Once Upon a Matchmaker by Marie Ferrarella Page B

investigators that Tracy’s firm utilized whenever they needed to do a background check on a client or gather details necessary for a case.
    Tracy knew she would need more than a little help in cracking the technology involved in Donovan Defense’s allegations against her client so she put in a call to Jewel early the following morning. Since the nature of the charges being levied against Micah involved treason, she decided it was best not to discuss anything about the case over the phone.
    Though she hesitated for a moment, Jewel finally agreed to come to the office that morning.
    “But it’ll practically be a drive-by,” Jewel warned. “I’m up to my ears in cases, interesting ones for a change,” she told Tracy. The situation, they both knew, was in sharp contrast to the days when the bulk of her work revolved around tailing cheating spouses and capturing compromising photos for divorce proceedings.
    “Don’t worry, I promise I won’t keep you long,” Tracy told her.
    “You might not even be able to keep me short,” Jewel cracked. “I’m meeting my one and only for lunch.” Tracy could almost hear the smile in Jewel’s voice as she said, “He insisted. Between his work and mine, we’re like two ships in the night, except that we’re hardly even passing each other. We just seem to be sailing off in opposite directions.”
    “One of you needs to rework your schedule,” Tracy suggested. “From the little bit I know of your husband, he’s much too good a catch to throw back into the sea. He wouldn’t be there five minutes before some other woman would get her hooks into him.”
    “Said the woman who never dates,” Jewel commented, laughing softly. And then she immediately held up her hands, as if anticipating Tracy’s next words, even though Tracy had no way of seeing her. “I know, I know, it’s like the pot calling the kettle black—but I’m a reformed ‘pot.’ I’d give up this gig in a heartbeat if keeping it meant losing Christopher, not to mention losing Joel.”
    Joel was her husband’s orphaned nephew and the reason the two of them had met in the first place. Christopher had hired Jewel to find Joel’s absentee father when his sister had died suddenly. When Jewel finally located the man, Joel’s father wanted nothing to do with his son. By then, Christopher had formed a bond with the boy and readily adopted him. As a bonus—to himself—he added Jewel to the mix as his wife.
    Tracy had met Christopher and Joel at her firm’s last Christmas party. Seeing them, she couldn’t help thinking that they made a really nice family. That in turn had aroused such longing within her that it had taken her a while to lock down her emotions and tuck them away again. It did no good to long for something she wasn’t destined to have.
    “Understood,” Tracy replied, then requested, “Just get here whenever you can.”
    “I’ll see what I can do,” Jewel promised just before she terminated the connection.
    * * *
    “Treason?” Jewel repeated incredulously some ninety minutes later in Tracy’s office after the latter had given her a thumbnail sketch of the case. “And here I thought you lawyers led a pretty boring existence,” she deadpanned.
    “Boring’s good,” Tracy told her. “Boring I can win.” She shifted in her chair, fidgeting slightly. “This case has me nervous.”
    “Well, that’s a first,” Jewel observed. And then she leveled a look at the other woman. “Wait, is it the case that has you nervous—or the guy?”
    Both.
    The response popped up, unbidden, in her head, surprising Tracy. Where had that come from? And why was Jewel asking her this?
    To forestall any more probing, personal queries, she ignored the question and said, “He has two little boys—ages four and five. I’m taking the case because I’d hate to have them grow up seeing their father only on visiting day.”
    Jewel nodded. Obviously Tracy and she responded to the same kind of stimuli. “I see