Romance on Mountain View Road (2 page)

Helping his son be manly. The house was probably the one endeavor of Jonathan's that his father took pride in. It wasn't hard to figure out what kind of son Dad had really longed for. He'd never missed an Icicle Falls High football game, whether at home or away. How many times had he sat in the stands and wished his scrawny son was out there on the field or at least on the bench instead of playing in the band? Jonathan was glad that he had no idea.

“I love you, son,” Dad had said when they were loading him into the ambulance. Those were the last words Jonathan heard and he was thankful for them. But he often found himself wishing his dad had said he was proud of him.

As he pulled up in his yellow Volkswagen with Geek Gods Computer Services printed on the side, his dog, Chica, abandoned her spot on the front porch and raced down the stairs to greet him, barking a welcome. Chica was an animal-shelter find, part shepherd, part Lab and part...whatever kind of dog had a curly tail. She'd been with Jonathan for five years and she thought he was a god (and didn't care if he
was
a geek).

He got out of the car and the dog started jumping like she had springs on her paws. It was nice to have some female go crazy over him. “Hey, girl,” he greeted her. “We'll get some dinner and then play fetch.”

He exchanged his slacks for the comfort of his old baggy jeans, and his business shirt for a T-shirt sporting a nerdy pun that cautioned Don't Drink and Derive. Then, after a feast of canned spaghetti for Jonathan and some Doggy's Delight for Chica, it was time for a quick game of fetch. It had to be quick because tonight was Friday, poker night, and the guys would be coming over at seven. Poker, another manly pursuit. Dad would have been proud.

* * *

The first to arrive was his pal Kyle Long. Kyle and Jonathan had been friends since high school. They'd both been members of the chess club and had shared an addiction to old sci-fi movies and video games.

Kyle didn't exactly fit his name. He was short. His hair was a lighter shade than Jonathan's dark brown—nothing spectacular, rather like his face.

His ordinary face didn't bug him nearly as much as his lack of stature. “Women don't look at short guys,” he often grumbled. And short guys who (like Jonathan) weren't so confident and quick with the flattery—well, they really didn't get noticed, even by girls their own height. This had been a hard cross to bear in high school when it seemed that every girl Kyle liked chose some giant basketball player over him. These days the competition wore a different type of uniform, the one worn to the office, but his frustration level remained the same.

The grumpy expression on his face tonight said it all before he so much as opened his mouth. “What's with chicks, anyway?” he demanded as he set a six-pack of Hale's Ale on Jonathan's counter.

If Jonathan knew that, he'd be married to the woman of his dreams by now. He shrugged.

“Okay, so Darrow looks like friggin' Ryan Reynolds.”

Ted Darrow, Kyle's nemesis. “And drives a Jag,” Jonathan supplied. Darrow was also Kyle's boss, which put him higher up the ladder of success, always a sexy attribute.

“But he's the world's biggest ass-wipe,” Kyle said with a scowl. “I don't know what Jillian sees in him.”

Jonathan knew. Like called to like. Beautiful people naturally gravitated to one another. He had seen Jillian when he'd gone to Kyle's company, Safe Hands Insurance, to install their new computer system. As the receptionist, it had been her job to greet him and he'd seen right away why his friend was smitten. She was hot, with supermodel-long legs. Women like that went for the Ted Darrows of the world.

Or the Rand Burwells.

Jonathan shoved that last thought out of his mind. “Hey, you might as well give up. You're not gonna get her.” It was hard to say that to his best friend, but friends didn't let friends drive themselves crazy over women who were out of their league. Kyle would do the same for him—if he knew Jonathan had suffered a relapse last Christmas and had once again picked up the torch for his own perfect dream girl. The road to crazy was a clogged thoroughfare these days.

Kyle heaved a discouraged sigh. “Yeah.” He pulled an opener out of a kitchen drawer and popped the top off one of the bottles. “It's just that, well, damn. If she looked my way for longer than two seconds, she'd see I'm twice the man Darrow is.”

“I hear you,” Jonathan said, and opened a bag of corn chips, setting them alongside the beer.

Next in the door was Bernardo Ruiz, who came bearing some of his wife's homemade salsa. Bernardo was happily married and owned a small orchard outside town, in which he took great pride. He wasn't much taller than Kyle, but he swaggered like he was six feet.

