Читать книгу Turn Up the Heat - Isabel Sharpe, Isabel Sharpe - Страница 7

“IF YOU ASK ME, which I know you didn’t, you are ready to date again, Candy.” Marie nodded vigorously, looking around the table for confirmation from Kim and Darcy. The four of them were sitting together, as usual, at the every-third-Wednesday monthly breakfast meeting of Women in Power, Milwaukee’s organization of women business owners, held in a seventh-floor meeting room at the elegant Pfister hotel. “It’s January, the new year, time for a fresh start.”

“I don’t know.” Candy laughed nervously. She had a fresh girl-next-door beauty: heart-shaped face, long chestnut hair, wide-spaced light brown eyes and a generous, smile-prone mouth. If she put up an Available sign, men would kill each other getting in line. “I don’t feel ready.”

“You are, honey.” Marie laid her hand on Candy’s forearm. Candy had dated Chuck, the world’s biggest wet blanket, for five years before he had dumped her the previous February. “Trust me. I not only have a degree in psychology, but I am psychic. I had a vision.”

“Huh?” Candy looked startled.

“Wait, really?” asked Kim.

Darcy snorted. “Be serious.”

“Okay, not psychic, but certainly all-knowing.” Marie lifted her chin in mock outrage. “You should show respect for the wisdom of your elders.”

“Oh, what, you’re two years older than I am?” Darcy looked skeptical, as usual. “All of thirty-four?”

“Thirty-nine. Practically old enough to be your grandmother.” No, not quite that old, but Marie felt like a seasoned warrior, having been married ten years and divorced five, while the other three women at the table had never married and were currently single. “I know what I’m talking about. Candy should be out there dating, and she has the perfect resource in me to get started.”

“That’s for sure.” Sweet, shy Kim Charlotte Horton, the blonde of the group, stifled a yawn, striking blue eyes bleary from her being up all night to meet a particularly tough deadline for her struggling one-woman company, Charlotte’s Web Design. “You are the matchmaking queen.”

Marie agreed cheerfully. After her marriage had tanked and her online dating efforts met with no success, she became determined to create a site that didn’t just take people’s money and then make them do all the work. In five years, her personalized service, Milwaukeedates.com, had gone from the beginning of an idea to one of Women in Power’s Best Success Stories the previous year. Marie was happier than she ever thought would be possible again.

“I’ve considered it.” Candy nodded yes to the waitress’s pot of coffee and added two packets of sugar and two creamers to her refill. “At least I got that far.”

“Good first step.” Marie nodded her approval. Kim looked wistful. Darcy scowled.

Marie was content waiting for her own second chance at love, but she was determined to find that first chance for her friends. In fact, she’d made the three at this table her New Year’s Resolution. Each of these smart, fabulous women had so much to offer, and each deserved as much in return. “Candy, you do not want to let that first anniversary of being single go by without being out there looking for someone else. It’s a matter of pride.”

“When did Chuck break up with you? There was something horrible about it, that’s all I remember.” Kim wrinkled her nose. “But then I can barely remember my own name this morning.”

“Last February, on Valentine’s Day, the jerk.” Darcy narrowed dark eyes over her black coffee. “Candy planned a fabulous meal, made herself an incredible dress, decorated the dining room and her bedroom to the hilt, then Chuck slunk in and smashed her heart. So typically thoughtful of his gender.”

Marie sighed resignedly. Darcy, who could pass for a short-haired Catherine Zeta-Jones, was the work-obsessed proprietor of one of Milwaukee’s hottest new restaurants, Gladiolas, and would be Marie’s biggest matchmaking challenge, no question.

“How could I forget that charming story?” Kim made a sound of disgust. “The oinker.”

“Aw, he wasn’t so bad.” Candy moved uneasily. “It was my fault it all went wrong that night. The breakup had been written on the wall for a while. I just refused to read it.”

Darcy blew a raspberry. “Stop beating yourself up for something he did.”

