Читать книгу What She Wants - Sheila Roberts - Страница 11
ОглавлениеChapter Three
Adam was missing from the next Friday-night poker game. “He decided to stay up in Alaska for the weekend and fish after finishing his sales calls,” Jonathan explained to his fellow gamblers.
“Should be good salmon fishing on the Copper River about now,” said Vance. “Especially next week. I may have to take a run up there myself.”
“Going up to Alaska for a little fishing when the spirit moves you? Business must be great at the bookstore,” Kyle observed, his voice tinged with jealousy.
Vance shrugged. “It’s okay.”
With Vance’s lifestyle, it had to be doing more than okay. Vance didn’t talk about his business much. For that matter, he didn’t talk much about his life at all. Jonathan knew he’d been married and had a daughter, and that was about it. Maybe Vance had a rich uncle who died and left him a fortune. Maybe he was a Microsoft millionaire. Jonathan had no idea. When it came to sharing his personal life, Vance preferred to stick to topics such as his fishing adventures (especially the one that got away), how much he’d won or lost at the casino or his latest wine discovery.
“Okay,” Vance said, and started dealing the cards, “let’s get down to business. Five-card draw, jacks or better, to open.”
As they picked up their cards, Bernardo mused, “I don’t know how that boy can go off fishing on the weekend all the time. If I did that, my Anna would not be happy.”
“He’s already up there, anyway, since that’s part of his sales territory,” Kyle said, “so he may as well stay. I would.”
“You’re not married, amigo,” Bernardo reminded him.
That made Kyle frown. “Thanks for the update.”
“If a man wants to keep his woman happy he has to be around,” Bernardo continued.
Jonathan supposed Bernardo would know. He’d been married for fifteen years.
“Yeah, they like attention,” Vance agreed. “Lots of it. Another reason to stay single.”
“If I was with Jillian, I’d give her plenty of attention,” Kyle said.
Vance pointed a fat finger at him. “Don’t go there.”
Kyle frowned again and shoved two cards across the table. “I’ll take two.”
When Vance gave him two new ones, he was still frowning, but that probably had more to do with thoughts of Jillian than the cards he’d received.
Jonathan kept his thoughts about women in general and one woman in particular to himself. The last thing he wanted was Bernardo’s pity or Vance’s scorn. Let Kyle take that hit. Jonathan preferred to suffer in silence.
* * *
Saturday morning Jonathan attempted to ease his suffering by going with his sister, Juliet, to the library for the Friends of the Library monthly book sale.
A stranger seeing them enter the musty room in the library basement would never have taken them for siblings. Other than their hair color, they didn’t look at all alike. Juliet Gerard had big, brown eyes and perfect eyesight, where his gray eyes hid behind glasses. He had a long face, while she’d been blessed with a perfect oval like their mother’s. He was skinny and barely five foot eight; she was long-legged and stacked. She’d definitely gotten the looks in the family while he’d gotten the brains. Not that Juliet was stupid, but it quickly became apparent who the family genius was. In the world of kids, that wasn’t necessarily a blessing. When they were younger he’d often wished it was the other way around, but then he’d realized how unfair that would have been. Life was easier for a man who wasn’t all that attractive than it was for a woman. Theoretically.
Their lives were as different as their looks. Juliet was married and trying to get pregnant, a project that was taking much longer than expected. When she wasn’t working at that, she logged in part-time hours at Mountain Escape Books or met with her book club or hosted parties where all her friends had to buy candles or face goop. She was an awful cook, a good dancer and an avid romance reader. And her social calendar was always full.
Jonathan’s, on the other hand, had a lot of open space, and he was stuck in nonswinging single limbo. He couldn’t dance, but he could fix leaky pipes and install dimmer switches, something both his sis and his brother-in-law appreciated. Unlike Juliet, he read real fiction like action adventure or sci-fi/fantasy, and the monthly fund-raiser book sales gave him an opportunity to try out new authors.