“Who died?” he asked, looking from one friend to the other.

“Nobody,” Kyle snapped.

Bernardo eyed him suspiciously. “You mooning around over that bimbo at work again?”

“She's not a bimbo,” Kyle said irritably.

Bernardo shook his head in disgust. “Little man, you are a fool to chase after a woman who doesn't want you. That kind of a woman, she'll only make you feel small on the inside.”

Any reference to being small, either on the inside or outside, never went over well with Kyle, so it was probably a good thing that Adam Edwards arrived with more beer and chips. A sales rep for a pharmaceutical company, he earned more than Jonathan and Kyle put together and had the toys to prove it—a big house on the river, a classic Corvette, a snowmobile and a beach house on the Washington coast. He also had a pretty little wife, which proved Jonathan's theory of like calling to like, since Adam was tall and broad-shouldered and looked as though he belonged in Hollywood instead of Icicle Falls. Some guys had all the luck.

“Vance'll be late,” Adam informed them. “He has to finish up something and says to go ahead and start without him.”

Vance Fish, the newest member of their group, was somewhere in his fifties, which made him the senior member. He'd built a big house on River Road about a mile down from Adam's place. The two men had bonded over fishing lures, and Adam had invited him to join their poker group.

Although Vance claimed to be semiretired, he was always working. He owned a bookstore in Seattle called Emerald City Books. He'd recently started selling Sweet Dreams Chocolates there, making himself popular with the Sterling family, who owned the company.

He dressed like he was on his last dime, usually in sweats or jeans and an oversize black T-shirt that hung clumsily over his double-XL belly, but his fancy house was proof that Vance was doing okay.

“That means we won't see him for at least an hour,” Kyle predicted.

“What kind of project?” Bernardo wondered. “Is he building something over there in that fine house of his? I never seen no tools or workbench in his garage.”

“It has to do with the bookstore,” Adam said. “I don't know what.”

“Well, all the better for me,” Kyle said gleefully. “I'll have you guys fleeced by the time he gets here.” He rubbed his hands together. “I'm feeling lucky tonight.”

He proved it by raking in their money.

“Bernardo, you should just empty your pockets on the table as soon as you get here,” Adam joked. “I've never seen anybody so unlucky at cards.”

“That's because I'm lucky in love,” Bernardo insisted.

His remark wiped the victory smirk right off Kyle's face. “Chicks,” he muttered.

“If you're going where I think you're going, don't,” Adam said, frowning at him.

“What?” Kyle protested.

Adam pointed his beer bottle at Kyle. “If I hear one more word about Jillian, I'm gonna club you with this.”

“Oh, no,” said a deep voice. “I thought you clowns would be done talking about women by now.”

Jonathan turned to see Vance strolling into the room, stylish as ever in his favorite black T-shirt, baggy jeans and sandals. In honor of the occasion he hadn't shaved. Aside from the extra pounds (well, and that bald spot on the top of his head), he wasn't too bad-looking. His sandy hair was shot with gray but he had the craggy brow and strong jaw women seemed to like even in a big man. They were wasted on Vance; he wasn't interested. “Been there, done that,” he often said.

“We're finished talking about women,” Adam assured him.

Vance clapped him on the back. “Glad to hear it, 'cause the last thing I want after a hard day's work is to listen to you losers crab about them.”

“I wasn't crabbing,” Kyle said, looking sullen.

Vance sat down at the table. “It's that babe where you work, isn't it? She got your jockeys tight again?” Kyle glared at him, but Vance waved off his anger with a pudgy paw. “You know, women can sense desperation a mile away. It's a turnoff.”

“And I guess you'd be an expert on what turns women off,” Adam teased.

“There isn't a man on this planet who's an expert on anything about women. And if you meet one who says he is, he's lying. Now, let's play poker.” Vance eyed the pile of chips in front of Kyle. “You need to be relieved of some of those, my friend.”

“I think not,” Kyle said, and the game began in earnest.

After an hour and a half, Vance announced that he had to tap a kidney.

“I need some chips and salsa,” Adam said, and everyone took a break.

“Did you get the announcement in the mail?” Kyle asked Jonathan.

No, not this again.

“What announcement?” Adam asked.

