An Unexpected Match Read Online Free Page A

feel Mrs. Warren’s gaze on her, but she couldn’t bring herself to look at her. Beyond tomorrow’s chores, she didn’t know what she would do next. She realized that she needed to carve out a new life for herself now, a focused life, but how could she find it when she didn’t know what she wanted?
    â€œOkay, what’s my job?” Matthew asked as he leaned forward, bracing his forearms on the table.
    â€œHang around and nod your head a lot,” Jenna supplied.
    Caroline looked up from her list. “You could check off chores on the list while the rest of us do the jobs.”
    â€œOr,” Amy paused for effect before adding, “you could tag along while Caroline talks with the caterer.”
    Matthew shot a frown his mother’s way, but then he turned back to the others.
    â€œWhat is this? I thought you were all evolved, twenty-first-century women, and here you are applying a double standard by saying a man wouldn’t know his way around wedding plans. I’ll have you know that I plan the music for all the weddings at our church, and no one ever complains.”
    â€œThen what do you want to do?” Jenna asked.
    â€œI don’t know.” He hesitated, as if he’d just realized what he’d gotten himself into. “I can handle anything as long as it doesn’t involve frilly dresses or makeup.”
    Caroline glanced down at her list and then at Matthew again. “You could help repackage the gifts for return.”
    He turned to Haley. “You have to return the gifts?”
    â€œThat’s how it works,” Haley said.
    â€œShe doesn’t have to return mine.” Caroline crossed her arms over her chest. “Single women can use blenders, too.”
    Matthew was grinning over Caroline’s feminist perspective when he turned back to her youngest sister. “You don’t need to open Caroline’s gift since she gave away the surprise. It’s a blender.”
    â€œIt is not,” Caroline insisted, but everyone laughed again, anyway.
    Haley even chuckled this time, the light feeling in her chest offering another surprise in a day chock-full of them. She’d planned to be at her rehearsal dinner tomorrow night. Surprise. She’d expected that the details in her life would be neatly in order by Saturday afternoon. Surprise. And now she’d discovered that with the support of family and these friends, she might someday have more reasons to laugh again.
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    The two families were working together to clear away dishes as they’d done so many times over the years when Amy Warren cornered her son in the kitchen.
    â€œI have a better idea for something you can do to help Haley,” she told him.
    He lowered an armload of half-empty platters on the counter. “What’s that? And don’t tell me it’s by going out with a certain sister of hers, either.”
    â€œI have no idea what you’re talking about.”
    â€œMother,” he said in a warning tone.
    â€œWe’ll worry about that later.” Glancing at the door separating the kitchen from the dining room, she gestured for him to come closer to the sink. She spoke in hushed tones. “You can kill two birds with one stone. You need a child-care provider, at least a temporary one, and Haley needs a job.”
    Matthew was shaking his head before the plan was out of her mouth. He felt badly for only thinking of his own problems when Haley was having a crisis, and he’dwanted to help her in some way, but this wasn’t it. “You’re not serious.”
    â€œOf course, I am.”
    â€œBut this is Haley Scott we’re talking about.” Haley, whose résumé was too long to fit on one page, and not in a good way. Haley, who switched college majors and jobs as often as other people changed clothes. But he said only, “I don’t think that’s a good idea. And besides, I still have a few candidates left