He’d just scored big, finding a first edition of The Kingdom of Zoon, when Juliet, prowling the romance section a couple of bookshelves over, let out a squeal.
Hildy Johnson, who owned Johnson’s Drugs along with her husband, Nils, was standing next to her and already had several books in her basket, but she eyed Juliet’s find with envy. “Oh, Vanessa Valentine. I haven’t read that one.”
The woman was married and in her fifties. Why was she reading romance novels?
“I’ll lend it to you when I’m done,” Juliet promised.
Rita Reyes, who’d worked in the bar at Zelda’s restaurant, entered the room. She said a quick hi to Jonathan, then moved to join Juliet and Hildy in their treasure hunt. “I hope you haven’t taken all the good books.”
“We saved you a few,” Juliet assured her. “When’s Zelda’s going to open again?”
“Charley says by June.”
“I hope so,” Juliet said. “I miss those huckleberry martinis.”
“And I miss working there.” Rita sighed. “I’ll be so glad when we’re up and running again.”
A fire in December had forced the restaurant to close; it was now in the process of being rebuilt. Zelda’s was a popular place in town for both families and singles wanting to mix and match. Jonathan hadn’t gone there much.
Rita pointed to the book in Juliet’s hand. “I love that one. James Noble is the perfect man.”
The perfect man, huh? A character made up by a woman? Oh, brother.
“Look! Here’s Surrender,” Rita said, pulling a paperback off a shelf. “I love this book.”
A war novel in the romance section? Jonathan edged closer and sneaked a peek. He saw no scene of carnage on the cover, no white flag being raised—only a woman in a low-cut dress and some muscle-bound guy in tights and a shirt he forgot to button doing a back bend over the kind of fancy bed no man would want to sleep in. Looking at the way the guy was holding her made Jonathan’s back hurt.
“Oh, my gosh, me, too,” agreed Juliet. “There’s a hero to die for. I love the scene where he throws himself in front of her and gets stabbed.”
“And how often does that happen in real life?” Jonathan scoffed under his breath.
The women stared at him as if he’d uttered blasphemy.
Juliet raised a delicate eyebrow. “Probably as often as a giant bubble floats to earth and gives magical powers to the first fool who touches it.”
Rita snickered and Jonathan, properly chastised and feeling like he’d stuck his face in a firepit, moved to a safer corner of the room and perused the home improvement section.
Turning his back on Juliet and her fellow romance junkies didn’t shield his ears from their conversation.
“Men,” Rita said disgustedly. “Maybe if they read a few romance novels they’d learn something.”
“Nils could stand to learn a few things,” Hildy said. “Especially in the bedroom,” she added in a conspiratorial whisper that carried across the small, now quiet—since everyone was eavesdropping—room.
Balding, scrawny Nils and Brunhilda Hildy in the bedroom together. That was T.M.I. to the max.
“Oh, they all think they’re such good lovers.” Rita rolled her eyes. Rita was divorced. Obviously, her man hadn’t measured up. “If I found a man who could make love like the heroes in those books, I’d take him to bed in a heartbeat.”
“If a man really wanted to be a good lover, he should read these books,” Hildy continued in her stage whisper.
Rita nodded. “That would guarantee he’d get lucky.”
The women finished making their selections. As they went to pay for their books, two gray-haired men and a teenage boy stampeded to the romance section.
Jonathan paid for his book and then left the room with Juliet, who was now wearing a superior smirk.
“Pathetic,” Jonathan muttered.
“You shouldn’t knock romance novels if you haven’t read them,” she said as they walked out of the library and turned toward Bavarian Brews for their ritual post-shopping coffee.
“I guess,” he said. “But they all seem so, I don’t know, unrealistic.” He held up a hand before Juliet could give him another verbal smackdown. “Yes, neither are my sci-fi/fantasy books. But I know they’re improbable. And at least sci-fi has real science at its roots.”
