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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.
