Page 14 of Choosing Happily Ever After

She’d been missing out.

“Having a good time?” Levi asked unnecessarily, right as the song changed.

Hope and Katie both leaned into the song, listening intently before they cried out at the same time, “Walk of Life!” And then dissolved into giggles as they each daubed the appropriate squares on the cards in front of them.

“This is awesome,” Hope said when they were done marking their squares. “I don’t know why I didn’t know about this.”

“Because you work all the time.” Katie laughed. “But now that you know…”

“I’ll totally come again. And maybe I can even get Sarah to get a babysitter.”

“Sarah Lewis?” It was Levi who asked. “I haven’t seen her in ages. How’s she doing?”

Hope shrugged. “Good, I guess. She married Josh Lewis. Remember him?”

“Of course.”

“And you heard the news then?” Katie jumped in. “It was so sad when he died. Their little girl was just a baby and they were on holidays at the lake.”

“The lake? Cedar Springs?”

Hope nodded. Cedar Springs was the popular resort community less than an hour away from them in the mountains. The lake was a popular place for all of them to hang out when they were younger. And it had a lot of good memories. For most of them.

“It was really tragic.” Hope took over the story. “They were on the beach and Josh noticed a child in distress out by the raft.” She swallowed hard. “So he jumped in. Didn’t even hesitate.”

“That’s terrible,” Levi said, obviously figuring out how the story would end.

“He saved the boy,” Katie said. “But he didn’t come up again. And with all the chaos, by the time anyone got to him, it was too late.”

Levi looked between them all as he absorbed the story. “That’s absolutely awful.”

Hope nodded. “It is, but it was years ago now, and Sarah’s doing really well. She started working with Doctor Friesen right before it happened, and she has a lot of family support in town for her little girl, Rory. She’s really the best mom. She seems really happy now.”

“Well, that’s good to hear.”

“Speaking of hearing…” Katie pointed up into the air as a new song started to play.

“Walking on Sunshine!” Hope and Katie called out together and immediately the mood was lighter.

“Logan.” Katie elbowed her brother. “You aren’t playing.”

“Sure I am.” He lifted his mug of beer, not looking at her, but instead at something, or more likely, someone—like the beautiful brunette—across the room.

“No,” Katie insisted. “You’re not. Look, you’ve missed the last three songs.”

“Here.” He shoved his card toward his sister, put down his mug and pushed up from the table. “You take care of this for me. I have something I need to do.”

“Logan! Come on. That’s no fun.”

Logan turned around and grinned at his sister. “Oh, I think it will be plenty of fun.”

Katie rolled her eyes and looked at Levi. “Nothing’s changed.”

Hope didn’t know about that, but she didn’t bother saying so. There was a time when Logan was definitely more interested in her twin sister than any other woman in town. Not that he’d admit it back then. And there was probably even less of a chance she’d get him to admit it now.

Hope shook her head in Logan’s direction and caught Levi’s eye as she turned back to her bingo cards.

“Maybe things could have been different.”

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