“Thanks, Darcy, but …” Candy shrugged. “Every relationship is a two-way street.”

“From what I see, every relationship is a one-way street,” Darcy said. “The guy’s way.”

Marie groaned silently. As she’d thought, Darcy would be her biggest challenge, though she’d keep at her. Kim, she’d wait to match until her company seemed on firmer ground and her financial worries cleared. “In any case, Candy, if you let me help you I guarantee this Valentine’s Day will be a whole lot better than the last one.”

“Not that it would take much,” Darcy muttered.

“That’s for sure.” Kim drained her third cup of coffee. “You could scoop dog poo and have a better time.”

Candy smiled wanly, biting her lip, eyes distant. Marie’s instinct kicked in: She was thinking about Chuck, and not the way the three of them wanted her to be thinking about him. The last couple of times Marie and Candy had had lunch, Candy was still bringing his name up suspiciously often. The best way to evict that worthless lump from her heart was to replace him with someone new.

“Valentine’s Day is cursed in our family.” Candy gestured with her muffin. “My dad either forgot or the restaurant he was going to take Mom to burned down or the present he ordered arrived broken. My best friend Abigail planned a Valentine’s Day wedding, which her fiancé canceled. Chuck didn’t believe the calendar should dictate when he expressed love for someone, so it was usually up to me how we celebrated, or if we bothered. Most of the time I didn’t bother. It is overhyped.”

Marie leaned toward Candy. “Would you turn down flowers and candy and a declaration of undying love from a man on his knees in a fabulous restaurant just because of the date?”

Candy’s cheeks grew pink; her eyes shone. “Not on your life. In fact, I admit—guiltily—that exact scenario has been my proposal fantasy since I was a girl.”

“Come see me. It’s time.” Marie straightened and picked up the quarter of a cheese Danish she’d been determined to leave uneaten on her plate. “February is around the corner and we want you waist-high in roses and chocolate on the fourteenth.”

“That’s only a month from now.”

“You can find someone in a day if he’s right.” She took a guilty bite of the rich pastry—by now she knew better than to make dieting any part of her New Year’s resolutions. “And that’s where Milwaukeedates comes in. Matching clients shouldn’t be the job of some software program that doesn’t take human variation or taste into account. I work with each—”

“Marie.” Kim grinned at her. “You are sounding like your commercial.”

Candy snickered. “Yeah, I was looking around for the radio.”

“Okay, okay.” Marie brushed crumbs off her fingers and held up her hands. “But no apologies. I’m selling the real thing.”

“Ha!” Darcy shook her head in mock disdain. “You’re selling imprisonment, forced labor and a lifelong descent into—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Marie waved the comments away while pulling out her iPhone. She was sure Darcy’s posturing was more about self-protection than conviction. “Candy, it won’t cost you anything to come in and talk. Are you hosting any events tomorrow?”

Candy dug out her BlackBerry, an obvious ploy to buy time. In her line of work—party and event planning—she had to know what she was doing every day down to the last hour or she’d be sunk. “Well, no, nothing scheduled, but I have to prepare for a tea party on—”

“Tomorrow.” Marie pounced. “Ten o’clock?”

Candy turned helplessly to Darcy and Kim, the excitement in her eyes giving her away. “Am I really going to do this?”

“Looks that way to me,” Darcy said drily.

“Sure, why not?” Kim squeezed her shoulder. “You were smart to give yourself a year to get over Chuck. Now I agree with Marie, it’s time to move on. Remember, ‘Why leave meeting the right person to chance?’”

Darcy chuckled and joined in for the rest of Marie’s slogan. “‘Leave it to Milwaukeedates.com!’”

“Well?” Marie tilted her head, gave Candy a coaxing smile. “How about it?”

Candy attempted an exasperated sigh, entered Marie’s name in her BlackBerry, then held up the screen. “How does that look?”

Marie patted her friend on the arm, hiding the extent of her triumphant satisfaction. “Like you’re on the way to finding new love.”