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  Cover image Love Key © Rubén Hidalgo, iStockphotography

  Cover design copyright © 2012 by Covenant Communications, Inc.

  Published by Covenant Communications, Inc.

  American Fork, Utah

  Copyright © 2012 by Melanie Jacobson

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any format or in any medium without the written permission of the publisher, Covenant Communications, Inc., P.O. Box 416, American Fork, UT 84003. This work is not an official publication of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The views expressed within this work are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect

  the position of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Covenant Communications, Inc., or any other entity.

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, names, incidents, places, and dialogue are either products of the author’s imagination, and are not to be construed as real, or are used fictitiously.

  First Printing: March 2012

  ISBN 978-1-62108-144-9

  To Grant,

  for your bright, happy spirit

  Acknowledgments

  THIS CRAZY ADVENTURE HAS TAUGHT me that writing is the furthest thing from solitary and this book would not have happened without the help of generous friends who offered advice or read countless drafts. My husband, Kenny, cheered every chapter as I wrote it and nurtured this dream. Amy Lou Bennett, my favorite (and not because you’re my only) sister, read every version of this book and patiently offered opinions, revisions, and validation. My first critique partners, Aubrey Mace and Sue Marchant, promised me that I really could do this and brought their own storytelling talents to bear in polishing my manuscript. Jen Schumann offered refreshing and invaluable honesty, as well as an unerring ear for what worked and what didn’t. My new critique partners, Kristine Tate and Brittany Larsen, reassured me that this story deserved to see the light of day. Christiane Woerner and Jaymee O’Rafferty read the best version I could give them and paid me the greatest compliment by forgetting to wield their mighty red pens as the story went on. Thanks to my editor, Samantha Van Walraven, who never forgets to wield her red pen and who makes my writing better for it. I owe a special thanks to Annette Lyon and Josi Kilpack, two generous and talented authors who owed me nothing and still answered every question a stranger had until I fooled them into becoming my friends. Lastly, I want to thank all the friends and family who acted completely unsurprised when I said I was going to be published: Sarah Armstrong, Colleen Strubberg, Jamie and Nadine, Aunt Linda, Nancy Ostergar, Skip and Joan, Aunt Pat and Aunt Beth, Jill and Bob, and James, who brags that I’m a writer.

  Chapter 1

  THE ROLLED UP YOGA MAT bounced off of my roommate’s head with a satisfying thwack.

  “Ow!” Sandy protested. “Are you trying to kill me?”

  “Yes. Quit moving so I can hit you again.”

  She chose to dodge instead, her red hair streaking behind her as she ran to the other side of the dining table to use it as a safety buffer. “I don’t understand why you’re so angry,” she said. “I did it to help you.”

  “Did I ask you to help?” I hoped she could hear the annoyance in my voice.

  “No. But only because you’re too stubborn. Why can’t you see this as an amazing act of service?”

  That stopped my mat-wielding for a moment. “You’re trying to spin this as service?” I detected her smile trying to break out, and I scowled.

  “You don’t know what’s good for you. But I do, and if you would just drop your weapons and take a look at the computer again, you’ll see that I’m right.”

  “I’m not dropping anything,” I said. “I haven’t gotten to use the pillow yet.” I picked up the green throw cushion off the sofa to emphasize my point.

  “Trust me, Jessie. Check the computer before you hit me with anything else. They’re not that bad.”

  “They?” I fought a screech. “There’s more than one?”

  “Yeah.” She grinned. “You’ve got three matches. Lucky you.” Her tone changed to wheedling. “I’m just trying to be a good friend.”

  “By signing me up for an Internet dating site without permission?” I dropped the green pillow to shove a hand through my hair. The situation had gone from irritating to embarrassing knowing that real, live boys had actually looked at the profile she had set up. “Tell me the truth,” I said. “Are you crazy?”

  Sandy did her best to look offended, but I could see the laughter in her eyes. “It’s not a dating site.”

  “You’re not even sorry,” I accused her.

