Forever, Plus One by Wendy Warren

Author:Wendy Warren
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2022-06-12T22:19:08+00:00

* * *

“Can everyone sit down?”

Sophie Wurst picked up the nearest utensil—a butter knife she’d used to cut her hamburger in half—and smacked it on the table like a gavel.

“Don’t hit my table,” Anthony Jackson, owner-proprietor of Wurst Burgers, protested. “You’ll scratch it.”

Nikki shared a glance with Mary Anna Stackler who then shared one with her twin sister, Leonora. The Stackler twins were seventy-six; some of the multitude of scratches on Anthony’s tabletops were as old as they were.

“We need to stop gabbing, people.” Sophie stood at five foot three when she kept her back perfectly straight, wore baggy jeans that made her look like a kid and had a halo of natural golden-blond curls that on anyone else would have seemed angelic. Sophie, however, also possessed an obsessive drive for vengeance that made her appear anything but. “You’ve all been eating and talking for forty minutes. That’s enough. We’ve got to get down to business.”

Nikki shook her head in exasperation. She’d given Sophie the you’ll-catch-more-flies-with-honey talk numerous times. So had others. It never helped.

“This is the second meeting of the Small-Town Olympics trials, Pacific Northwest Division, Team Wurst. Come to order!” She picked up the knife again and rapped the table. Anthony pulled it from her hand and set it aside.

Several days after kissing Evan at Leo’s, Nikki had yet to speak to Evan, but he was supposed to be here tonight. She was on pins and needles, waiting for him and was grateful for the distraction of this meeting.

Glancing around the tables Sophie had pushed together into a U configuration and counted ten people, including Anthony and the Stacklers, at this gathering of would-be athletes. Holliday entered a team in all the PNW Small-Town Olympic Games and medaled every time. They generated tourist dollars by turning trainings into community events and hosting citywide celebrations for their victorious athletes.

Wurst, on the other hand, had never had a team in the games. Sophie had asked Jeremy Holliday to partner with Wurst, its next-door neighbor, so the glory could be spread around, but Jeremy wanted Sophie on his team about as much as a lion wants to chill with a hyena. Hence, Sophie’s insistence on putting together Team Wurst and whipping team Holliday’s collective tush. (Which was laughably unlikely, but Sophie didn’t want to acknowledge that.)

Neither Nikki nor Evan lived in Wurst, proper, but Sophie had found a provision in the bylaws allowing county and city workers to participate on a team representing the population they served. Nikki, feeling empathy for an underdog, signed herself up. She’d dragged Evan along for companionship.

Looking around now, Nikki wondered if she and Evan might be the only members of the team who participated in sports on a regular basis. Anthony, who was in his mid-sixties and had permanent tobacco stains on his fingers, got most of his exercise dealing cards to his poker buddies on Friday evenings and looked as if a lap around the high school track could take him down. Karl Hansen,

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