Sweetheart Lost and Found. Shirley Jump

threw in two dimes. “I’ll meet your twenty cents. And raise you a quarter.” She tossed in the silver coin.

      “Too rich for my blood,” Regina said, laughing and setting her pile of cards aside. “Especially when all I have is a pair of twos.”

      “I’ll match your quarter and call.” Callie moved to add another coin to the pile.

      Audra reached out and put a hand over Callie’s. “Wait. Let’s up the ante a bit.”

      “Up the ante? But we always bet pocket change.”

      “I mean something more interesting. We are, after all, the Wedding Belles. We’re supposed to believe in happily ever after, but you don’t, Callie, and I happen to think you’re wrong. If we’re going to pull off this wedding for Julie and Matt, then I think you should test your theory about there not being enough Mr. Rights in the world to go around. If you win, then we’ll put on Julie’s wedding, congratulate her for getting the last great guy and resign ourselves to the fact that there aren’t any other Mr. Rights left, but if I win…”

      Callie narrowed her gaze. “If you win…what?”

      “Then you have to go along with an experiment. A challenge.” Audra smiled. “Because I happen to think you’re wrong. I mean, I work on weddings all day and I’m engaged myself. If I don’t believe in Mr. Right, then I should go into a different field.”

      “Yeah, funeral planning,” Regina interjected. The four of them burst out laughing.

      “It would be nice if you were right, Audra.” Callie thought of Jared. He’d awakened something in her last night, something that had lain dormant in her for years. Could Audra be right or was Callie merely wishing on an impossible star? “It’s been a long, dry spell, girls, and I could use a guy who doesn’t shred my heart like a Ginsu knife.”

      “Or one who doesn’t look like a guilty puppy every time he looks my way,” Regina muttered.

      “Everything okay with Dell, Regina?” Audra asked.

      “Oh, yeah, just fine.” Regina let out a laugh. “I’m kidding, that’s all.”

      For a second Callie wondered if everything wasn’t as perfect as Regina was leading them to believe. She scanned her friend’s face, but the shadow had passed and Regina’s regular sunny countenance had returned. Perhaps Callie had imagined it.

      “So, Callie, are you game?” Audra asked. “For an experiment if you lose?”

      At first, Callie opened her mouth to protest, but then the whisper of a challenge tickled at her. It raced through her blood, sending a shiver of excitement, of possibilities, down her spine. When had she last felt like that? Excited about her future?

      Last night with Jared had reawakened the Callie she used to be. When they’d sung together, he’d reminded her of the woman she’d been in college.

      And when he’d leaned down, his breath warm on hers, a kiss only a whisper away, he’d made her heart race in a way it hadn’t raced in…forever.

      Like it had when she’d been the girl who had dropped everything at a moment’s notice to jet off for an adventure. The woman who had taken the detours, tried a new city, a different town. She’d done almost anything once, playing a game of spontaneity with every single day.

      She’d lost that Callie somewhere in her marriage, buried her under a lot of disappointments and hurts. Did she still exist?

      And if she found that woman, would returning to who she used to be ruin Callie’s carefully built life?

      A crazy thought, she told herself. Surely she could take on this simple little bet from Audra. Maybe this was exactly what Callie needed to get out of this emotional funk she’d been in since the divorce and start moving forward.

      She folded her cards together and leaned forward, excitement increasing her pulse. “What kind of challenge are you talking about? Exactly?”

      “One where we see if your theory holds up in the real world. Meaning, you get back in the dating game and see if Mr. Right doesn’t just pop up.”

      “Yeah, from underneath a rock,” Regina put in with a chuckle.

      “Girls, this is just penny poker,” Serena said, putting a hand of caution over the pot of change in the center of the table. “We never bet anything real. It’s just for fun.”

      Audra’s eyes glittered and a smile crossed her face. “This could be fun, too. And besides, Callie, it’s about time you jumped into the deep end.” Her grin widened and a tease edged her words. “Come on in the dating pool. The water’s warm, and with some guys, really hot. And who knows? You might find true love in the process.”

      “What exactly are we betting here, Audra?” Callie asked.

      “You take a chance with this Jared—” Audra put up a finger “—and don’t try to pretend he didn’t affect you because it’s all over your face.”

      “Take a chance?”

      “Go out with him again, if you lose this hand, on a real date. And see where it goes.”

      See where things went with Jared? Callie had already done that years ago. And yet…

      Hadn’t that almost-kiss between them been on her mind nonstop since last night? Didn’t a part of her wonder what might have happened if he had kissed her? Or if she had closed the gap?

      It had been eighteen months since Callie’s divorce. Eighteen months spent rehashing her marriage, trying to figure out where things had gone wrong. Fourteen months of going over every conversation, every argument. But not of dating seriously.

      What was that theory about hitting your thumb? Something about quit doing it if it hurts. Well, Callie had quit men. Because they hurt her heart.

      Audra waited across from her, a friendly challenge on her face. Callie thought of the full house she held in her five cards. One of the best hands she’d had in months. Surely Audra didn’t hold anything better. And then, they could all drop this crazy idea. She and Jared weren’t right for each other. He was the practical, suburbs kind of guy and she was the wild one who’d never been able to stay in one place for long.

      Either way, there was almost no chance Audra’s cards could beat Callie’s. The whole issue was probably moot.

      “Yeah, I’m game,” Callie said. “I call. Let’s see what you’ve got.”

      Callie fanned out her cards, splaying them proudly across the laminate surface of Audra’s kitchen table. Three jacks, two red, one black, paired with two red aces.

      She watched Audra do the same. One red card—a six. Another—a seven. A third—an eight. A fourth—a nine.

      When the fifth red card—a ten—appeared, Callie knew she’d just been roped into dating Jared again by a straight flush. In hearts, no less.

      CHAPTER FIVE

      BELLE’S eagle eye didn’t miss a thing, either.

      “Did you meet a man at O’Malley’s the other night, darlin’?” Belle asked the second Callie walked into work the next morning.

      Callie avoided her boss’s inquisitive gaze by flipping through a stack of mail. “Are you all in on some big conspiracy?” Callie laughed. “He was an old friend, nothing more.”

      “Uh-huh,” Belle said, the lilt in her Southern accent making it clear she didn’t believe Callie one bit and already heard it all from the other women. “Well, when this man you didn’t meet calls again looking for you, what should I tell him?”

      “He called here?”

      Belle laughed and settled her ample frame onto the settee in the reception area. On a small table beside her sat a bouquet of white roses, a daily arrangement Callie made