Wrapped Up in Christmas Joy

“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.

C

ole 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 course I mean it.”

Even as she made the claim, she twisted the diamond solitaire on her left hand.

“Wouldn’t it bother you more if Lou was okay with indefinitely putting off the wedding?”

Rosie plopped down into a vacant chair next to the cutting table, pretending to be very interested in the pieces of material sitting there.