“High school reunion,” Kyle said. “Fifteen years.”

Jonathan had gotten the cutesy little postcard with the picture of a grizzly bear, the Icicle Falls High mascot, lumbering across one corner. And of course, the first thing he'd thought was, maybe Lissa will come. That had taken his spirits on a hot-air balloon ride. Until he'd had another thought.
You'll still be the Invisible Man.
That had brought the balloon back down.

“Yeah, I got it,” he said. “I'm not going.”

But Rand probably would. Rand and Lissa, together again.

Now his balloon ride was not only over, the balloon was in a swamp infested with alligators. And poker night was a bust.

Just like his love life.

Chapter Two

P
oker night hadn't ended well for Kyle. Vance, the old buzzard, had picked him clean. And that set the tone for the weekend.

Saturday was nothing but chores and errands. He filled the evening playing
War on Planet X
with a bunch of online gamers, which left him feeling unsatisfied. He was getting too old for this crap. He needed more in his life. It seemed like everybody was getting paired up but him.

He was even more aware of this fact when he went over to his folks' house for Sunday dinner and learned that his baby sister had gotten engaged. Of course he'd seen it coming for months and he was happy for her. But now it was official—he was the last of the three siblings left unattached. And Kerrie was four years younger, which didn't help. Neither did remarks like, “We have to find somebody for Kyle.” He didn't need his baby sister finding someone for him.

He'd found someone. All he had to do was make her realize he was the man for her.

Well, the weekend was over and it was a new day. TGIM—Thank God It's Monday. He walked through the glass doors of Safe Hands Insurance Company and into the lobby with its modern paintings, the strategically placed metal sculpture of two giant hands stretched out in a gesture of insurance paternalism, and plants that looked like they'd escaped from an African jungle. He kept his eyes front and center, because there, straight ahead, was the receptionist's desk.

Behind it sat a vision. Jillian. She had long, reddish-blond hair that she tossed over her shoulder when she talked, full, glossy lips he dreamed of kissing, a perfect nose and sky-blue eyes.
Blind
sky-blue eyes. One of these days she was going to see him, really see him. Maybe even this morning.

He sure saw everything about her. Today she was wearing a white blouse that plunged in a V pointing to her breasts—as if a man needed any help finding them—and she'd worn a necklace made up of glass baubles to fill the gap between neck and heaven. She'd tucked her hair behind her ears, showing off dangly earrings that matched the necklace. She had a funny little habit of tapping her pencil on the desk as she talked on the phone, which she was doing now. The call only lasted a moment. She pushed a button and sent the caller on, probably to one of the bosses. Such an efficient woman.

Now she smiled as she caught sight of him walking down the hall in his gray slacks and his white Oxford shirt, his hair slicked into the latest style (at least according to the new barber he'd gone to at Sweeney Todd Barbershop—the one highlight of his weekend). He puffed out his chest and donned his best smile. He did have a good smile; even his sisters said so.

Oh, man, look at the way her eyes lit up at the sight of him. It was the hair, had to be. He forced his chest to swell to its fullest capacity.

Look at that smile. She had a great smile and she used it a lot. When a woman smiled a lot, it meant she was happy and easygoing. That was exactly the kind of woman Kyle wanted.

He was almost at her desk when he realized they weren't making eye contact. She was looking beyond him.

Then he heard a rich tenor voice behind him say, “Jillian, you're especially beautiful this fine morning.”

Ted Darrow, the ass-wipe. Kyle's supervisor. Kyle could feel his smile shrinking even as he shrank inside. He mumbled a hello to Jillian and slunk by her desk.

“Hi,” she said absently as he passed. Then for Ted it was a sexy, “Hi, Ted.”

“Hi, Ted,” Kyle mimicked under his breath as he strode to his cubicle. Jillian shouldn't waste her breath saying hello to that fathead. Men like that, they flirted with women, they used women, but they didn't appreciate women. Kyle flung himself into his chair with a growl.

“Starting the day off well, I see,” said a soft voice from the cubicle next door.

Unlike
some people,
Mindy Wright always had the decency to acknowledge his existence. It didn't make him feel any better, though. Mindy was no Jillian.

“Hi, Mindy.” His hello probably sounded grudging, so he added, “How was your weekend?”

