Adam wasn’t sure whether he was talking about the green sweater the woman was wearing or the flowers.
Either way, the compliment had worked. “Heinrich, you always know what to say to make a woman feel good about herself.”
Nobody could accuse Adam of that.
“Well, I’d better get back to the bookstore,” she said.
The bookstore. That was where he’d seen her. She owned the place.
He’d gone in once with Chelsea. They’d been running errands and the bookstore had been the last stop. He remembered how he’d whined like a little kid, hurrying her through her selection process. “Come on, babe. All those books are the same. Just pick one so we can go home and eat lunch.”
How wrong he’d been! None of those books were the same. Well, other than the fact that by the end the hero got a clue. Adam hoped he was getting a clue.
He felt uncomfortably self-conscious as the bookstore woman walked past him. He hoped she didn’t remember him.
From behind the counter, Heinrich, his new best friend, smiled politely. “Welcome back.”
“Thanks,” Adam said. “I need another flower.”
Thank God the man didn’t ask why.
Instead, he produced another exactly like the last one—well, before it wilted—wrapped a pink ribbon around it and laid it on the counter.
Adam paid and scrammed. Then he drove straight to the house. Chelsea still wasn’t back but at least the predator was nowhere in sight. He left his offering on the porch along with the note and prayed this second flower didn’t wilt before she got home.
Chapter Eleven
Saturday evening, a little before six, Kyle pulled up in front of a modest house in Wenatchee. It was blue with white shutters and window boxes full of flowers. A front walk had been paved down the middle of a manicured lawn. He could picture himself mowing this lawn. But he couldn’t picture Jillian mowing it. Then again, he couldn’t picture her making them a cozy dinner, either. She struck him as more of a take-out or take-me-out kind of woman. Well, he’d be happy to take her out. Anytime.
He rapped on the front door, keeping the bouquet of lupine he’d picked hidden behind his back.
The door opened and there she stood, in all her glory. Mindy. His mouth dropped. What was going on here? Was he in a parallel universe?
Not that the Mindy in this universe looked bad. She was wearing jean cutoffs short enough to show lots of thigh and a cropped black T-shirt that accentuated a nice little rack. In fact, she looked good.
But she wasn’t Jillian. He frowned. What kind of sick joke was this?
“I see you got my note,” she said, opening the door wider.
“Your note?” That note had been from Jillian.
Mindy’s smile was suddenly uncertain. “Yeah.”
“I don’t understand.”
She cocked an eyebrow. “What’s not to understand? You were bummed. I thought dinner would cheer you up.”
“Oh. Well, thanks. Except...”
Her eyes narrowed. “Except what?”
“Nothing,” he said, and stayed rooted to the porch.
“Are you coming in?”
What was that he smelled? Something tomatoey and garlicky.
“I made lasagna.”
His fave.
“And chocolate cake for dessert.”
He thought of the cupcake he’d had, and his taste buds told him to be polite and get inside. He did, handing over the flowers.
“Oh! Did you pick these yourself?”
“Yeah.” She was smiling at him like he was one of those heroes he’d read about. Damn. Why wasn’t she Jillian? What was he doing here? He shouldn’t stay. He’d only lead her on.
He walked in farther.
Once inside he didn’t know what to do. He stood in the living room, wishing he could leave and inhaling the aroma of lasagna while she took the flowers into her kitchen. He watched as she dug around in a cupboard, then pulled out a vase.
“Sit down,” she said.
He sat on the edge of the couch. Yeah, this was one sick cosmic joke. Jillian was free now. He could have been out with her, thought he’d be out with her. But here he was in Mindy’s living room while she put flowers that should have gone to Jillian in a vase. None of the books he’d read so far had prepared him for a situation like this. He checked the time on his phone. How long before he could leave? The longer he stayed, the harder it would be. She’d end up thinking they were an item and then everything would get ugly.
He looked up and saw she was watching him. Her smile had vanished.
