Cameron stopped on the terrace, just before entering into the living room. He bent down on his knees and took a deep breath. He was sweaty and somewhat out of breath. Cameron had gone for a run, trying to get rid of the nervous butterflies that were swirling around in his stomach about the confrontation with Tucker tomorrow. When he had returned home earlier this afternoon, Amanda was sound asleep in bed, and she had continued sleeping through the evening up to when he had gone out for his run. Not wanting to disturb her, he had spent the day with Ali, leaving his wife in the watchful care of his mother-in-law. He smiled to himself as he thought about he and Ali had spent the day.

She had taken him down to the stable and had given him a lesson in grooming a horse. It was Cameron's first experience with such an animal. Ali had worked on her horse, Warrior and had turned over to Cameron, Amanda's horse and Warrior's mother, Willow. The afternoon had gone by quickly and Cameron had to admit that Ali really knew her stuff and he had learned a lot at the hands of a young master. Ali had fun as well, but Cameron could see that she took her equestrian skills very seriously and promised Cameron she would teach him to ride soon.

He waited a second more, still collecting his breath and then walked into the living room. He shook his head and bit his tongue all the while counting to ten to control his anger at what he saw.

Amanda looked up at him from her place on the couch and smiled. She could see that he was annoyed at the fact that she wasn't in bed resting. "Relax, would you? I'm just sitting here, going through furniture books. I'm not dancing a jig or anything," Amanda said kidding around with him. It didn't work.

"The doctor said that you were supposed to have complete and total rest for at least a week," Cameron started to lecture in.

"Well, as a matter of fact, Dr. Sinclair, the real doctor just called to check in and she said since I rested so well all afternoon, it would be fine if I sat up on the couch for a little while." Amanda looked up at him and smiled triumphantly.

"I just don't want you to overdue it or something," Cameron said sitting down next to her on the couch. He picked up her hand and kissed it. "I just want you to take it easy for a little while until your back at.." Cameron stopped and looked over at Amanda. "What's wrong?"

"I don't want you to take this the wrong way or anything," Amanda said, wrinkling up her nose, "but you kind of.."

"Kind of what?" Cameron wanted to know.

"Well, I want you to look at these furniture samples with me, but why don't you go and take a shower first?" Amanda said.

"Oh, nice. Thanks a lot. You sure you don't want me to go and call a divorce lawyer. Having a spouse that smells is certainly grounds for a legal separation," Cameron said getting up.

Amanda could tell that he was only joking around with her. "Can't I at least have a kiss?" she called after him.

"No," Cameron flat out replied as he wen ut the stairs.

Amanda laughed and went back to looking at her catalog books and mentally planned what she would do with the carriage house when Paulina and Joe moved out. The house would be ready for the Carlino's to move in around the first of the year, or maybe a little after that and that is when they would move into the carriage house and make it their own. Amanda couldn't wait. She loved the great, big house that she grew up in. It would always be her home, but now her own family needed a house and this would be the perfect solution. It would be close enough to the rest of the family to be close and together, but it would be far enough away, that they could lead their own lives. It was perfect. She went back into the catalog's and was totally absorbed in them and the planning of the house decorations when she heard the door open and looked up to see Paulina rushing in to the house.

"Hi, what's up?" Amanda asked closing the Ethan Allen catalog. "Where's the fire?"

Paulina sat for a minute and gasped for air. "Okay, you remember how we hatched the plan to find Matt a girlfriend? How we were going to ask around and fix him up with the single, nice girls that we know? Well I got one better."

"Well, go ahead. I'm all ears," Amanda said and leaned forward expectantly.

"Okay, you know Val, the waitress from the restaurant?"

"Yeah, she's the one who just got married last month, right?"

"Yes. I was talking to her and we got on the subject of marriage and dating and stuff and guess where she met her husband?"

"Where?" Amanda wanted to know.

"Her sister gave her for her birthday two years ago a gift certificate for Soul Mates Dating Services," Paulina said.

"A dating service?" Amanda asked incredulously.

"Yeah, that's what I thought too at first. She went on to tell me about it. It sounds not bad. They work up a profile of the person and match it with a person that fits with him or her. She says it was totally professional and safe. She went out with a few nice guys before she met Pat her husband. What do you think?"

"Well, do you think Matt would go for it?" Amanda asked.

"I don't know. I don't think he would want to admit to us that he is lonely and wants somebody. So," Paulina said pulling a piece of paper out of her purse, "I went on line and got the profile application. I figure that if we fill it out for him..." Paulina said.

