What She Wants

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.

She’d pretended not to notice. “I just stopped by to make sure you didn’t break anything.”

“Naw, I’m fine.” His briefs were another story, but he wisely kept that bit of information to himself.

“That’s good,” she said, handing over the paper plate of goodies. “But if you had broken something, I’d have signed your cast.”

Would you have kissed it and made it all better? That had been an unusually clever remark. Too bad he hadn’t thought of it until she was long gone. But even if he had, he’d have never gotten up the nerve to say it. Instead, he’d said, “Then I’d have to save the cast ’cause your signature will probably be valuable someday.”

That had made her smile and making her smile had made his day.

“See you soon,” she’d called as she got in her car.

“Yeah, see you,” he’d called back.

And he had ever since, every day on TV. He’d liked her on Facebook, too, not that she’d noticed. It wasn’t much, but it was all he had and it was better than nothing. Barely.

“I wonder if she’s coming to the reunion,” he mused.

Next to him Chica whined.

“Yeah, you’re right, what does it matter?” Jonathan muttered. These days she was way too busy to hang out with nerdy guys she’d hung with as a kid. And if he went to the reunion, history would repeat itself and the high school hunks would squeeze him out.

He listened as the guest expert talked about how to make a first date with an internet match-up successful. If only there was an expert out there who could help a guy have a successful encounter with a woman he’d known all his life.

“I can’t keep just seeing her this way,” he said to Chica. “And I can’t go on doing nothing. She won’t stay single forever.”

As if, when she finally walked down the aisle, it would be to him! “You’re dreaming,” he told himself.

Well, so what if he was? A man needed dreams, needed to think big. Go big or go home.

Oh, yeah. He was already home. Forget about it, he advised himself.

The morning show ended and Jonathan turned off the TV, leaving Chica in charge of yard patrol and napping, and then got in his car and drove down the long, gravel road toward town. He passed a few large lots with big houses on them, but mostly here, in his neck of the woods, the land remained dense with trees and brush.

He liked it that way. Jonathan Templar, rugged mountain man. Well, mountain man, anyway.

The town itself looked picturesque on this sunny morning. The window boxes and hanging planters that decorated the quaint Bavarian-style buildings overflowed with red geraniums and pink and white begonias. And with the mountains rising up behind, he could almost believe he was somewhere in the German Alps. A few people were stirring, some running errands, some visiting, others sweeping off the sidewalks in front of their shops.

It sure wasn’t New York or Seattle but that was okay with Jonathan. Icicle Falls was perfect the way it was. Who would want to live anywhere else?

Lissa Castle, that was who. Would she ever give up her TV career and move back to Icicle Falls? Probably not. Would he say goodbye to this beautiful place and follow her wherever her career led? In a heartbeat, if only she’d ask him.

Even a man caught in the net of unrequited love had to think about other things once in a while. Jonathan parked his car on Center Street and turned his mind to business.

He had plenty to keep him busy the rest of the morning, so busy in fact that he wound up working clear through lunch. He found himself with twenty minutes to kill before he had to be at Mountain Escape Books to work on Pat Wilder’s computer, so he decided to duck into Bavarian Brews for a quick pick-me-up.

The aroma of coffee kissed his taste buds as he walked in. Yes, he was probably going to go a million years without sex, might never connect with the woman of his dreams, but at least he had coffee.