“Do you need to be somewhere?” she asked.
“Uh...”
Now a frown line appeared on her forehead. “Kyle, if you didn’t want to come, what are you doing here?”
“I...” How did he say this without hurting her feelings?
“You?” she prompted.
He had to work beside her every day. This would not go over well, and work was going to be hell on Monday.
But it would only be worse if he allowed the misunderstanding to go any further. “I thought someone else left that note.” She looked as if he’d just shot her with a poison dart. Oh, man, he was going to puke.
He never knew a human face could do such a great imitation of a glacier. Right now he’d rather face a glacier. An avalanche. A pack of hungry wolves. Anything.
“Oh, don’t tell me.”
“Darrow dumped her. I told her anytime she wanted to get together...”
Mindy closed her eyes. Maybe she was envisioning how she’d murder him? “That’s what I get for being cute and leaving notes,” she said miserably.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “But I couldn’t sit here and eat your lasagna and let you think...” ...what a rat he was. Too late for that.
She shook her head like he was the most pathetic man on the planet.
“Hey, a guy can’t help who he’s attracted to,” Kyle said. It was true. Why did saying it make him sound like such a shit? “Not that you’re not attractive,” he added, trying to soften the blow.
It was too late for blow-softening. She had tears in her eyes. “You’re a fool,” she said, then sadly added, “But so am I.”
“I should go.”
She turned her back and got busy arranging the flowers in the vase. “Yeah, I guess you should. I’m not very hungry anymore.”
He didn’t have any desire for food, either. What he needed was a good stiff drink.
As he drove away he asked himself if he should have seen this coming. When he played chess he could see five or six moves ahead. But love was a different game altogether, and now he couldn’t help wondering if he was ever going to win at it.
* * *
Chelsea didn’t call on Saturday evening. No texts, either. This made Adam restless. “Want to go get a beer?” he asked Jonathan.
Jonathan was used to hanging in limbo and had learned how to entertain himself. He was trying to do just that, playing an online game of Warrior Wizards. “No, I’m good,” he said, concentrating on cornering the dragon on a cliff overlooking a raging sea.
“Maybe my phone’s broken,” Adam said.
“Maybe she’s making you sweat,” Jonathan suggested.
“Where’s yours?”
“Huh?” Jonathan lost his concentration. He dropped his avatar’s force field and the dragon blasted him to cinders. Game Over. He frowned.
“Your phone. I’m gonna call her.”
“It’s on the counter.” Jonathan leaned back against the sofa cushions and watched while Adam tried to make a different phone do what his hadn’t been able to—get his wife to talk to him.
Adam frowned, a sure sign he’d been sent to voice mail purgatory. “Hey, babe. Did you get my letter? Call me. Text me. Anything.”
He’d never seen Adam so desperate. And here was a new development. “You wrote her a letter? You must’ve read Wooing Willow.”
“I took her a flower,” Adam said, neither confirming no
r denying that he’d succumbed to reading another romance novel. “Stargazer lily. It’s got to be one of her faves. They’re all over the garden.”
How the heck had he known what a stargazer lily was?
Adam plopped down on Jonathan’s recliner. “I used to date girls and say I’d call ’em and then forget,” he said in a pensive voice.
Jonathan had never done that. But then, he hadn’t gone out with as many girls as Adam had. Still, he liked to think he wouldn’t have done that, regardless of how many girls he’d dated.
Now Adam was fidgeting. “Want pizza? I’m gonna get us a pizza.” With that he was off the recliner and gone, leaving Jonathan in peace.
“What do you want to bet he’s going over to the house?” he asked Chica, who was next to him, sprawled on the couch.
Chica yawned, dog language for “I don’t care one way or the other.”
Jonathan did, though. He didn’t want to see his buddy miserable. He especially didn’t want to see his buddy miserable here, indefinitely. He hoped Adam would make up with Chelsea and get back in his own place.