"We're his sisters, so we know him better than he knows himself," Amanda put in.

"We then take it and get the videos of the girls that he matches up to and sift through them to the ones that we think are appropriate for our brother," Paulina said.

"And if we don't find any that we think suit Matt, what he doesn't know won't hurt him," Amanda finished up. "Paulina, this is such a good idea! Give me the paper so I can fill it out now."

"Okay, here it is," Paulina handed over the profile sheet to Amanda and seated herself besides her sister on the couch. Amanda took out a pen and took off the cap.

"Okay, first question, name," Amanda read out loud. "Matthew Michael Cory. Birthday, January 13," Amanda said as she filled in the appropriate information.

"What's the next question?" Paulina asked.

"Just the physical stuff," Amanda answered back. "Give me a minute and let me fill in the boring stuff and then we can get to the good questions."

"All right, you do that and I'm going to go the kitchen and get some tea. You want a cup?" Paulina asked rising up from the couch.

"That would be lovely," Amanda said smiling up at her sister. "I won't get to the good stuff until you get back, I promise."

"I'll be back in a flash," Paulina said as she walked out.

Amanda turned her attention back to the questionnaire and continued to fill out the boring questions like height, weight, eye color and the monotonous physical questions. She was so absorbed in the questions she did not see Cameron walk back into the room.

"All right, I'm ready for you to force oyster carpeting and crushed velvet furniture down my throat," Cameron said, flopping down on the couch next to Amanda.

"What? Oh, yeah, the furniture," Amanda said. "Cameron, I'm kind of busy with a project with Paulina right now."

"A project?" Cameron asked, the anger that Amanda was not resting coming back. "What kind of a project?"

"No, not a project," Amanda said quickly trying to soothe over the anger that was bubbling up in Cameron. "It's something for Matt. It's nothing strenuous or anything. We're just sitting here and filling out papers."

"Oh, hi Cameron!" Paulina said coming back into the room, carrying two steaming cups of tea. "How are you doing?"

"I'd be doing a lot better if my wife was in bed resting like she should be," Cameron replied. "Look, if your doing stuff with Paulina now, we can go through the stuff for the house tomorrow. I'm going to go and watch the Blackhawks game." Cameron stood up and looked down at Amanda. "Just promise that you won't be too much longer and you'll get some rest soon."

"I promise, I promise," Amanda said. "Go in and watch your hockey game."

"Paulina, it was nice to see you. Tell Joe and the rest of the family I said hello," Cameron told Paulina before turning back to Amanda, "The hockey game only last about another hour."

"Yeah, okay, I'll rest after that, I swear!" Amanda said with and exasperated sigh and Cameron left, realizing he should not push his luck. "I swear, he's going to drive me to the nut house!"

"It's sweet, all he's doing is worrying about you and the little you," Paulina said patting her sister's slightly bulging stomach. "Have you found out the due date?"

"Well, when I was in the hospital, after they realized I was out of danger, we had the usually tests run and they figure the date would be some time in later March around the 26th sometime."

"And how is your body adjusting to being 5 months pregnant?" Paulina asked, sipping her tea.

"Well, considering all that has been going on and such, I think, pretty good. But then again, I did have an easy time with Ali." Amanda said. "But now we have to fill this out before my care-taker comes back and locks me up until either I or the baby are 45."

"Okay, one more question!" Paulina said laughing. "Have you two picked out any names?"

"Well," Amanda started and looked behind her to make sure that Cameron wasn't anywhere near, "We agreed to chose the name together, but I already have two picked out. Now you have to swear and not tell Cameron or anybody."

"Cross my heart," Paulina said.

"Okay, for a boy, I like either Cameron Mackenzie or Mackenzie Cameron. I'm not sure which way I like them better. And for a girl I really like Hannah Ada or Kaitllyn Rose. What do you think?" Amanda asked.

"I like them all. Do you have a feeling yet?" Paulina asked again, enjoying immensely this conversation with her sister.

"Well, let me tell you, I really don't care as long as it's healthy." Amanda said as she sipped some more on her tea. "But I really feel that Aunt Paulina should be knitting booties in pink."

"Oh Amanda! Another little girl!" Paulina clapped a hand over her mouth to suppress her laughter at Amanda's warning.

"Shhh! If we get too rowdy, Cameron will ground me and send me to bed with no dessert," Amanda said, laughing quietly herself. "Okay, okay, it's up to us to find a soul mate for our brother and let's get to work."