“And my romance novels have real life at their roots,” Juliet argued. “They’re all about men and women falling in love and working out their problems. People do that every day. And you know what I like best about them? They all have happy endings.” Juliet’s smile vanished. “Sometimes a woman needs a break from real life and a little encouragement.”
His sister was always upbeat. To see her expression suddenly cloudy was disturbing. “Everything okay with you and Neil?” He hated to ask, not because he didn’t care, but because female emotions were scary. He’d tried his best to comfort her when their dad died but had felt hopelessly inadequate.
Right now she was looking at him with teary eyes that made him uneasy. He’d rather face the dragon of Zoon than a woman’s tears.
“I’m never going to get pregnant,” she said.
“You should stop taking those pregnancy tests, Jules.” He got that she wanted a baby, but agonizing over the fact that she wasn’t pregnant probably wasn’t helping.
As if he knew what would or wouldn’t help. She should be talking to Mom, not him. How’d they gotten on this conversational track, anyway? Oh, yeah. Romance novels.
“Well, thanks. That was comforting,” she snapped.
He slung an arm around her. “Hey, sorry. But seriously, stop stressing. It’ll happen.” Dr. Jonathan Templar, fertility expert. Oh, brother.
“Maybe it won’t,” she said in a small voice.
Now he really didn’t know what to say. Don’t give up? Yeah, that’d make her feel better. You’ve got someone who loves you? True but not what she wanted to hear. The only thing she wanted to hear was, “You’re pregnant.”
He shook his head. “Life sucks sometimes.”
Amazingly, that had been the thing to say. She managed a smile and said, “Yeah, you’re right. But not all the time.” She held up her grocery bag full of paperbacks. “At least I scored big today. I’ve got a whole bag full of happiness.”
A whole bag full of happiness, huh? “I guess.”
“These books are full of love and adventure.”
“And perfect men,” Jonathan added, remembering the conversation in the library.
“A woman’s idea of perfect, anyway,” Juliet said.
They got their coffee, then sat at one of the café tables outside to enjoy the sunshine and watch their fellow Icicle Falls residents go about their business. They were almost finished when a woman with a baby in a stroller approached. Jonathan opened the door for her and returned to his seat to see his sister’s eyes looking ready to spill tears.
“Hey, it’ll be okay,” he promised, and hoped he was right. “You’re only thirty. You’ve got plenty of time to have a kid.” They’d been trying for a year or so. Did it bring the odds down the longer you tried?
She nodded, but no smile this time. “I should get going. See you at my place for dinner tomorrow?”
It was Mother’s Day. If he didn’t show up, he’d be toast. “Sure.” He made a mental note to bring some antacids.
She gave him a hug, then hurried off down the street.
Jonathan drank the last of his coffee and went to throw the cup in a nearby garbage can. He passed a table with a woman sitting alone, nursing a drink and reading a paperback. He glanced down and saw a couple on the cover, this pair dressed in contemporary Western attire. Another romance novel. The woman smiled and turned a page.
What was it about these books that had women so hooked? He reviewed the conversation he’d heard in the library. There’s a hero to die for.... James Noble is the perfect man...perfect man.
Women wrote those novels and they wrote about perfect men. So if a guy wanted to learn what a woman wanted in a man... Who was that author Juliet and Hildy had been talking about? Vanessa Valentine. Someone with a name like that had to know her stuff when it came to love.
Jonathan tossed his cup, then retraced his steps to the library, hoping the women hadn’t cleared every romance novel off the shelves.
Most of the library patrons were gone by the time he slipped back into the musty room on the lower level, either back to their homes to wash cars or mow lawns, or off to go hiking the mountain trails. A few late arrivals browsed the health and finance sections, and one woman was leafing through a cookbook.
Just his luck, the only other section that was occupied was the romance section, where two teenage girls stood, perusing the books. They were cute and skinny, probably cheerleaders. Darn. He’d hoped not to have an audience.
