What She Wants

  What do women want?

  Jonathan Templar and his poker buddies can’t figure it out. Take Jonathan, for instance. He’s been in love with Lissa Castle since they were kids but, geek that he is, she’s never seen him as her Mr. Perfect. He has one last shot—their high school reunion. Kyle Long is equally discouraged. The pretty receptionist at his office keeps passing him over for other guys who may be taller but are definitely not superior. And Adam Edwards might be the most successful of Jonathan’s friends, but he isn’t having any success on the home front. His wife’s kicked him out.

  When Jonathan stumbles on a romance novel at the Icicle Falls library sale, he knows he’s found the love expert he’s been seeking—Vanessa Valentine, top-selling romance author. At first his buddies laugh at him for reading romance novels, but soon they, too, realize that these stories are the world’s best textbooks on love. Poker night becomes book club night…and when all is read and done, they’re going to be the kind of men women want!

  www.sheilasplace.com

  Praise for the novels of Sheila Roberts

  “Within minutes of cracking open the book,

  my mood was lifted…the warm,

  glowing feeling it gave me lasted for days.”

  —First for Women on The Snow Globe

  “Her characters are warm and engaging, and their interactions are full of humor.”

  —RT Book Reviews on Bikini Season

  “An uplifting, charming, feel-good story.”

  —Booklist on Angel Lane

  “Will doubtless warm more than a few hearts.”

  —Publishers Weekly on Angel Lane

  “Roberts’ book of small-town life is as sweet as ginger cookies and as homey as raisin pie (recipes included).

  Readers will laugh and cry with the women lovingly portrayed in this heartwarming story that explores

  the joys of friendship and the power of good deeds.”

  —RT Book Reviews on Angel Lane

  “A congenial cast of subsidiary characters…meet Hope at a community garden plot and share their stories there. Roberts effectively knits these troubled but kindly characters together in a story line that throws the reader a few unexpected twists.”

  —The Seattle Times on Love in Bloom

  “This is an engrossing story

  with strong characters and arcs similar to

  Debbie Macomber’s Cedar Cove titles.

  The light romance, delicious descriptions of chocolate and recipes add to the flavor of Roberts’s

  promising new series.”

  —Booklist on Better Than Chocolate

  Also by Sheila Roberts

  BETTER THAN CHOCOLATE

  MERRY EX-MAS

  Look for Sheila Roberts’s next novel,

  SIMPLE PLEASURES,

  available December 2013

  For Dustin

  Dear Reader,

  Welcome back to Icicle Falls. I’m so happy you’re taking a break from your busy schedule to spend some time with my characters. In this book you won’t be hanging out with the girls. It’s the guys’ turn.

  Jonathan Templar is my salute to those quiet, average men with super big hearts who often get overlooked when a better-looking, flashier man enters the room. I think Jonathan is proof that a big heart is better than a big set of pecs any day. His buddy Kyle…well, he finds it very frustrating that he’s height-challenged and he gets irritated when women look right past him to the taller men. But maybe Kyle needs to practice what he preaches and look beyond the packaging when searching for Ms. Right. Then there’s their friend Adam, who is about as clueless as a man can get. If you’ve ever had your man take you for granted, I’m sure you’ll be cheering when you see Adam’s wife giving him a painful but well-deserved refresher course on how to be a good husband.

  All the men are on a steep learning curve. But they’re about to discover what we women have known all along—there is much wisdom to be found in romance novels.

  I had a wonderful time with these three men and their poker pals, Vance and Bernardo. I cried over every setback they encountered and cheered at their every success. These guys stole my heart. I hope they’ll steal yours, too!

  I love hanging out with readers so I hope you’ll check out my page on Facebook (look for Sheila Roberts, author), follow me on Twitter, and visit my website (www.sheilasplace.com), where you’re bound to find everything from a new Icicle Falls recipe to a fun contest.

  Happy reading!

  Sheila

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  What He Always Wanted

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter One

  Working in such close quarters with a woman that you could bump knees (thighs, and maybe even other body parts) was probably every man’s dream job. Except Dot Morrison’s knees were knobby and she was old enough to be Jonathan Templar’s grandmother. And she looked like Maxine of greeting card fame. So there was no knee (or anything else) bumping going on today.

  “Okay, you’re good to go,” he said, pushing back from the computer in the office at Breakfast Haus, Dot’s restaurant. “But remember what I told you. If you want your computer to run more efficiently, you’ve got to slick your hard drive once in a while.”

  “There you go talking dirty to me again,” Dot cracked.

  A sizzle sneaked onto Jonathan’s cheeks, partly because old ladies didn’t say things like that (Jonathan’s grandma sure didn’t), and partly because he’d never talked dirty to a woman in his life. Well, not unless you counted a Playboy centerfold. When talking with most real-life women, his tongue had a tendency to tie itself into more knots than a bag of pretzels, especially when a woman was good-looking. This, he told himself, was one reason he was still single at the ripe old age of thirty-three. That and the fact that he wasn’t exactly the stuff a woman’s dreams were made of. It was a rare woman who dreamed of a skinny, bespectacled guy in a button-down shirt. Those weren’t the only reasons, though. Carrying a torch for someone tended to interfere with a guy’s love life.