"All right, what is the next question?" Paulina asked, settling down.

"The next few questions are about his favorites, you know his movie, book, music, color, food and stuff."

"Well, that should be easy enough. Okay, what is his favorite movie?" Paulina asked. "Isn't it that one with John Wayne and Ricky Nelson?"

"Oh yeah, I know the one your talking about. Oh shoot, what was it? He used to watch it over and over again when he was a kid. Some Spanish name. Rio, Rio," Amanda tried to think about the name. Her eyes popped open and she had it. "Rio Bravo."

"Good, now book. I know he loves 'The Shining' by Stephen King. He's read it over and over again. Now music, that's a simple one. We all have the same taste in music," Paulina said looking over at Amanda.

"Because we all have good taste and you can't get much better than the Beatles," Amanda said writing down the answers to the questions as they spoke them. "Now, what's left?"

"Color and food."

"Okay, easy questions. Color, blue and food, tacos."

"Great, we have the easy answers filled out, what's left?" Paulina wanted to know.

"Well, the next few are basically the same questions but rephrased. What are you looking for in a soul mate?" Amanda said looking up at her sister.

"Well, let's see, personality is important, Paulina pointed out.

"Yes, good thing, and so is a sense of humor," Amanda added.

"Understanding."

"Kindness."

The two sisters went on and back and forth until they had the rest of the questions filled out and they sat looking at the filled out sheet.

"Well," Amanda said. "Paulina, this was fun. I can't wait to see what they come up with at the dating service."

"I'll take it over tomorrow and then they process it and we have to see what they come up with," Paulina said looking at her watch. "It's time to go before Cameron comes over and kicks me out for keeping you up too long." Paulina leaned over and hugged her sister and picked up the sheet for the service. She turned around when she heard someone come into the room. "I'm leaving now. You can chain her to the bed to rest now if you want!" Paulina said raising her hands and leaving from the room. She turned back and waved to both of them.

"See what you've done?" Amanda accused Cameron of, "You've made my sister afraid to stay and see me."

"Good. For the time being, the only person you get to see is me and now," Cameron swooped to pick Amanda up much to her protests, "You get to see me put you to bed so you can rest like the doctor told you too."

"But what about the furniture and stuff we were going to look at?" Amanda asked pointing to the catalogs still lying on the couch.

"There's always tomorrow."

"I can't argue with that," Amanda smiled and they went up to bed.

Matt Cory heaved a huge sigh and walked into his office throwing the keys to his car on the coffee table that stood in the middle of d the spacious office. It had been his day with Jasmine and after a busy and bustling day at the park and zoo, it was now time to come back to reality and get a little work done at the office. He sat down and inwardly blanched at the sight of the mountains of paper work that had accumulated over one day of absence. He just took a swig of coffee and fired up the computer hoping to get as much work done as humanely possible at this late hour.

Matt switched over the computer to the secure on-line files of Cory Publishing and started working. The music in the background that he had put on, made the work a little more bearable, but it was still the memories of the wonderful day with his daughter that kept him from giving 100% to his work at the moment. Matt sighed and rubbed his eyes and really made an effort to knuckle down on his work when in the corner of his computer screen, the little instant messenger popped up. Matt laughed out loud as he read his message. (*Author's note-- the following part will be written in a sort of chat on-line form as Matt responds to his instant message)

Matt remembered that when he had started chatting with Cantonata he had gotten friendly over the Internet. They had "met in a web sight the was designed for the lovers of art, poetry and music. Matt used the screen name of shark because when he was a boy, he loved to swim after Amanda in the pool when he and Jamie played the game "Sharks." Matt and Cantonata had talked in the common room for a while and when the realized how much they had in common, gone off into a separate room to discuss music and literature. Over the course of the "relationship" they had gone into greater and more personal detail and Matt had told Cantonata about Jasmine but had used the nickname Flower for his daughter. Matt responded to the question.

Matt watched as the instant messenger screen went blank. He went back to work and now no longer was plagued by the memories of Jasmine, but left wondering why he looked forward all day long to the computer conversations he had with Cantonata. Since they had met, they just seemed to click together. Well as much as too people can click over the Internet. Matt shook his head and pondered over that. He also tried to put out the burning green flame of jealousy that had flared up the moment Cantonata mentioned her boyfriend. And that flame that he could not put out for some reason or another troubled him as much as anything, if not more.