Sweetheart Lost and Found. Shirley Jump

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      Still, he reminded himself, she had hurt him—and hurt him badly. If he was smart, he’d simply greet her as an old acquaintance and leave it at that.

      “I’m here for work,” he told her. “Really. Even if it doesn’t look it.”

      Her smile widened. “It doesn’t, except for the clipboard, which is so…you.” She shrugged, laughed a little, then started to move away. “Well, it was nice to see you again, Jared.”

      Clipboard was so him? Well, damn it, maybe it was, but once upon a time she’d thought of him in a very different way.

      Yeah, and how well had that ended up?

      He shut off his inner voice. No matter what had happened in the past, a part of Jared wanted Callie to see he had grown and changed. Become a different man. One who wasn’t the nerdy professor she had so cavalierly left behind.

      A man who could—contrary to his plan five seconds ago—have a conversation with her and be completely unaffected.

      Cool with it, even.

      “Callie.” She pivoted back. “Are you meeting someone here tonight?”

      In the space of time it took her to answer, Jared’s heartbeat doubled. He caught his breath, waiting. And not because it would make a damned bit of difference to the sheets on his clipboard.

      Tonight, he’d stepped into unfamiliar liquor-infused territory to analyze couples, to take that data, feed it into a computer then hand the information over to Wiley Games so they could use it to develop the next generation of couple-oriented games and products. Not exactly the high end research Jared had set out to be doing after he’d received his doctoral degree, but the work at Wiley Games paid the bills and kept him in spreadsheets.

      Either way, if there was one particular half of a couple he didn’t want to add to his sheaf of papers, it was Callie Phillips.

      “No, I’m not meeting anyone, not tonight,” she said.

      Not an answer that gave him any indication of her status. Single? Attached? No ring adorned her left hand ring finger, so she wasn’t married or engaged. What happened? Where was Tony?

      “Hey, Callie, what brings you by?” The bartender crossed to them, a friendly smile on his face.

      Callie raised the box in her hands. “Your daughter is now marrying Clarence instead of Clarice.”

      O’Malley chuckled and took the box from her. “Thank you. Glad you guys caught the mistake before we sent them out. That would have been quite the mess.”

      “You’re more than welcome. The wedding’s going to be beautiful.”

      O’Malley’s face softened. “My Jenny, she’s an angel. I can’t believe she’s going to be a bride. Or that I’m old enough to be the father of the bride.” He laughed, then thanked her again and moved down to the far end of the bar to refill the other couple’s shot glasses.

      Callie called a goodbye to O’Malley and turned to go. Before Jared could think about what he was doing—and whether it was a mistake—Jared gestured toward the empty seat beside him. “Would you like to join me?”

      What was he doing? Inviting her to stay?

      Simple curiosity, that’s all it was. Getting caught up on where she’d been all these years.

      “I thought you were working,” she said.

      “It’s not busy here, so I’m taking a break.” He waved the bartender over to them. “A margarita, on the rocks, with salt.”

      Callie smiled. “You remembered?”

      “I did.” He remembered a lot more than just her favorite drink, but he kept that to himself. Jared reminded himself that he and Callie had broken up for a reason—and staying broken up had been in their best interests.

      She took the seat, brushing by him as she did. He inhaled, and with the breath came the light, sweet floral scent of her perfume. “Thanks,” she said, when the bartender laid the drink before her.

      “No problem, Callie.” O’Malley gave Jared another arched brow, this time one of appreciation that the “geek” had a beautiful woman sitting beside him.

      Jared tapped the clipboard and grinned. “Nothing’s sexier than statistics.”

      “If you say so, buddy,” the bartender said, then headed down to the fighting couple at the other end, who were working on their second set of tequila shots before gearing up for Round Two.

      “What kind of research are you doing?” Callie asked.

      “Counting the number of beautiful women who come into a bar alone. I’m up to one. I think I should quit while I’m ahead.” He grinned. “Actually it’s a questionnaire of sorts for couples. A research project for the company I’m working for.”

      “Sounds exciting.”

      “It’s actually a lot more exciting once you feed all the information into a computer and start manipulating the data, using it to run statistical probabilities and forecasts. And if I get lucky, hopefully I’ll come up with enough data to create some real, hard evidence to bring to a peer-reviewed journal. Something more respectable than the basis of the next ‘Twenty Tantalizing Bedroom Teasers.’”

      “‘Bedroom Teasers’?” Callie chuckled, then raised a dubious brow. “This from the man who dressed up as a biker on Halloween in college? What happened to the leather jacket? The boots? The chaps?”

      “Probably shoved in a closet somewhere. I’m strictly a suit and tie guy now. No more of that crazy open road, living by the seat of my pants talk.”

      His brief, one-night foray into that different persona had been a bad idea. He’d thought that by slipping on a black jacket, climbing on a Harley, he could get Callie to notice him in a way she never had in high school. She had—for a heartbeat—until Tony had stolen her back again, leaving Jared with an extra helmet and a lot of regrets.

      No more. He wouldn’t journey that road again.

      “Pity.” Callie took a sip of her drink.

      “What’s that supposed to mean?”

      She shrugged. “You were a lot of fun when you were a…well, not exactly a bad boy, but a bad-ish boy.”

      “You make me sound like a five-year-old who wouldn’t obey his bedtime.”

      “If I remember correctly, there wasn’t much trouble getting you to bed.” Then Callie’s face colored and she directed her attention to her drink again.

      Jared remembered, too. Remembered too well. One night—a night he’d never forgotten, but she had begged him to never mention again, so that she could marry Tony, with a clear conscience.

      Tony—Jared’s former best friend. Tony—the man who had stood between them both and been everything Jared wasn’t.

      And everything Callie wanted.

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