Meanwhile, observing him was like being in a college lab class, watching someone else’s experiment go wrong and trying to figure out what to avoid so you, too, didn’t flunk.
Flunking was still a strong possibility, no matter how much research and observation Jonathan did. Reading romance novels was one thing; applying what was in them was quite another. He still had no idea how he was going to conquer the real-life challenge of winning the love of Lissa Castle. He’d made lists, written down examples of what to say to a woman and what to do for her, but so far he didn’t see how he was going to put it all into play.
He decided to do a Venn diagram. As he drew circles for himself and Lissa, he saw that the overlap wasn’t as big as he’d thought it would be. What they had in common was a past history, food (she liked to bake, he liked to eat). Games. They’d grown up playing everything from board games to cards. Hmm. What else? Well, dancing. He knew she loved to dance. He...was working on it. What else besides that? Oh, yeah. He grinned and wrote down movies.
Their moms and Rand’s had often taken the kids to matinees at the Falls Cinema. When they got older, they went on their own, he and Rand and Lissa, sometimes with several other kids. The bigger the group, the quieter Jonathan got.
He thought about the time they’d gone to see Hook when they were around twelve. It had just been he and Lissa at first, but somehow Rand got thrown into the mix. Jonathan could still remember the frustration and disappointment he’d felt when Rand met them at the ticket booth.
Of course, Lissa had sat between them. Rand had teased her, trying to put popcorn down the back of her sweatshirt. She’d told him to stop but she’d giggled when she said it, and even Jonathan had known what that meant.
Once the movie started, the goofing around ended and all of them had gotten caught up in the story. Lissa had cried when Rufio was killed.
“It was just a movie,” Rand had said scornfully as they stood in line at Herman’s Hamburgers, waiting to order ice cream.
“I don’t care,” she’d shot back. “It’s still sad. Didn’t you think so, Jonathan?”
Torn between not wanting to look like a sissy and not wanting to hurt Lissa’s feelings, Jonathan had finally said, “At least Tinker Bell didn’t croak.” For a while that was a running joke when things weren’t going well for one of them. At least Tinker Bell didn’t croak.
Maybe he could find a way to use that line when they were together. Which brought him full circle back to the reunion. How was he going to engineer enough time with Lissa to make her want to spend more time with him?
He moved on to creating an activity diagram for the reunion, plotting how he’d greet her. “Find Lissa in bar. Use Dirk Jackson’s line from Smooth Moves. ‘Look at you. I could do it all night.’”
He was still trying to figure out what to do next when Adam came back and dumped another Italian Alps pizza on the kitchen counter. Jonathan didn’t ask if he’d struck out. The expression on Adam’s face said it all.
“Hey, don’t give up,” Jonathan said.
Adam’s only reply was a growl as he marched off to his room.
Jonathan heaved a sigh. It was beginning to look like his roommate was here to stay.
Love. Sometimes it was more a four-letter word than a feeling.
* * *
Chelsea finally called early Sunday afternoon.
“Did you get my letter?” Adam asked.
“Yes, I did.”
She sounded more cautious than angry so he had to be making progress. “Will you see me? We could go out to dinner,” he said. “I’ll take you to Schwangau.”
“I can’t. I have plans.”
Not with Dennis the Menace, please. “With who?”
“With the women from work.”
“Oh.” Edged out by a bunch of women. That sucked.
“They’re coming here. We’re having a plant exchange.”
Everyone was welcome at his place but him. A week ago that would have really pissed him off. “Monday, then.”
“It’s Memorial Day. Anyway, Schwangau is closed on Mondays. You know that.”
“Okay, Tuesday. Will you go out with me on Tuesday?”
“Are you sure you won’t be too busy working...or whatever?” she taunted.
How many times had he forgotten to tell her he had to work late or taken coworkers out for a drink and left her home waiting, always assuming she’d understand? How many times had he gone fishing, either up in Alaska or here at home, figuring she wouldn’t care? Obviously, too many.
