She looked at him dumbly. "You have a hard time focusing, don't you?"

"Not at all. What you're telling me is that I need a name that's uniquely mine."

"Exactly."

"Any suggestions?"

"It's all about emotion," she said. "Your name needs to reflect that. Put yourself in the position of somebody who's looking for their soul mate."

Well, there was something he had no idea how to relate to. "I'm drawing a blank."

"Think about how relationships feel in the beginning. There's that whisper of love in the air. That sense of hope. That tiny little tug on the heartstrings. That feeling that this person just might be the one."

Now he really felt like a fraud. How was he supposed to sell the prospect of love everlasting when the longest relationship he'd ever had consisted of a threeday weekend in Vegas?

Suddenly Alison smiled and snapped her fingers. "That's it."

"What?"

"That's your new name. Heartstrings."

"Huh?"

"It has all kinds of positive connotations. You'll need a good tagline, but it's something you can work with."

"Wrapping people in strings? Sounds like you're trapping them."

"People come to you because they want to be trapped. They want to be wrapped up in soft, fuzzy little strings from their heart to their soul mate's heart. That name could be good. It could be great."

But Brandon wasn't convinced. "Sounds kind of...I don't know. Weak?"

"Well, I suppose you could call it Brandon's Great Big House of Burning Love. How's that work for you?"

He grinned. "Now you're talking."

"Men. God." She shifted around on the swing to face him, talking with her hands now. "Listen to me. It's not weak. It's gentle. Big difference. You have to think how people who want to fall in love think. They want to feel the warmth and safety of a relationship. They want to feel the soft, comforting touch of a partner, that one person on earth who will always be there for them. And not just women, though they're the only ones who'll admit it. Guys, too. That's what they're looking for."

She spoke with such passion that he knew the words came straight from her heart. She wasn't only telling him what women in general wanted. She was also telling him what she wanted.

"So are we going with Heartstrings?" she asked.

He appreciated her help. Hell, he was dying for it. But what was she going to say in a few months when he bagged up all the profits from this business and hit the road for Houston?

It didn't matter. He needed new clients, and Alison was a pro who was willing to help him get them. He'd be out no cash because he was comping her fee, and she swore to him that a free press release would be far more effective than expensive advertising. So what else was there to think about?

Maybe the fact that he was being just a little bit dishonest.

Then again, so what if he closed his business in a few months? He'd traded her even up, hadn't he? His services for hers? This was business. Nothing more.

"Heartstrings it is," he told her. "So tell me what this press release is going to say."

"You leave that to me. I'll run it past you before it goes out. And I'll need a photo of you to send along with it. I'm pretty good with a camera, so I can handle that. But you're also going to need a new logo to go with your new name so you look professional."

"But that'll cost me. I already told you I don't have money for that."

"All it will cost you is a box of Godiva chocolates. Can you handle that?"

"I don't get it."

"You don't have to. I'll take care of the rest. You're going to have all the business you could ask for."

"You'd do all this for me?" he asked.

"Hey, I'm not doing it for you. I'm doing it for me. If I can get you more people to practice on, maybe you'll get the hang of it before you match me up again."

He smiled. "No. You're doing it because you're a nice person who likes to help other people."

"So we're back to the nice girl thing again? I told you before. Men don't want that."

"The man you're looking for does."

"Then find him for me, will you? I'm not getting any younger." She sighed. "Let's just hope the next guy really is over his last love. I don't know if I can take another bout of hot sex in the ladies' room that I'm not participating in."

Just then, Jasmine strolled across the front porch and jumped up onto the swing. She put one paw on Alison's leg, then looked up at her.

"Oh, look at her!" Alison said. "She's such a sweet kitty. She actually asks if she can get into my lap." Alison scratched her behind her ears, and Jasmine plopped down. "She could teach my cats a thing or two about manners."

"Now, see?" Brandon said, smiling. "You need her."

"Oh, come on," Alison said. "You know you want this precious kitty."

Sooner or later he'd have to find her a new home. But how? She was his grandmother's cat after all. He couldn't just take her to a shelter.

He decided he'd worry about that when the time came.

"I'll need to write you a new check since you tore that one up," Brandon said.

"We'll settle up when I see you next. Give me two days, and I'll have everything ready to go." She smiled. "Don't worry. Things are going to work out just fine."

He believed that. He believed her when she said she knew what she was doing and could get him the clients he needed. The question was, could he hold up his end of the bargain and find her a husband?

After Alison left, Brandon grabbed a beer and came back out to the front porch, flipping off the light so he wouldn't draw bugs. He sat there a long time in the dark, sipping the beer, thinking about how he'd entered into this business with little more than the bare bones of a plan and a whole lot of audacity, thinking he'd get in, toss the dice on enough matches to get him the money he needed, and get out. But now for the first time, he was beginning to realize that the business he'd intended to bleed dry and then toss away just might be more important to people than he realized.