  “Nope. You won’t be either. I promise. Check the screen. If I’m wrong, I’ll drop it, but there’s one guy you have to see.”

  I threw the mat and pillow on the sofa and plopped down beside them, giving Sandy’s laptop an impatient tug toward me. My own face stared back at me from the screen, cropped from a snapshot that used to show the two of us together at a barbecue the previous summer. Now it showed only me. Looking pretty good, actually. The website banner over my photo announced, “Meet one of the newest LDS Lookup members!”

  “This is humiliating,” I grumbled.

  “Why? You look hot in that picture. I put it up two days ago, and you’ve already got guys lining up.”

  “Wrong. You’ve got guys lining up for me, which is a totally different thing.”

  “No, it isn’t. I filled out your profile like you would.”

  “Like I would? I would never have filled it out. That’s why I want to kill you.” I grabbed for the yoga mat, but Sandy whisked it out of my reach.

  “Check your profile, and tell me if I got anything wrong.”

  I scanned it, ignoring her while I read. She listed me as twenty-five, an accountant in the greater Seattle area, active in the LDS Church, and looking for—

  “You are so dead!” I yelped. “You can’t put that I’m searching for a relationship on the Internet. It’s pathetic.”

  Sandy rolled her eyes. “It’s a social networking site. Over half of the people on here are looking for relationships,” she said.

  The rest of the profile outlined my likes (comedies, fresh baked bread, being outdoors) and dislikes (heavy metal, mumblers, the Yankees) pretty accurately. I couldn’t find much else to quibble with.

  “Why would you do this?” I asked. But I already knew the answer. Her persistence in trying to jump start my social life knew no bounds.

  “I’m trying to help you keep your promises,” she said.

  I rolled my eyes. “Promises extracted under extreme duress don’t count.”

  She grinned. The week before, she had forced me to make a New Year’s resolution to go out more by hiding my favorite ice cream behind her back until I agreed. I would have left her standing there with a quart of melted Häagen-Dazs if she hadn’t waved a spoonful of butter pecan under my nose, and I folded. I promised to leave the condo every once in a while, and she gave me my ice cream back. It would be hard. I paid a stiff mortgage so I could stay in my living room whenever I wanted, and I’d spent a lot of time decorating it to make it an inviting space.

  “I keep telling you this is for your own good,” she reminded me.

  “How come I don’t get to decide what’s for my own good?”

  “Because you keep getting it wrong. Your work-to-play ratio is all screwed up.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with a good work ethic. You of all people should appreciate that,” I pointed out. Sandy worked at the same software company as me—Macrosystems—but in human resources, a sanitized name for the place where they do all the firing when people have bad work ethics. Sandy focused more on recruiting and hiring, but she had no problem dropping the axe when someone deserved it. She’d fire
d enough people over the last five years to develop bullet-proof skin, which is probably why I could practically see my complaints about her high-handedness bouncing right off her.

  “You don’t have a good work ethic; you have a sickness that compels you to work ridiculous amounts of overtime and waste your weekends on spreadsheets. I’m being a good friend by forcing you to mix it up a little.”

  “And stealing my identity for a fake dating site post is being a good friend?” I asked. I wasn’t going down without a fight.

  “Excuse me, but I’m the drama queen around here. I will not be deposed, so leave the exaggerations to me. It’s not fake, and for the last time, it’s not a dating site. Think Facebook for Mormons.”

  “How did you, of all people, find it?” Although Sandy and I had met through a Seattle LDS housing e-mail list, she hadn’t been to church the whole time I’d known her. I couldn’t picture her surfing LDS sites.

  “Ah, Google. It’s a wonderful thing. I entered ‘find roommate a hot LDS guy,’ and wham. LDS Lookup popped up right at my fingertips.”

  “Ha ha.”

  “Fine,” she relented. “I checked out a ton of sites before picking this one because it has the coolest vibe. Seriously, check out the guys who sent you messages.”

