“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 propri-etor 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—”