me already like a client, rather than her brother. The girl was all business. Always had been. No wonder she imagined love to be a secondary feature to marriage.
“We complete each other. We are there for each other, and we support each other,” she continued. “That’s what marriage is all about. Having someone who understands you and helps you achieve your goals, like a friend.”
“And why can’t passion play into that?”
“Because it doesn’t last,” she said. “It’s an illusion. Happy marriages are based on much more than love and sexual connections.”
Well, this just kept getting worse and worse. “So, I’m not supposed to love the person I’m going to marry?”
“It’s a different kind of love. Kind of like an arranged marriage,” Vanessa explained. “It’s more like you learn to love them, or a friend and family type of love.”
Where the hell was the waitress? “I don’t think this sounds right for me.”
Vanessa held up her hands in surrender. “Fine. I’m just trying to help. You could just try it and see what happens.”
Another flash of red, and I instantly drew my gaze to the source. Please be the waitress. Anything to end this conversation.
Not the waitress. Not even close.
I could do nothing but stare at the woman across from me.
She was beautiful, every last bit as lovely as the night I’d pulled her out of the burning house. Only now, no ash covered her cheeks. Every strand of her flawless blonde hair fell into place like perfection. She was wholly put together, all vulnerability gone, and that blazing, fiery temper apparent in every step she took. And yet, I still could not decide which image I liked better.
The sudden spike in my pulse reminded me how much I wanted this woman. The woman who was now only a few yards away from me. She entered the building beside ours. A pastry shop. I could hop over there, ask her a few questions, then be back to pay the bill.
“So, I’ll set you up for Monday,” Vanessa said, though I had no idea what she was talking about.