  She yanked her laptop back and clicked the mouse a couple of times. “Look at him. He sent a ‘Love to Know More’ request.”

  As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t resist. The profile showed a guy in maybe his late twenties, with blond hair and a nice smile. I scanned the rest of his bio and snorted. “No way,” I said.

  “What? He’s cute. And he seems smart.”

  “Yeah, and he listed Charlie Sheen as his personal hero. No thanks.”

  “Look at the other guy. He’s cute too.” She clicked again and pulled up another profile.

  As soon as his link opened, I said, “No.”

  “You didn’t even read it!”

  “His screen name is ‘I’m4Real.’ You can’t be real if you use numbers for letters. So, no.”

  “What if someone disqualified you as a prospect because of your screen name?”

  Cue panic. “What is my screen name?”

  “Sugar.”

  My eyes widened in horror.

  She grinned. “I’m kidding. I put your initials. That’s fine, right?”

  “I guess. Let’s get this over with. Show me the last one.”

  She shrugged. “If you didn’t like the first two, I don’t think the last one is going to do it for you,” she said. But she pulled it up anyway.

  “Lame profile?” I asked.

  “I didn’t read it. He’s not as cute as the other two.”

  I opened his profile. His screen name said Harold Crick. “How do you know if he’s cute or not?” I couldn’t tell much from the picture since it wasn’t a close-up, but I caught the glint of glasses, and his dark, floppy hair appealed to me.

  “I’m not into guys with glasses,” Sandy said, peering over my shoulder. “Besides, what kind of name is Harold Crick? He didn’t even put a screen name.”

  “Yes, he did. Harold Crick is a character.” The main character in one of my favorite movies, Stranger Than Fiction, as a matter of fact.

  “Whatever. Does he say anything good?”

  I read through, going as slowly as possible to annoy Sandy. She angled the screen so she could read over my shoulder. It took her all of five seconds to protest. “No way, Jessie. He’s a lumberjack.”

  “He works for the forestry service. That doesn’t make him a lumberjack.”

  “You wanna put money on that?” Sandy challenged me. “I don’t know a lot about online dating, but I know you have to read between the lines. Lives within a fifty mile radius, works for the forestry service, and loves the outdoors. This guy is totally holed up in a cabin at the foot of Mt. Rainier, shivering in his moth-eaten flannels and waiting for a pretty lady to come keep him warm.” She started singing an off-key version of Monty Python’s lumberjack song. “He’s a lumberjack—aack.”

  She ducked to avoid the green throw pillow. “Don’t sing. He doesn’t sound so bad,” I said. “Cool movie choices, cool bands, and he listed some books he’s read. I bet Mr. I’m4Real has an impressive comic book collection.”

  “Yeah, but he’s cuter.”

  “Well, that’s more important, then.”

  “I’m just saying, you should start with someone good-looking right out of the gate.”

  “But this Harold Crick guy’s picture is blurry, so maybe he’s cuter.”

  “Or maybe it’s blurry because he’s not, and he’s trying to fool you.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “Online dating is stupid. Thanks for talking me out of it.” I pushed the computer aside and made to get off of the couch.

  “Wait! Online dating is a great idea. No, really,” she said in response to my skeptical expression. “Oprah talked about it in her life class. It’s working for people.” Sandy missed seeing Oprah on her DVR so much that she periodically signed up for her online seminars.

  I said nothing.

  She switched to a guilt trip. “When was your last date, Jessie?”

  I stubbornly didn’t answer.

  “Do you even remember?” she pressed.

  “LDS guys aren’t falling out of trees around here,” I said.

  “I know that. But you used to go out all the time, and now you never do. You work way too much. You’re going to burn out and either quit or get fired, but either way I’ll have to hire someone new. It’s so much extra work for me.” She tried to look pitiful. “If you won’t do it for you, can’t you do it as a favor to me? You know, have a little fun so I don’t have to do extra paperwork?”

  “That’s the lamest reason I’ve ever heard,” I said.

