let Sophie go in my place?”
“Absolutely not,” Isabelle and Sarah chimed in unison, then laughed at their synchronized timing.
“They just don’t want me to go again because they know how good I am and they don’t want to lose,” Sophie teased, stretching out the word lose.
Both her sister and her friend rolled their eyes.
“Rules are rules. Each team member takes a turn reading cards,” Isabelle reminded.
Her sister was such a sucker for rules. Not that Sophie would have taken Cole’s turn anyway. She wanted him to, to see what he came up with on the word cards.
“You got this,” Sophie assured him. “Andrew, Ben, Susan, Lilly, Carrie, and I have your back.”
She fist-bumped with her teammates as Cole took the card box.
“It’s not my back I’m worried about. It’s anyone figuring out the words on my cards that’s the problem.”
“You’ll do fine. Just don’t say the word or any of the listed descriptive clue words on the card,” Sophie reminded. “Even if we don’t get the words, it’ll be okay. It’s all in fun.”
“But what she really means is that she wants to win,” Isabelle teased from where she sat next to Sarah on the sofa. “Sophie doesn’t like to lose.”
Sophie made a face at her sister.
“Quit trying to put undue pressure on Cole.” She cut her gaze to him and squinted, then gave her meanest look as she shook her fist. “Beat them.”
Everyone laughed except Cole.
“Ready?” Isabelle asked, preparing to flip the timer.
“As I’ll ever be.”
“Do you need to stretch? Crack your knuckles, maybe?” Sophie asked, earning a frown. “Fine, you don’t. I was just checking.”
Cole pulled the first card, thought a second, then said, “Bodie will put this on Sarah’s left digit.”
“Ring!” Sophie guessed.
Cole nodded and pulled the next card. “Sophie and I are involved in a toy…”
“Drive,” Andrew answered.
Nodding, Cole pulled the next card. “Harry.”
“Dog,” Carrie exclaimed.
Excitement built in Sophie’s belly as Cole pulled the card that would tie the game.
“What Andrew, Ben, and I had for dinner earlier.”
“Pizza,” Ben and Andrew both answered, laughing.
She glanced at the hourglass. There was only a little sand remaining.
Cole nodded and pulled the card that could win the game. His brows furrowed together.
When he looked up from the card, his gaze met Sophie’s and she knew whatever he was about to say would be a clue just for her.
“Your virtue.”
“Joy!”
“Time,” Isabelle and Sarah said in unison.
“Woot. Woot. We did it.” Smiling, Sophie high-fived all her teammates within reach.
“I’ll be hearing about this for weeks,” Isabelle complained, but with a genuine smile on her face. “You remember that one time when my team beat yours?” she mimicked.
Although her sister joked about Sophie not liking to lose, it was Isabelle who’d always had to come in first. At everything. She’d been valedictorian of her high school class, even.
Sophie liked to win, but it wasn’t the be-all, end-all for her. Not like it was for Isabelle. But she wasn’t above teasing her sister.
“Why wait until later to remind you? I’ll start bringing it up now. Hey, did you notice that my team just beat yours for possibly the first time ever?” Her gaze cut to Cole. “Thanks to Cole’s brilliant clues.”
“Yeah, yeah, that and the fact I got delinquent.”
“Cole drawing ‘joy’ was quite lucky.”
“But it wasn’t luck that you knew what he was referring to when he described it as your virtue?”
Sophie knew what her sister was getting at, and she wasn’t going there. Instead, she smiled and shrugged her shoulders.
“What can I say? ‘I’ve got the joy, joy, joy down in my heart’ and it shows.”
Chapter Ten
“I’m calling off the engagement,” Rosie announced as she came into the quilting shop in a blue whirlwind the following Monday morning. Literally, she was decked out in blue from head to toe with the exception of her flushed face peeking out from her hat.
Shocked at Rosie’s announcement, Sophie put down her scissors and stared at the stressed woman. “Good grief. What did Lou do?” She couldn’t imagine the diner owner having done anything worthy of Rosie calling off their engagement. Not when the man was so crazy about Rosie.
Pulling off her blue gloves, Rosie then undid her parka. “He’s driving me crazy with these ‘set the date or else’ threats. Fine. He wants a date? How about never?”
“You can’t mean that, Rosie.”
Rosie’s face twisted with worry, making her look near her age, which was rare. Rosie usually had such a youthful vivaciousness that it was difficult to believe she was in her late sixties. “Of