He hovered over by the magazines and CDs, wishing they’d leave. They didn’t. In fact, it looked like they were going to camp out over there all day, reading and filling their paper grocery bags, emptying the shelves.
What do you care if they see you looking through a romance? They’re only high school kids, he reminded himself. Kids who’d go home and tell their moms about the dork who’d come in looking for love between the covers of a book.
“Oh, my gosh, here’s a Vanessa Valentine,” said one.
No, don’t take that.
She handed it to her friend.
“I haven’t read this,” the other girl said, and dropped it in her bag.
So much for that book. So much for all the books if he didn’t make his move soon. He sauntered casually over. A forty-something woman he’d seen around town had joined them now, and he was aware of both her and the girls staring at him like he was some kind of freak as he studied the titles. He could feel himself beginning to sweat. Just take a book and get out of here.
He snagged a book about a vampire and another with a cowboy on the cover and was about to leave when, suddenly, he saw it. What was this? Two shelves down in the corner, a few inches past the woman’s thighs... Yes! One last Vanessa Valentine.
He bent and made a grab for it just as she leaned over. Oh, no! Boob graze.
“Excuse me,” she said in a tone of voice that told him he was done here.
“Uh, sorry,” he mumbled, and snatched back his hand.
She took advantage of his consternation and plucked the Vanessa Valentine off the shelf. Then she scooped another half dozen novels into her shopping bag.
That left two and one of the teens got them. The woman was right. He was done here. Face still flaming, he walked to the card table where the library volunteer was taking money.
She was somewhere in her twenties and dressed in black. Her fingernails were black, too. She had piercings all over her face, a collection of earrings running up her ears and wore enough eye makeup to give her a head start on Halloween. Not that Jonathan was an expert on eye makeup, but hers seemed like overkill to him. He preferred a more natural look, like what Lissa wore. Liss, always the gold standard.
But this woman was friendly enough. He’d seen her volunteering before. He nodded in response to her greeting of “Back for more?”
She took the books to total them and noticed the vampire on the cover of the top one. “Oh, I love this author. Don’t you?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never read her.”
“You haven’t? Well, you’re in for a treat. Her vampire is really sexy.”
Did she think he was into guy vampires? He opened his mouth to explain that neither guys nor vampires were his thing, but he found it impossible to wedge the words into their conversation.
“He’s right up there with Sookie’s Eric. Gotta love Eric, don’t you?”
Jonathan was aware of the teens tittering behind him. His face began to heat. “Well...”
“I suppose you’ve read all the Twilight books. Are you on Team Edward or Team Jacob?”
“Huh?”
“I say vampires win every time. Werewolves aren’t that sexy.”
More tittering produced more burning on Jonathan’s face. “These aren’t for me.”
“Sure they’re not,” came a whisper from behind him.
“They’re for my sister.”
The volunteer’s face fell. “Oh.”
Okay. She was embarrassed, he was embarrassed. He held up the vampire. “But I’ll have to give this one a try.”
“You should,” she said, nodding her head and making her earrings jingle. “You’ll like it, I promise.”
He paid his buck and got out of there. At least he’d managed to get a couple of books. But what he really wanted was a Vanessa Valentine novel. He wandered upstairs to see if he could find any of her works in the fiction section to check out.
Lo and behold, he discovered a copy of one of the books Juliet had found downstairs. He took it off the shelf. Everlasting Love, the title read, and beneath the cursive script a beautiful couple posed, dressed in the garb of another century. No bed. This pair was standing in a moonlit garden. From the way they were gazing at each other, they wouldn’t be bothering with a bed.
For a moment, the woman’s dark hair lightened to a honey-blond and the guy’s face lengthened and acquired a pair of glasses. Jonathan blinked.
When he glanced down again, the couple had reclaimed their original looks. Shaking his head at his own foolishness, he turned the book over and read the summary on the back.