“You’re the most important person in my life,” he said. No bull.
“All right.”
He’d scored. It was all he could do not to let out a whoop. “I’ll make reservations now. Pick you up at seven.” He had to go visit his accounts in Seattle that day, but if he knocked off early, there wouldn’t be as much traffic on the road. It was only a two-hour drive. He’d get back to Icicle Falls in plenty of time....
Or not. Everything went wrong on Tuesday. It took longer than he’d expected to make his rounds and instead of being done early he got on the road half an hour later than he’d planned. But okay, he could still get there by seven.
On I-90 he had a flat tire. By the time he’d finished changing it, he was sweaty and cranky. Why did stuff like this only happen when you had to be someplace?
He’d barely gotten on the road again when an accident turned the freeway into a parking lot. And now it was six-thirty and he was stuck in traffic. The last thing he wanted to do was call his wife and tell her he was running late. What could he say? How could he spin this? Somebody stole my car. And mugged me. I’m at the police station.... I’m in the emergency room, I was hit by a truck.... Or the truth. You’re not going to believe this but I’m stuck in traffic.
Neither option sounded good. Still, he had to say something. He decided to go with the truth.
She didn’t bother with hello when she picked up. Instead, she went straight to, “Where are you, Adam?”
“I’m stuck in traffic.”
“You’re still in Seattle?”
“No, I’m on I-90.”
“You’re in Seattle.”
“Look, I got done later than I thought I would.” But only half an hour. If it hadn’t been for the flat and this traffic snarl he’d have made it home in plenty of time.
“Gee, what a surprise. And then I bet you just had to take someone out for a drink.”
“No. Then I had a flat tire.”
“Right,” she said, her voice dripping scorn.
“I did. And now I’m stuck in traffic.”
“Oh, please. How dumb do you think I am? You may as well just admit you forgot. You haven’t changed at all and I still come in second after...everything.” Before he could insist that wasn’t true, she ended the call.
“I have, too, changed!” He called her back. Of course she didn’t answer. She pro
bably had steam coming out of her ears. He should have knocked off at three, not tried to go back to Virginia Mason and catch Dr. Rogers. That had cost him an hour. And now, here he was, crawling along at the pace of a dying slug.
“Leave me a message,” her recorded voice instructed him.
“I’m not lying. I’m stuck in traffic,” he growled, and gave the car horn an aggressive honk to prove it. Which prompted the guy in front of him to stick his hand out the window and give Adam the finger. “Dude, you’re not telling me anything I don’t know,” he grumbled.
Six forty-five. He should have been driving over to pick up Chelsea right about now. Tonight they’d have had a romantic dinner, he’d have promised to do better, presented her with the emerald necklace he’d bought her for their anniversary. Then they’d have gone home and made love.
No lovemaking tonight. No dinner, no chance to see his wife’s face light up at the sight of her belated but stellar present. He was back at square one. He swore and pounded the dashboard with his fist.
This was not fair and he didn’t have a clue what he was going to do about it.
But sitting here on the freeway, he sure had lots of time to think of something.
Chapter Twelve
Adam was on his way to visit his accounts in Idaho when Chelsea called him. “I checked on the internet. There was an accident on I-90 last night.”
Vindicated! “Did you really think I was lying to you?”
“I thought you were looking for an excuse.”
After everything he’d been doing to try to get her talk to him? Either his wife thought he was the biggest idiot on the planet or he’d worn her trust down so close to the bone there was none left. Neither possibility made him feel good.
“If you want to go out, we can,” she said.
At last, an open door. If only it had opened when he was still in town. “I’m on my way to Boise,” he said.
“When you get back then. Friday?”
“Friday is poker night.”
“What?”
Had he just said that out loud? “Nothing. Friday is perfect. I’ll make reservations at Schwangau for seven.”
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