Free Maid for Love by Marie Force

appreciate you making it into something dirty."
    "Don't get pissy with me. I'm not the one who answered the door in a towel."
    "I have to go. Big Mac's home, and he's hungry."
    "Before you run away, I heard from Josh today. Ellen's expecting again! We're having a regular baby boom in our family."
    Linda wondered if a head could actually explode. "Congratulations. That's wonderful. They sure do stay busy, don't they?"
    "Lucky for me. Talk soon."
    Linda slammed down the phone with a swear word that never usually left her lips.
    "Well, good evening to you, too, my love." Big Mac kissed her forehead. "What's got you all fired up?"
    " Your son! That woman and Teensy." Linda banged around the kitchen fixing him a plate of the spaghetti and meatballs she'd eaten earlier. "How could he answer the door wearing only a towel?"
    Big Mac plugged his cell phone into the charger and turned back to her. "What's that you said? Teensy answered the door wearing only a towel?" He made a face of supreme dismay. "I just lost my appetite."
    "Not Teensy ! Pay attention, will you? Your son answered the door at Maddie Chester's apartment wearing only a towel! And he's buying her lobster !"
    "God, what a swine. Where did we go wrong with him?"
    " You don't get it! It'll be all over town by morning that he's sleeping with her! Then who will want him?"
    "Any woman would be lucky to land him."
    "No one wants a guy who's been with the easiest girl in town."
    "Lin," he said in his disapproving tone. "She's a nice girl."
    "With a reputation that would make a porn star blush." Linda plopped his plate down on the table. "I need to fix this. Fast."
    "Linda… You know how these things always go. Remember when you fixed Sophie's cousin up with Grant when she was visiting LA?"
    Linda stared at him, incredulous. "How is that my fault? Sophie failed to mention her little cousin had just been sprung from the psych ward."
    "Then there was Debbie's niece, who you sicced on Adam…"
    "When I asked him to show her a good time in New York City, I never said he should spend the whole weekend in her hotel room. And if she didn't know she had chlamydia, how was I supposed to know?"
    "Of course Tina's songwriting sister wasn't exactly the one for Evan."
    "Tina never told me that her sister was more interested in boozing her way through Nashville than in songwriting. But Evan figured it out."
    "Not before she puked in his new truck."
    Linda scowled at him. "Whose side are you on anyway?"
    "Yours, love. Always."
    "Coulda fooled me."
    "These meatballs are exquisite."
    "Don't go using that McCarthy charm on me. I know all your tricks."
    "So matchmaking isn't your thing. You have many other talents. Such as making meatballs that melt in my mouth."
    "Mac needs a wife. He'll be having babies in his forties at this rate."
    "Maybe if you'd been a little sweeter to his friend Roseanne when we were in Miami this winter, he might not be shacking up in town tonight."
    Hands on hips, Linda faced off with him.
    "What? I'm just saying…"
    " She is all wrong for him. I had her number in five minutes. His head was turned by the way she looks, but he'll figure her out soon enough—if he hasn't already."
    "Let's face it, babe. There's not a woman out there who'll ever meet your standards for any of those boys."
    "That's not true! I want them to be happy. I want them to have what we've had all these years. Is there anything wrong with that?"
    "Aww, honey, of course there isn't." He reached for her hand and drew her onto his lap. "But you've gotta let them get there in their own way and in their own time."
    "I've tried that, and now I have four sons in their thirties who have no intention of ever settling down and having families. They'll regret that later, Mac. You know that as well as I do."
    "Maybe so, but they'll be their regrets."
    "I don't want them to miss out on love." The thought of it broke her heart. "Where would you be today if I hadn't saved you from yourself?"
    His big laugh rang