Burned in Broken Hearts Junction: A Cozy Matchmaker Mystery (Cozy Matchmaker Mystery Series) by Meg Muldoon

stepping in between me and Lawrence.
    I looked up at her, noticing she was wearing a nurse jacket dotted with little kittens in raincoats. She had a lukewarm smile on her face, and I could read suspicion in her eyes. She glanced down at the jacket spread out awkwardly across the table.
    “Hi, Belle,” I said. “How are you today?”
    I gave her my best nothing-to-see-here grin.
    “Just fine. Dear me, what happened to your eye, Loretta?”
    I glanced at Lawrence, who had his most well-behaved, respectable face on.
    “Ah, just a hazard of my job at The Cupid,” I said, playing it cool.  
    “Well, you ought to be more careful, dear,” she said, glancing over at Lawrence. “Mr. Halliday, it’s time that you have your medication.”
    Lawrence sighed.
    “Are you sure about that, darlin’?” he said.  
    “Mighty sure,” she said, glancing at her wrist watch.
    “Well, Loretta, looks like I’m in popular demand,” he said. “But don’t get jealous of me and Belle here. Despite what it looks like, we’re just good friends. Isn’t that right, Belle?”
    “If you say so, Mr. Halliday,” she said, grabbing the handles of his chair.
    Lawrence winked at me.
    “Don’t let this old man get fresh with you,” I said, glancing up at her. “You know that he’ll try.”
    She cracked a smile like she wasn’t used to it.
    “Oh, believe me,” she said. “All the girls on the staff know all about old Lawrence Halliday.”
    I smiled back.
    Belle wasn’t a bad sort at all. The residents in this place just gave her a bad rap.  
    She started wheeling him away, but he put his hand up to stop her for a sec.
    He turned around to look back at me.
    “Uh, I meant to ask,” he said. “You, uh, you hear anything from my grandson, Bitters?”
    I looked out the window, trying to think how best to answer the question.
    I wanted to lie to him. Tell Lawrence that I had heard from him. Tell him that he was doing great in Austin. That he’d be back to visit him soon. That he loved and missed his grandfather.
    But I knew that Lawrence was old enough and smart enough to see through any lies I might tell.
    “No,” I said. “I haven’t heard from Jacob in a little while.”
    His face fell a little, and Anabel wheeled him away across the cafeteria room, leaving me with a half-full pink box of donuts and a sinking feeling in my gut.
    I wished I was a better liar.
     

 
    Chapter 14
     
    As I was leaving the old folks home, I got a text message from Dale, asking me to come to work early.
    He had some nerve sending me a text like that after the disappearing act he pulled the night before. But me, being a better employee than he or Courtney deserved, headed over to The Cupid anyway.
    I had become a bartender for two reasons. The first was that it worked perfectly with my matchmaking gifts, back when that sort of thing mattered to me. The bar was the number one place where people came to when they were looking for love. True, most weren’t looking for their soulmate when they sidled up next to a stranger and bought them a drink. They were looking for something a little more immediate. But still, the main thing was that they were looking. And that always made my life easier when I didn’t have to do too much convincing.
    The other reason I became a bartender was because I loved music. Especially the kind that The Cupid used to be known for. And because I couldn’t carry a tune to save my life, and I was wholly uncoordinated when it came to playing a guitar or other instrument for that matter, I settled on becoming a full-time music appreciator-slash-bartender-slash-matchmaker as my profession.
    But between my own love life troubles, and Dale’s poor management skills, I was beginning to wonder whether or not I shouldn’t find something else to do with myself other than tending bar in the middle of nowhere, listening to bad music acts.  
    And the things that Raymond were saying about me finding a more respectable line of work were