Lorinda Chardonnay’s life lies in ruins. Her father has gambled away their family’s fortune and betrothed her to the Earl of Ryde, shattering her hopes of marrying her childhood love, Sir James Noble. Little does she know that the Earl of Ryde has a terrible secret that will cost Lorinda her life if she learns of it. But James is not about to let her go into danger without someone to watch over her. And if he must ride the King’s Highway by night and face his rival’s sword to do so, then he will.
Hmm. This sounded kind of interesting. Sword fights, secrets, saving the girl. What the heck. He’d give it a try. He took that one and a couple of other Vanessa Valentine books from the shelf and went to check them out.
Halfway to where Mrs. Bantam, the librarian, stood smiling at him his feet faltered. He’d already gone through enough torture downstairs. He needed cover for his romance novels.
He made a quick detour to the do-it-yourself section and picked up a book on patios, then he went back to— Oh, no. Mrs. Bantam was no longer at the checkout desk and in her place stood Emily Ward.
Emily was fairly new in town. A couple of weeks ago he’d fixed her home computer. She’d supplied him with coffee and then pulled up a chair right next to him so she could watch him work. Customers did that sometimes, but they weren’t usually wearing perfume or tops that pouffed out when they leaned forward, showing breasts wrapped in lacy black. She’d gotten him so distracted he’d knocked over his coffee, drenching everything on her desk. She’d been okay about it but he’d felt like a total moron and had been trying to avoid her ever since.
He pushed his glasses up his nose and forced himself to get in line behind an older woman checking out several books, all the while wondering what happened to the good old days when librarians looked like librarians. The only thing even remotely librarian-like about Emily was her glasses, but they were fire-red and were more like some kind of fashion accessory than an aid to sight. She had short, auburn hair with a feather dangling from it and she wore jeans and a clingy top and a ton of bracelets on her wrist. She wasn’t as beautiful as Lissa, but she was still pretty enough to make him sweat.
“Hi, Jonathan,” she greeted him. “Looks like you’ve got some reading planned for the weekend.”
“Uh, yeah.” That was articulate. Say something else, idiot. “I bet you’ve got plans.” Wait. Did that sound like he was asking her out? He wasn’t trying to start something, not with Emily, anyway.
“Not really,” she said, smiling at him.
He nodded. “You getting to know people yet?”
“Slowly.”
She took his pile of books and started checking them out to him. Once she’d finished with the book on patios and got to the first romance novel, her eyes widened.
“I’m getting some stuff for my sister,” he said. That was his story and he was stickin’ to it.
“What a nice brother. I bet you’re doing something nice for your mom for Mother’s Day, too.”
If a box of Sweet Dreams chocolate counted, then yes. He shrugged. “Family dinner.”
Now Emily spied his bag of library book-sale treasures. “I see you’ve been to the sale.”
He left the romance novels he’d purchased downstairs in the bag and instead pulled out his earlier acquisition, The Kingdom of Zoon, thus proving he was no sissy who read chick books.
She cocked her head and studied it. “That looks interesting.”
Interesting. A polite way of saying yuck. People sure were quick to judge a guy’s reading material.
Someone behind Jonathan cleared his throat, so Emily got busy and finished the checkout process, and Jonathan scrammed, letting out his breath as he went. Who knew going to the library could be so stressful? He stuck the romance novels in the bag with his other books, then left the library, holding the tome on building patios for all the world to see.
But once he arrived home, the manly book on patios got tossed onto the kitchen counter and Jonathan settled on the front porch swing with Chica to find out what was so special about Sir James Noble.
The rest of the morning slipped away as Jonathan was drawn into nineteenth-century England. It was midafternoon when he poured himself a glass of milk and made a PBJ sandwich. Book in hand, he plunked down at his kitchen table to eat and lost a couple more hours.
