Chapter One
As the butterflies did another lap around her stomach, Hope Callahan set her cardboard coffee cup down on the wrought-iron table, sternly telling herself to calm down. Her friend Kathy would arrive any minute for their coffee date. And then Hope would have to commit to her plan. Explaining it to Kathy wasn’t the scary part. Actually going through with it—that would be the challenge.
“Okay,” Kathy said as she joined Hope at the patio table. “I’m here. What’s the big announcement?”
Hope protested, “Wait a minute, I never said it was big. Or an announcement.”
“Uh-huh. You texted me and told me you wanted to meet for coffee. You didn’t reschedule once, which you have to admit is unusual.”
“Work,” Hope said weakly. “I’m sorry my schedule is so erratic—”
“I know, I’m just teasing you. And now I really need to know what’s going on.” She tucked a strand of her rich brown hair behind her ear. Tall and model-pretty, Kathy Hernandez always made Hope wish for an extra six inches of height. Instead, at five feet and not-quite-three inches, she’d become resigned to being described as spunky.
Hope reached down into her purse and pulled out a glossy magazine, handing it to Kathy.
“You’ve got an article in this one, right?” Kathy asked.
“Yeah, where the sticky note is.”
Kathy fought with the wind, turning the pages until she reached the marked article. “Single and Serious?”
Hope nodded.
“As in...you’re planning to sign up with them?”
“Already done.” She could feel her cheeks flushing and cursed her fair complexion. She wasn’t embarrassed by her decision. Just nervous. Very nervous.
“Wow.” Kathy wrinkled her nose as she thumbed through the pages of the article. “Are you sure about this? A matchmaking agency’s a big step.”
Hope took a sip of her mocha before replying. “Why not? They’re highly rated, and I did a ton of research on them for the article I wrote.”
“Because you could end up with some weirdo,” Kathy pointed out. “A weirdo who lives in the middle of nowhere with a weirdo family.”
“Highly rated,” Hope repeated. “Ton of research. Trust me, they’re reputable. And it’s completely up to me whether I meet the guy. And as for the middle of nowhere, you know I’ve been dying to move back to somewhere more rural. I told them I wanted mountains and trees and creeks, not this concrete jungle.”
“Your concrete jungle is my civilization,” Kathy countered, taking in the busy sidewalk with a wave of her beautifully manicured hand. “If I’m more than a mile from a Starbucks, I get withdrawal pangs.”
“Small towns have coffee too, you know,” Hope said. “It’s not like I’m dropping off the face of the planet.”
“I know,” Kathy said, “but this is a huge change.”
“Not for me,” she said, pretending a confidence she didn’t feel. She could do this. “I’m ready.”
“Ready for...”
“A serious relationship. Eventually, marriage and kids, the whole shebang.”
“You can’t find that here?”
Hope shrugged ruefully. “I guess not. It’s not like I haven’t tried.” She’d done the dating thing. Gone to bars where men ignored her in favor of gorgeous thin twenty-somethings. She’d looked for guys in grocery store aisles, on public transit, and in cooking classes. She’d even tried speed dating. All it had ever gotten her was a date or two with guys who couldn’t hold her attention or weren’t interested in anything long-term.
“I can’t argue with that,” Kathy admitted. “Remember the guy who took half of everything from your plate?”
“Or the one who only wanted to recruit me into his vitamin-selling pyramid scheme,” Hope countered.
“The one who took three calls from his mother in the movie theater.”
“The one who brought his mother along.”