What She Wants. Sheila Roberts

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 СКАЧАТЬ