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

standing still.” 
    “That’s not so bad,” he said. “There’s some benefits to standing still.”
    “Like what?”
    “Like being able to see where you’re going,” he said. “The rest of the world might be moving, but that don’t mean anyone knows where in the hell they’re going to.”
    I took another sip of whiskey. The flask was getting lighter and lighter in my hands.
    “You go on philosophizing, Orange Soda,” I said. “I’m not going anywhere but down into the bottom of this flask.” 
    “C’mon, you can tell me. What is it?” he said.
    I stared out at the river and then looked back at him.
    Our eyes met for the first time. I mean, really met. Like one of those rare moments when you look into someone’s eyes, and catch a glimpse of their soul.
    And you know that they caught a glimpse of yours too.
    I didn’t mean for that to happen, but it did.
    And there wasn’t any way to hold back now.
    I bit my lip.
    “He left,” I said.
    They were just two words, but I could tell by the silence that followed.
    The stranger understood what I meant.
     

 
    Chapter 18
     
    I woke up early the next morning feeling like a brick wall had crumbled and fallen on top of me.
    A sick feeling of regret settled in at the base of my chest.
    No. It’s not what you think.
    Not that I haven’t given you reason to think I’m not morally corrupt, what with my drinking hard on a Sunday and the type of characters that I seem to hang around, and the type of job I have.
    I mean had .  
    But it’s not like what you’re thinking. Nothing happened between the stranger and me.
    The reason I was feeling regretful had to do with the fact that I’d made a fool of myself in front of him. With a good amount of drink in me, I turned into a rambling mess. I didn’t even remember half the things I said to him.
    Except for the very last thing. Which I remembered with a kind of vivid clarity that drinking grants you, just so you can remember it the next day and feel like a fool.  
    And now, now I was regretting it sorely.  
    The stranger, whose name I still hadn’t learned, had been nice enough to take me home, driving my truck for me and walking back to wherever he was staying in town.
    He had helped me up to the front porch. I had lost all control of my tongue by that point, and had been saying God-knows-what about God-knows-what.
    Before leaving, he asked me if I’d be okay.
    I told him I would be, because Jacob was my soulmate and he’d have to come to his senses sooner or later.
    “Soulmate?” the stranger had asked, noticing the strange emphasis I’d put on the word.
    And for some reason, some stupid reason, I felt the need to tell him, in detail, about the visions I got.
    By the end of my ranting, the stranger had given me a look like he thought I was insane.
    And that was how we left things.
    I cradled my head in my hands and tried to tell myself it didn’t matter. It wasn’t like I was going to ever see him again, so there wasn’t any reason for me to feel embarrassed.
    But that was easier to say than it was to believe.
    What he must have thought of me… that I was some past-her-prime barmaid who drank in parks on Sundays and was crazy enough to think that she had a divine gift for matchmaking.
    It sounded crazy, even to me.
    Why had I blabbed like that? I normally never told people about my visions, unless I felt like they might understand.
    But the first good-looking stranger to come through Broken Hearts Junction in ages, I decide I need to blab about it to.
    I sat up in bed and swung my legs over the side. My head felt like it was going to explode.
    Hank rolled over onto his feet and attacked me with dog kisses.
    Waking up to a wall of slobber wasn’t my idea of a hangover cure. No. I would have much preferred some hash browns and eggs and bacon.
    But at least Hank would never judge me or think me crazy, no matter how much I rambled.  
    I sat there at the edge of the bed for a while, trying to find a