“Well, it was interesting.”

Mindy had been trolling the internet for her perfect match. So far she'd hauled in a truck driver who was ten years older than she was and about forty pounds heavier than he'd looked in his picture on the dating site, a man who claimed to be a churchgoer but hadn't gone in two—okay, make it five—years, a shrink who Mindy said was the most screwed-up person she'd ever had dinner with and someone who'd seemed like a great catch until she learned he had no job. “And he wasn't planning on finding one anytime soon, either,” Mindy had confessed. “He's writing a book.”

“Oh, well, that's good,” Kyle had said, trying to put a positive spin on the latest loser.

“About mushrooms.”

“Bound to be a bestseller.”

That had made her laugh. Kyle made Mindy laugh a lot. If only he could work up his nerve to ask Jillian out. He was sure he could make her laugh, too. But so far, his attempts to get her attention had all been thwarted.

Shakespeare had it right. The course of true love never did run smooth. For Kyle, it seemed to run into nothing but dead ends.

At least Mindy was getting some action. “So, who'd you go out with this weekend?” he asked.

“No one I want to keep, that's for sure. I think I'm done looking.”

“Hey, you can't give up. Your perfect man may be right around the next corner.”

“The next internet corner?” She peeked around the cubicle wall, a grin on her face.

It was an okay face, fringed with dark hair and decorated with glasses, a turned-up little nose that made him think of Drew Barrymore and a small chin that seemed to sport a zit once a month. (What was with that, anyway?) As for the bod, well, not a ten like Jillian. Still, she was pretty nice. Someone would want her.

“Yeah,” he said. “The next internet corner. Or maybe at the Red Barn.” If you wanted cold beer and hot music, that was the place to go.

She shook her head. “I haven't gone there in a long time.” Then she disappeared back behind the cubicle wall.

“Why's that?” he asked, booting up his computer.

“Too much competition.”

“I know what you mean.” Funny how the walls of an office cubicle could make you feel like you were in a confessional, willing to say things you wouldn't share face-to-face. Not that he'd been in the confessional for a while.

Maybe he needed to spend some time there. And maybe he should be talking to God more. God saw him, even if Jillian didn't. Maybe God would consider working a miracle and opening Jillian's eyes. At the rate things were going here at Safe Hands, improving her eyesight was going to
take
a miracle.

* * *

It was nine o'clock and time for Jonathan's morning ritual. He grabbed his bowl of cereal with sliced banana and turned on the TV to a station in Oregon. “Barely made it in time,” he told Chica, who'd settled on the couch beside him. “We shouldn't have taken such a long walk.”

Her only response to that was a big yawn.

“You know, you've got a bad attitude,” he said.

She let out a bark.

“And you're jealous,” he added, making her whine. He put an arm around her and gave her head a good rub. “But I'll keep you, anyway.”

The commercial for laser skin treatment ended and Chica was forgotten as an image of the city of Portland came on the screen, accompanied by perky music. A disembodied voice called out, “Good morning, Oregon!”

Then there she was—trim, blonde and beautiful—seated at a couch in a fake living room next to a gray-haired guy wearing slacks and an expensive shirt.

Scott Lawrence. Jonathan frowned at the sight of him. Media guys, they were just too smooth.
Now who's jealous?

He was, of course. Talk about stupid. In order to be jealous of other men, you first had to be with the woman. Jonathan was not with Lissa Castle, never had been.

“Well, Lissa, I'm sure your weekend was stellar,” Scott said to her.

“Yes, it was.” She had such a sweet voice, so full of cheer and kindness. Lissa had always been kind.

“Did you have a hot date?” Scott teased. “What am I saying? Of course you had a hot date.”

She neither denied nor confirmed, just sat in her leather chair and smiled like the Mona Lisa in a pink blouse.

Which meant she'd had a hot date, Jonathan deduced miserably.

Her cohost turned to face the camera. “Speaking of dates, some of you out there in our viewing audience might be doing internet dating and finding it frustrating.”

“It can be stressful when it comes time to meet that other person off-line,” Lissa said. “And that's why I know you're going to appreciate our first guest this morning, who'll be sharing tips with us on how to transition from online to face time.”

Sometimes even face time didn't win a girl, Jonathan thought sadly, not when the girl was out of a guy's league.