Finally Chica, who’d been keeping him company, got tired of sitting around and slipped out her dog door. But Jonathan stayed in the nineteenth century. He remained there through dinner, too, gnawing on a cold chicken leg while the wicked Earl of Ryde entertained spies with everything from roast duck to syllabub. (What the heck was syllabub?) Meanwhile, Sir James Noble, bound and gagged in a dark dungeon, struggled back to consciousness, his one thought to save the woman he loved.
After much anguish and struggle, Sir James was able to free himself and rescue the fair Lorinda.
“Oh, James, I thought after what happened at the ball, the horrible things he made me say—I was sure you couldn’t love me anymore.” Lorinda buried her face in her hands and began to cry.
He gently took her hands and kissed each finger. “Don’t cry, dearest. He’s dead now. He has no power over you. And as for loving you, don’t you know? I’ve never stopped. The sun will turn to ash before I stop loving you.”
Now, that was a damned good line.
A few more pages saw James and Lorinda happily starting their new life together. Then there was nothing left for the author to write but The End.
For Jonathan, however, this was the beginning. He’d found the love coach he’d been looking for. Several, as a matter of fact. Maybe, if he read enough of these novels, took notes, he could figure out how to win Lissa’s love.
The thought had barely formed in his mind before he rejected it as hopeless and stupid. Still, what did he have to lose? Surely there was an ember somewhere in Lissa’s heart that he could fan into a small flame of love.
Like a detective, Jonathan wandered down memory lane in search of clues.
He saw himself at the age of ten, a scrawny kid with glasses, doing his best to help a little golden-haired girl come down from the boys’ tree house, where she’d bravely climbed. Rand, the leader of the pack, had yelled at her for having the nerve to invade their territory, and had left in a huff, taking Lenny Lubecker and Danny Popkee with him. She’d burst into tears, and Jonathan had abandoned guy solidarity in favor of staying behind to comfort her.
Lissa was upset but all Jonathan could think to say was, “Don’t cry, Lissa.”
“I just wanted to see,” she sobbed. “You all come up here and don’t play with me. It’s mean.”
He’d never thought of their behavior as mean. Their “boys only” tree house was a fort, a place where they could go to look down on the world and feel superior to those silly girls.
Except Lissa wasn’t silly. She was sweet and she was his friend and now she was upset. “Come on. Let’s go to my house and have root beer floats,” he suggested.
She sniffed and nodded.
He scrambled out of the tree house and started to climb down the makeshift stairs they’d hammered into the trunk.
She poked her head out, then ducked back in.
“Come on,” he called.
“I can’t.”
He climbed up again and looked inside. He found her huddled in a corner. “Don’t you want a float?”
“I’m scared,” she said in a small voice.
“There’s nothing to be scared of,” he assured her.
She shook her head.
“Lissa, you have to come down,” he said reasonably.
She shook her head again.
“Come on,” he urged. “I’ll help you.”
“What if we fall?”
“We won’t.”
But she wasn’t convinced, and pressed farther into the corner of the tree house.
“I’ll get you down.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
With a little whimper, she slowly scooted forward on her bottom. Once at the edge, though, she moved away again.
“Come on, Liss.” He held out a hand. “You can do it.”
She bit her lip and studied him for a moment. Then she moved back to the entrance. He went down a couple of steps to give her room. “Okay, now turn around and put your foot out.”
That produced another whimper but she turned around. Then she stuck out her foot.
Jonathan breathed an inward sigh of relief.
Until she pulled her foot back. “I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. You’re brave. You climbed up here all by yourself.”
“I didn’t think about falling then.”
“Don’t think about it now,” he advised. “Here, I’ll make sure you find the step.”
Once more, she risked sticking out her foot. This time he guided it to the step. “All right! You did it. Come on, next foot.”
And so it went, one foot at a time until he got her down to solid ground.
Once there she threw her arms around his neck. “You saved me!”
It made him feel like a superhero. It was also a little embarrassing. What if the guys saw? He pulled away. “No big deal.”