  Never certain how to respond to Dot’s whacked-out sense of humor, he merely smiled, shook his head and packed up his briefcase.

  “Seriously,” she said, “I’m glad this didn’t turn out to be anything really bad. But if it had, I know I could count on you. You can’t ever leave Icicle Falls. What would us old bats do when we have computer problems?”

  “You’d manage,” Jonathan assured her.

  “I doubt it. Computers are instruments of torture to anyone over the age of sixty.”

  “No worries,” he said. “I’m not planning on going anywhere.”

  “Until you meet Ms. Right. Then you’ll be gone like a shot.” The look she gave him was virtually a guarantee that something was about to come out of her mouth that would make him squirm. Sure enough. “We’ll have to find you a local girl.”

  Just what he needed—Dot Morrison putting the word out that Jonathan Templar, computer nerd, was in the market for a local girl. He didn’t want a local girl. He wanted...

  “Tilda’s still available.”

  Tilda Morrison, su
percop? She could easily bench-press Jonathan. “Uh, thanks for the offer, but I think she needs someone tougher.”

  “There’s a problem. Nobody’s as tough as Tilda. Damn, I raised that girl wrong. At this rate I’m never going to get grandchildren.” Dot shrugged and reached for a cigarette. “Just as well, I suppose. I’d have to spend all my free hours baking cookies for the little rodents.”

  Sometimes it was hard to know whether or not Dot was serious, but this time Jonathan was sure she didn’t mean what she’d said. She was only trying to make the best of motherly frustration. Dot wanted grandkids. Anyone who’d seen her interacting with the families who came into the restaurant could tell that. It was a wonder she made any money with all the free hot chocolate she slipped her younger patrons.

  She lit up and took a deep drag on her cigarette. Her little office was about to get downright smoggy. Washington State law prohibited smoking in public places, but Dot maintained that her office wasn’t a public place. Jonathan suspected one of these days she and the local health inspector were going to get into it over the cigarettes she sneaked in this room.

  “I’d better get going,” he said, gathering his things and trying not to inhale the secondhand smoke pluming in his direction.

  “You gonna bill me as usual?”

  “Yep.”

  “Don’t gouge me,” she teased.

  “Wouldn’t dream of it. And put your glasses on to read your bill this time,” he teased back as he walked to the door. He always tried to give Dot a senior’s discount and she always overpaid him, claiming she’d misread the bill. Yep, Dot was a great customer.

  Heck, all his customers were great, he thought as he made his way to Sweet Dreams Chocolate Company, where Elena, the secretary, was having a nervous breakdown thanks to a new computer that she swore was possessed.

  The scent of chocolate floating up from the kitchens below greeted him as he entered the office and Elena looked at him as if he were Saint George come to slay a dragon. “Thank God you’re here.”

  People were always happy to see the owner and sole employee of Geek Gods Computer Services. Once Jonathan arrived on the scene, they knew their troubles would be fixed.

  He liked that, liked feeling useful. So he wasn’t a mountain of muscle like Luke Goodman, the production manager at Sweet Dreams, or a mover and shaker like Blake Preston, manager of Cascade Mutual. Some men were born to have starring roles and big, juicy parts on the stage of life. Others were meant to build scenery, pull the curtains, work in the background to make sure everything on stage ran well. Jonathan was a backstage kind of guy. Nothing wrong with that, he told himself. Background workers made it possible for the show to go on.

  But leading ladies never noticed the guy in the background. Jonathan heaved a sigh. Sometimes he felt like Cyrano de Bergerac. Without the nose.

  “This thing is making me loco,” Elena said, glaring at the offending piece of technology on her desk.

  The company owner, Samantha Sterling—recently married to Blake Preston—had just emerged from her office. “More loco than we make you?”

  “More loco than even my mother makes me,” Elena replied.

  Samantha gave her shoulder a pat. “Jonathan will fix it.”

  Elena grunted. “Equipo del infierno.”

  “Computer from hell?” Jonathan guessed, remembering some of his high school Spanish.

  Elena’s frustrated scowl was all the answer he needed.

  “Don’t worry,” Samantha told her. “Jonathan will help you battle the forces of technology evil. When Cecily comes in, tell her I’ll be back around one-thirty. Try to keep my favorite assistant from tearing her hair out,” she said to Jonathan.

  “No worries,” he said, then promised Elena, “I’ll have this up and running for you in no time.”

  No time turned out to be about an hour, but since Elena had expected to lose the entire day she was delighted. “You are amazing,” she told him just as Samantha’s sister Cecily arrived on the scene.

  “Has he saved us again?” she asked Elena, smiling at Jonathan.

  “Yes, as usual.”

  Jonathan pushed his glasses back up his nose and tried to look modest. It was hard when people praised him like this.

  But then, as he started to pack up his tools, Cecily said something that left him flat as a stingray. “I heard from Tina Swift that you guys have your fifteen-year reunion coming up.”

  “Uh, yeah.”

  “Those are so much fun, seeing old friends, people you used to date,” she continued.