He'd been in love with Lissa ever since he'd discovered girls. In fact, Lissa had been the first girl he discovered when she moved in next door at the age of nine. They'd become pals, which was great when he was nine. But as they got older and she got even prettier, Jonathan began to look beyond the borders of friendship.

He wasn't the only one. During high school, his friend Rand took a new interest in Lissa once she became a cheerleader. And she was interested right back.

Hardly surprising, since Rand was the cool one. When they were kids, everyone had fought over Rand while picking teams for playground softball games. In high school he'd been captain of the football team. The boys all wanted to be his bud and the girls all looked at him like he was a free trip to Disneyland.

As for Jonathan, he was captain of...the chess team, and hardly any girls looked at him at all. Not that he'd wanted any girl but Lissa.

No matter what he'd done, though, he couldn't win her interest. She always thought of him simply as her good friend.

He'd wanted to be more. When they were juniors, in the hopes of getting her to see him in a new way, he'd sneaked into Icicle Falls High early on Valentine's Day and taped a hundred red paper hearts to her locker.

But she'd thought Rand had done it. Rand happily took the credit and took Lissa to the junior prom. And Jonathan took a swing at Rand. And that was the end of their friendship.

But not the end of Rand and Lissa. They were an item clear through senior year.

As for Jonathan, he wasn't an item with anyone. He'd tried, gone out with a few girls as desperate as he was, but every time he'd closed his eyes and kissed a girl he'd seen Lissa.

After everyone graduated and scattered he still saw her on holidays when she was in town visiting her parents and he was over at his folks' next door. Once in a while they'd talk. He'd say brilliant things like, “How's it going?” and she'd ask him questions like, “Anyone special in your life yet?” He'd never had the guts to say, “There's been someone special in my life since I was nine.”

When his dad died, she'd sent him a card telling him how sorry she was. Mostly, though, she just waved to him while hurrying down her front walk to catch up with girlfriends. He'd tried not to see when she left on the arm of the latest local whose attention she'd captured.

A couple of summers ago, he'd seen her when she came home to surprise her mom for her birthday. He'd been at his mom's, up on a ladder painting the side of the house, when she called a cheery hello from next door.

He'd almost lost his balance at the sound of her voice.

“Jonathan Templar, paint specialist. And I thought you were only a computer genius,” she'd teased from the other side of the hedge that ran between their houses.

He'd had a perfect view of her from his perch on the ladder and the view was great. She'd looked like a cover girl for a summer issue of some women's magazine in her pink top and white shorts.

“That, too,” he'd said, then asked, “Are you in town for long?”

“Only the weekend.”

He knew what that meant. This moment was all he'd have with her.

“We've got Mom's big birthday dinner tonight. Then brunch tomorrow and then I've got to get back to Portland. I don't think I'll even have time to bake you any cookies. How sad is that?” Before he could answer, her cell phone had rung. “I know, I'm on my way,” she'd said, and ended the call. “I'm late, as usual,” she'd said to Jonathan. “I'd better get going. Good to see you, Jonathan. You look great.” Then she'd hurried off down her front walk, her long, blond hair swinging.

That hadn't been the only thing swinging. Watching her hips as she walked away had been hypnotic, addictive. And dumb.

Jonathan had leaned over to keep her in view just a little longer and lost his balance. With a startled cry, he'd grabbed for the ladder but only succeeded in bringing the bucket of paint down on himself as he fell, turning him blue from head to toe. A one-man Blue Man Group act.

He'd bruised his hip in the process, but his ego had taken an even bigger hit when Lissa came running to where he'd fallen. “Jonathan, are you okay?”

He'd been far from okay. He'd been mortified, his face probably red under the blue paint. But he'd said, “Oh, yeah. No problem. I'm fine.”

Then his mom had come out and started fussing over him and that had been the final humiliation. He'd tried to wash his clothes and turned his underwear baby blue, and it had taken him days to get the last of the paint off. Bits of it stubbornly lingered under his fingernails to remind him of what a dork he was. Well, that and the blue undies.

Lissa did find time to bake him cookies. She'd dropped them by his place on her way out of town.

He'd tried to play it cool by leaning one hand against the door frame but had missed the mark and nearly lost his balance. Again.