“It was to me,” she said. And then she did something that forever changed his life. She kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you, Jonathan.”
He could feel his whole face burning. The other boys would tease him mercilessly if they got wind of this. Not knowing what to say or do, he ran off toward home and those root beer floats, Lissa right behind him.
* * *
His mom had not only made them floats, she’d made popcorn, too, and they’d spent the rest of that Saturday afternoon playing Yahtzee. It had been a perfect day and it had been the beginning of what turned out to be a lifelong, one-sided love affair.
Did Lissa remember that day? She’d never mentioned it again. Although one afternoon when they were walking home from middle school she’d told him he was her best friend.
She’d been talking about Danny Popkee, on whom she had a crush, asking Jonathan for advice on how to get his attention. That had been torture. Jonathan hadn’t wanted Lissa to get Danny’s attention. She already had a boy’s attention. His.
“I dunno,” he’d mumbled. “Either he likes you or he doesn’t.”
“Well, that’s no help. What would you do if you wanted someone to like you?”
Walk her home from school, help her with her math and hope I can get up enough nerve to ask her to the eighth-grade dance. He’d shrugged. “Just be nice.” That was never hard for Lissa. She was nice to everyone. “Like you always are,” he’d added.
“Aw, Jonathan, you’re so sweet,” she’d said, making him blush. “I don’t know what I’d do without you. You’re my best friend.”
He was her best friend, but she had a crush on Danny. She’d decided to bake Danny some cookies and that was all it took. They went to the eighth-grade dance together.
But she’d made cookies for Jonathan, too—to thank him for all his good advice.
In fact, she’d made cookies for Jonathan a lot, always trying out new recipes. Baking became one of her favorite ways to express her creativity. And to do something nice for her high school pals.
“What do you think of these?” she’d asked, setting a plate of cookies in front of him. He’d come over to her house to help her with algebra, a subject that was threatening to ruin her sophomore year. “They’re called kitchen sink cookies.”
“Kitchen sink cookies?”
“Yeah, ’cause you put everything but the kitchen sink in them. They have oatmeal and raisins and butterscotch chips and chocolate chips.”
Sounded great. He’d taken one off the plate and bitten into it. In spite of all that good stuff they weren’t very sweet. This wasn’t one of her better efforts, but he didn’t want to tell her that.
There she’d sat, looking at him expectantly. “Not bad,” he’d managed.
He hadn’t mastered his poker face yet and she’d known immediately that something was off. She frowned and chose a cookie from the plate, took a bite. “Eeew.”
“Well, they’re not your best. But they’re okay.” He’d valiantly taken another bite.
She’d set hers back on the plate, then took his out of his hand and put it back, too. “You’re an awful liar. They’re terrible. I refuse to let you eat another bite. I must have forgotten the sugar. How could I do that?”
“Thinking about something else?” he’d suggested. More like someone else. Lissa was always falling madly in love—with everyone but him.
He’d watched her take the plate to the garbage can and dump the ruined goodies in. “You know, those weren’t totally bad,” he’d said.
“Yes, they were.” She’d sat down at the kitchen table and smiled at him. “You’re a super friend. But you have terrible taste.”
Not in women.
He should have said that out loud. Why didn’t he? Why hadn’t he ever said anything?
Of course, deep down he knew the answer. He’d been afraid of how she’d react. He’d chosen to keep his mouth shut then and during the years that followed in order to avoid the agony of rejection.
Still, all those years of cowardice had produced their own brand of suffering. He was tired of suffering.
He and Lissa had been best friends when they were kids. They could be best friends again, maybe even more than that if he turned himself into the kind of man a woman like Lissa would notice.
He only had a ghost of a chance.
But he believed in ghosts. So tomorrow he’d read about the Viscount Vampire and the Cursed Cowboy. Then he was going to go online (where no one would see what he was buying) and buy a bunch more romance novels. He had a lot of research to do.