  This was worse than Dot’s cigarette smoke. Chatting with Cecily always made him self-conscious. Chatting with Cecily about his high school reunion would make him a nervous wreck, especially if she began asking about women he used to date. Jonathan hit high speed gathering up his tools and his various discs.

  “Are you going to the reunion?” she asked him.

  “Maybe,” he lied, and hoped she’d leave it at that.

  She didn’t. “I moved back just in time for my ten-year and I’m glad I went. There were some people I wouldn’t have had a chance to see otherwise.”

  There were some people Jonathan wanted to do more than see. Some people with long, blond hair and... He snapped his briefcase shut and bolted for the door. “So, Elena, I’ll bill you.”

  “Okay,” she called.

  The door hadn’t quite shut behind him when he heard Elena say to Cecily, “He needs confidence, that one.”

  It was an embarrassing thing to hear about himself, but true. He needed a lot more than confidence, though. How could a guy be confident when he didn’t have anything to be confident about?

  By now it was time for lunch, so he grabbed some bratwurst and sauerkraut at Big Brats and settled in at one of the café tables in the stone courtyard adjacent to the popular sausage stand. This was a perfect day for outside dining. The sun warmed his back and a mountain breeze worked as a counterbalance to keep him from getting too hot. A cloudless sky provided a blue backdrop for the mountains.

  During weekends the eating area was so crowded you had to take a number. Today, however, it was relatively quiet with only a few tables occupied.

  Ed York, who owned D’Vine Wines, and Pat Wilder, who owned Mountain Escape Books, sauntered across the street to place an order. They stopped by Jonathan’s table to say hello but didn’t ask him to join them. No surprise. Pat and Ed had a thing going.

  According to Jonathan’s mom, Ed had been interested in Pat ever since he moved to Icicle Falls and opened his wine shop. But Pat had been mourning a husband and wasn’t remotely interested. It looked like that was changing now. Watching Ed’s romantic success kept the small flame of hope alive in Jonathan. Maybe, if a guy hung in there long enough, getting the woman of his dreams could become a reality.

  Or maybe the guy was just wasting his life dreaming. Jonathan crumpled his napkin. Time to get back to work.

  His next client was Gerhardt Geissel, who owned and ran Gerhardt’s Gasthaus with his wife, Ingrid. Gerhardt was a short, husky, fifty-something man with gray hair and a round, florid face. He loved his wife’s German cooking, loved his beer and was proud to celebrate his Tyrolean heritage by wearing lederhosen when he played the alpenhorn for his guests first thing every morning.

  He played it even when he didn’t have guests. Recently he’d gotten carried away celebrating his birthday and had decided to serenade his dinner guests after having one too many beers and had fallen off the ledge of the balcony outside the dining room. He’d fallen about twelve feet but fortunately had broken his arm instead of his back.

  “Jonathan, wie geht’s?” he greeted Jonathan, raising his cast-encased arm as Ingrid showed Jonathan into his office. “I hope you are here to solve all my problems.”

  “That is an impossible task,” said his wife.

  Gerhardt made a face. “See how she loves me.”

  His wife made a face right back at him and left. But she returned a few minutes later with a p
iece of Black Forest cake for Jonathan. “You’re too skinny,” she informed him. “You need to eat more.”

  “You need a wife to cook for you,” her husband added.

  “My youngest niece, Mary, lives just over in Wenatchee, and she’s very pretty,” Ingrid said.

  “And very stupid.” Gerhardt shook his head in disgust. “Jonathan’s smart. He needs a smart woman.”

  “Mary is smart,” Ingrid insisted. “She just makes bad choices.”

  “Well, uh, thanks,” Jonathan said. “I appreciate the offer.” Sometimes he wondered if everyone in Icicle Falls over the age of fifty wanted to match him up.

  Heck, it wasn’t only the older people. Even his sister had been known to take a hand, trying to introduce him to the latest someone she’d met and was sure would be perfect for him. Of course, those someones never were.

  Gerhardt’s computer problem was simple enough. Jonathan reloaded his operating system and he was done.

  “You’d better get out of here before my wife comes back with Mary’s phone number,” Gerhardt advised after he’d written Jonathan a check.

  Good idea. Jonathan left by the side door.

  After leaving Gerhardt, he fit in two more clients and then headed home.

  May’s late-afternoon sun beamed its blessing on his three-bedroom log house at the end of Mountain View Road as he drove up. He’d originally planned for two bedrooms, but his folks had talked him into the extra one. “You have to have room for a wife and children,” his mother had said. Good old Mom, always hopeful.

  Fir and pine trees gave the house its rustic setting, while the pansies and begonias his mother and sister had put in the window boxes and the patch of lawn edged with more flowers added a homey touch. Someone pulling up in front might even think a woman lived there. They’d be wrong. The only female in this house had four legs.

  But Jonathan often pictured the house with a wife and kids in it—the wife (a pretty blonde, naturally) cooking dinner while he and the kids played video games. He could see himself as an old man, sitting on the porch, playing chess with a grandson on the set he’d carved himself. The house would’ve, naturally, passed on to his own son, keeping the property in the family.