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Cute? That was like calling Mount Everest a mound of dirt.
Cole was…feeling her face flush, Sophie averted her gaze and shrugged. “Um, you’ve met him. At Ruby’s this summer. He’s…okay.”
“Okay” was a worse description than “cute,” but she wasn’t telling her nosy sister how disturbingly attractive she found Cole.
“Oh my goodness.” Isabelle’s voice took on a higher pitch as she came around the corner under the guise of helping with the fabric. “I don’t remember him, but he really must be cute. I can tell by your face.”
Sophie focused on unpacking the brightly patterned material as if she were unveiling delicate prized possessions that required her utmost attention and care. She kind of did feel that way about fabric, especially this shipment as they prepped for the Christmas season.
“Okay,” Isabelle picked up a snowman-printed bolt, “now, I want to know more. Tell me all.”
Sophie shoved a cardinal-red bolt of fabric at her sister. “Not much to say. Here, go put this on the shelf. With the upcoming holidays, we’re going through this shade like crazy. I bet we use even more after I teach my class on do-it-yourself stockings in December.”
Isabelle laughed. “I haven’t seen you this flustered over a guy since Jimmy Allbad in the seventh grade.”
“His name was Jimmy Algood,” she corrected, unable to stop herself even though she knew Isabelle was just teasing her with the mistake. “And thank goodness that didn’t work out.”
For real, Sophie was thankful for that miss.
Sure, someday she’d like to meet the right guy, marry, and have a few kids, but Prince Charming needed to hold off a few years until Sophie had the time to think about anything other than making sure they could pay the bank note on the quilt shop.
Cole was no Prince Charming. More like a surly brute who’d snapped at her, then walked away, leaving her slack-jawed as she watched him disappear inside the fire station.
Only…no, no, no. Sophie needed to quit thinking about him.
“Yeah, you two didn’t make it past eighth grade,” Isabelle teased about Jimmy. “So, what was it about this Marine that has you in such a teenage-girl tizzy?”
Was that why Sophie couldn’t stop thinking about him? Because she was schoolgirl crushing? She didn’t think so since she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the journal’s owner even before she’d known it was Cole. His words had reached in and put her heart through the ringer. That he had the most intriguing eyes of anyone she’d ever met had just added to the fascination.
Sophie fought fanning her face.
Okay, so maybe she was schoolgirl crushing.
Not that it would do her any good, if the anger in his eyes had been any indication. She’d read his journal and that apparently made her enemy number one.
He never wants to see me again.
Sophie’s face heated as she realized she was still distracted. No wonder Isabelle thought she was in a schoolgirl tizzy.
Rolling her shoulders back to stretch the tension in her neck, Sophie sighed. “I’m just disappointed he didn’t want his journal.”
“Not everyone cherishes journaling the way you do,” Isabella pointed out.
“You keep the birthday dairies Aunt Claudia gives us every year, too,” she reminded.
Their aunt had always given the best gifts, and the diaries had been Sophie’s favorites. Each year, she’d wondered what butterfly design would be on the cover, what handwritten note her aunt would have penned about emerging from her cocoon and spreading her wings to fly. Her aunt’s whimsies had always appealed to the dreamer in Sophie.
She’d kept a diary since receiving her first one on her tenth birthday. She had little bits of herself, her dreams and hopes, scattered over the pages, carefully tucked away in her nightstand, that she’d written for more than a decade. She’d agonize if she lost any one of them. She’d thought Cole would feel the same.
She’d been wrong.
“Yeah. I used Aunt Claudia’s diaries,” Isabelle agreed drily. “But my entries were more along the lines of ‘I can’t believe she got me another one of these books when I really wanted new clothes.’”
As Sophie recalled, her practical sister had mainly used the diaries to make lists. Lists of the things she’d done that day and lists of her goals for the following day, goals for the future.
She and Isabelle were as opposite as night and day. Maybe that was why they were so close.
“Say what you will, but I love that Aunt Claudia always gave us diaries. Someday, that’s what I’m going to give your kids as gifts, too,” she teased, loving how her sister’s face contorted in mock horror. “Only, I’ll search out ones with dragonflies on them and come up with cool little sayings to write on the inside covers for my nieces and nephews.” At Isabelle’s “don’t you dare” look, Sophie fought giggling and added, “Yep, dragonflies, year after year, with notes about how cool their Aunt Sophie is.”
