Sheila Roberts - 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

‘Her characters are warm and engaging and their interactions are full of humour.’

—RT Book Reviews

‘An uplifting, charming, feel-good story’

—Booklist

‘…will doubtless warm more than a few hearts.’

—Publishers Weekly

‘A wonderful story with characters so real and defined I feel like I am personally acquainted with them… There is humour and emotion in large quantities in this fantastic book that is next to impossible to put down. Kudos and a large bouquet of flowers to Sheila Roberts for giving us one of the best books of the year.’

—Fresh Fiction

SHEILA ROBERTSis married and has three children. She lives on a lake in the Pacific Northwest. When she’s not hanging out with her girlfriends or hitting the dance floor with her husband, she can be found writing about those things dear to women’s hearts: family, friends and chocolate.

You can visit Sheila at her website, www.sheilasplace.com. You can also find her on Twitter and Facebook.

Also by Sheila Roberts

BETTER THAN CHOCOLATE

MERRY EX-MAS

www.mirabooks.co.uk

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 practise 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 welldeserved 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 Like page on Facebook (look for Sheila Roberts, author), follow me on Twitter and visit my website (http://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, supercop? 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.”