  She continued to look pitiful.

  I wasn’t fooled. This was not about paperwork. This was about her campaign to reform my love life. And if I didn’t give in now, she’d come up with something new and potentially more embarrassing. Barely believing I was about to speak the next words coming out of my mouth, I sighed. “Where’s Harold Crick?”

  Chapter 2

  I TRIED TO JUGGLE A BULGING sack of Chinese takeout and my overflowing workbag, while I fumbled with the lock on the front door, when the knob suddenly twisted and the door flew open. Sandy stood there, obviously on her way out. She groaned. “Let me guess; you’re spending the evening getting caught up with work.”

  “I have a big deadline. I can’t miss it.” The end of my first project as a manager loomed, all headache-making. I hadn’t been gunning for my recent promotion to begin with, but I wasn’t about to embarrass myself now that I had it.

  “Play with your spreadsheets tomorrow. Come out with us tonight. I’m meeting some people at The Factory. Remember your resolution,” she chided.

  “Ask me next week when my deadline is over. I’ve got balance sheets coming out of my ears right now.” I shook my head again. As much as taking a break from my crazy hours tempted me, I said, “I just can’t.” Not without regret though.

  “You’re never going to meet Prince Charming holed up in here.”

  “I’m not looking for Prince Charming. Just a nice guy, and I don’t think my kind of nice guy is going to be clubbing at one a.m. But dance with a hot stranger for me.”

  Sandy gave up, tucked a tiny silver purse that couldn’t have held more than her ID under her arm, and gave her reflection a once-over in the foyer mirror. “Any hot strangers I find are all mine,” she said. “How do I look?” She had a killer body and an arresting face. Looking at her wild red hair, I decided for the umpteenth time that there was never a more misnamed Sandy.

  I’m not Alpo, but it’s hard to look good next to her. I have my mom’s light green eyes and dark brown hair like my dad. My sisters have all that plus perfect Kate Middleton complexions, but I am cursed with nose freckles. Seven of them. I pretend they’re endearing, but they’re so not. Grandpa Ray used to say I was pretty as
a picture when I complained about them and that my freckles were angel kisses. I believed him until I turned eight and he told me Easter eggs came from bright pink chickens. I took everything he said with a healthy dose of skepticism after that.

  I took in Sandy’s long-sleeved teal wrap dress and silver stilettos then answered her question. “How do you look? Honestly, you look like sin on four-inch heels, and yet I could wear that whole outfit to church. How do you do that?”

  “It’s a gift.”

  I shook my head and closed the door behind her.

  An hour later, I wished I’d accepted her invitation. After trying to reconcile the same financial statement countless times and picking at my congealing sweet and sour chicken, the numbers on the computer screen refused to make sense. Maybe I was tired, but I felt that way about work too often lately. I majored in accounting in college because I’m practical, not because I love it. Pragmatism is a curse that ranks right up there with freckles. I knew I could make good money in accounting, but I also figured that two years out of college when I sat rocking my first baby and staring out at a white picket fence it would be easy to work from home doing people’s taxes. Now, three years out of college, I had the job but no one I wanted to share a white picket fence or babies with. Just me and my balance sheets. Good times.

  “Okay, Jessie. Get a grip. This is easy. Think,” I lectured myself—because that’s not weird to do out loud when you’re alone. The screen blurred with nonsense. I gave up after another minute, in need of a brain break. Deciding to catch up on some e-mails, I winced to find eleven messages waiting in my in-box. Yikes. Two from my sister in Virginia, a couple from college friends, an ad for a new colon cleanser, and an announcement about an upcoming ward ice cream social (Really? People still did those?), and then I paused. A notice from Lookup reading, “Harold Crick has sent you a message” leaped from the screen.

  Interesting. Taking the path of least resistance with Sandy, I had sent Harold Crick a wave, an icon which supposedly landed in his Lookup inbox to let him know I said hello. But apparently, instead of waving back, he’d sent a full-on message in return.