And there was something about Alison that made him want to give her the happily ever after she was dreaming of.

On Monday morning, Alison sidled up next to Lois's cubicle. As soon as Lois saw her, she poked her computer keyboard and closed the website she was looking at, as if everybody in the entire office didn't know she spent at least an hour a day on a Twilight fan forum.

"What do you want?" Lois said, pretending to concentrate on the Photoshop image that was now on her screen.

"I need a favor."

"I don't do favors."

"I need a logo."

"So hire a graphic artist."

"You're a graphic artist. The best graphic artist I know."

"Don't kiss my ass. You know how I feel about ass kissing."

"How about if we barter a little?"

Lois turned slowly back to face her. "What did you have in mind?"

Alison pulled out the unmarked sack and gave Lois a peek inside.

"Godivas?" Lois said in a panicked whisper. "You can't bring Godivas in here! That's like cheating on the company!"

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah! Somebody in accounting brought a sack of those mini Snickers bars to the office once and got an official reprimand, and you're flashing Godivas?"

"That never happened. Somebody started that rumor as a joke."

"It was no joke. Management doesn't like to see competitor's products anywhere in the office. I don't mess with management."

"Lois," Alison said, whispering enticingly. "It's Godiva."

Lois scowled at her. "You're a horrible person, Alison. I know everybody thinks you're really nice and everything, but you're not."

"There are only two people in on this. You and me. And I'm not telling."

Lois looked back into the sack at the gold box and actually licked her lips. Any moment Alison expected her to flap her arms, take off, and buzz around the box of chocolates like a vulture over a dying rat.

"Candy first," Lois said. "Then the logo."

She reached for the sack, but Alison pulled it away. "I need it by tomorrow afternoon."

"Anything in particular you want?"

"I'll e-mail you some info on the company. You can take it from there."

"I'll have a mock-up for you in the morning."

"Deal."

Alison handed her the sack, which she quickly stuffed into her lower desk drawer. But not five minutes later, Alison saw her grab the sack out of the drawer again. She flicked her head back and forth, checking for witnesses, then disappeared into the ladies' room. Good God. What kind of person ate a box of Godiva chocolates while sitting in a bathroom stall?

A really, really compulsive one.

On her lunch hour, Alison wrote the press release. By the next afternoon, Lois had the final logo for her. It was a pair of hearts connected with strings, just as Alison had expected, but it was stylized just enough that it didn't look dumb. The tagline Alison had decided on, Tying Two Hearts Together Forever, was in a serpentine pattern beneath it in a casual font. It looked enticing and interesting but highly professional at the same time. How Lois could be Lois and still come up with good stuff like this, she didn't know. Brandon had traded a box of Godiva for pure gold.

True to her word, Alison showed up at Brandon's house two days later with the press release in hand. They sat down on the porch swing, and Alison handed it to him.

"Tell me what you think."

He scanned the headline. Matchmaking Man Helps Singles Find Their Soul Mates.

"So that'll get attention?" he asked.

"Oh, yeah."

"I like the logo."

"Isn't it great?"

It was. But as Brandon read the rest of the press release, he started to get a really funny feeling inside. Alison had written about how he'd inherited the business from his grandmother, who had been a matchmaker in Plano for thirty years. How he used to sit on the stairs in her turnof-the-century home listening to her talk to her clients and help them make the love connection they'd always dreamed about. How matching people with their soul mates was in his blood, so he was driven to make his own clients' dreams come true.

It was everything he'd told Alison as if it were the truth, and there was barely any truth in it at all. Yeah, he'd heard his grandmother talking to her clients. But it was more like he heard a snippet or two as he was blowing through on the way to the kitchen, or coming through the back door and heading upstairs. But telling Alison he'd spent only two years living with his grandmother before turning eighteen and hightailing it out of town wouldn't have been quite as effective a sales pitch.

The press release went on to talk about the personalized service he offered, just as his grandmother had, but from a twenty-first-century perspective. Then Alison had added a few bullet points containing statistics on the success people have using personal matchmakers versus Internet dating. And she finished with, Oddly enough, Brandon Scott hasn't yet found that one special person for himself, but he's convinced that'll be his reward for helping other people find true love.

"I took a few liberties with that last line," Alison said. "Hope you don't mind."

Hey, what the hell. Let's both lie. "It's fine."

"Do I have the contact information correct?"

He glanced at the bottom of the sheet. "Yeah."

"Now it's photo time. Let's see...over there."

She pointed toward the porch railing and got out her camera.

"Okay," she said when he was in place. "Smile."

He did. She snapped a few photos and looked at the screen. "Nope. That's a phony smile."

"It didn't feel phony."

"It never does. But it sure looks it. Try again."

He smiled again. Same story.

"Relax a little," Alison said.

He did. Or tried to. And it still looked fake.