BOOK RELEASE DAY FOR JAN SCHLIESMAN!!

Day Two of my published book release and I thought I'd share how I met Mr. Wonderful.

Love At First Sight

My senior year in high school, I worked afternoons and Saturday mornings as a teller at a local bank.  It was a portable building, the kind frequently used to add extra space to an overcrowded school, and it had a walk-in lobby and three drive-thru lanes.  I was working the lobby one afternoon when a man I’d never seen before walked in.  He went to the opposite counter and filled out a banking slip before approaching my window.

He was tall, with curly brown hair and the bluest eyes I have ever seen.  He hands me his deposit slip and asks if I can verify the account number because he just had his eyes dilated and he isn’t sure he wrote it correctly.  I recite the account number, then glance to the name, Tim Schliesman.  There’s something familiar about the name, but I can’t quite place it.  The deposit slip also had a place for the address, which he’d filled in.  My heart is doing one of those beat-skip-beat-skip rhythms that made me wonder if I’m actually breathing or not.

Me: “You live at 31 Huck Finn Drive?  We’re moving to 21 Huck Finn Drive.  We’re going to be neighbors!”

Him:  “Okay.”

His lack of enthusiasm doesn’t lessen mine.  But seriously, he could have cared less about anything I was saying.  I finish the transaction and send him on his way, watching his Levi clad butt walking toward the door.  He even looks good from behind!

As soon as the building is empty, I wave the deposit slip at my co-workers. “Okay, who knows this guy?”  Everyone is shaking their heads.  It’s time for Plan B.  I call the main bank and ask them to pull his information card.  Mainly, I want to know his age.  I find out he’s three years older than me, which means he should be in my freshman yearbook.

Cue the Mission Impossible music!  I spend the night searching through multiple yearbooks, trying to find him.  No luck.  I did, however, locate two other guys with the same last name.  They are younger than me so I’m guessing they’re his brothers.  At this point, there’s really nothing else I can do.  We’ll be moving in two weeks, so I wait it out.

Our new house is directly across the street from his.  He spends a lot of time doing yardwork and I spend an equal amount of time watching him.  Then I get this brilliant idea to work in the yard, too!  I pull out some spandex bike shorts and a sports bra and go in search of the lawnmower.  Luckily, we have a brand new one.  I take off across the yard, mowing an uneven path while waiting for him to notice me.  When he finally looks up, I wave and smile.  Unfortunately, steering the mower with one hand causes me to hit the culvert under our driveway.  The mower makes a horrible screeching sound and smoke rolls from the motor.  I’ve just ruined a $300 lawnmower.  Ooops!

No more yardwork for me.

By now, the senior prom is approaching and I want *someone* to be my date.  Except, he’s never shown any interest in me and I can’t figure out what I’m doing wrong.  I’m completely and totally in love with this guy.  Can’t eat, can’t sleep, in love.  Instead of going to prom, a group of friends go to dinner and then head to the Holiday Inn for a party.  We walk through the front door and guess who is standing behind the desk?  Yep, it’s him.  He works as a night auditor and I just know he’s going to tell my parents.

He doesn’t.  But my brother is friends with his brothers and he spends hours over at their house.  He usually comes home and says, “Tim doesn’t know you’re alive!”

By now, four months have passed and it doesn’t seem to matter how many hours I spend watching him from our living room windows.  I have to accept the fact that he obviously doesn’t like me and certainly doesn’t want to date me.  I have to give up on him.

I’ll never forget that day.  I pulled into our driveway after running some errands and he was outside using the weed eater.  I didn’t bother to wave, I just went inside.  Then I found my favorite window and watched him one last time.  I had to give up on love because, obviously, men were stupid.

Ten minutes later, my doorbell rang.  When I answered, guess who was standing on the other side?  Yep, it was him.  All sweaty, covered in grass and looking nervous.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”  I answer.

“I’m wondering if maybe you’d like to go out for dinner or a movie sometime?”  he asks.

It was honestly the last thing I expected him to say, and it took me several seconds to respond. “Sure, I’d love to.”

That was the beginning of a courtship that lasted two years before we married.  I like to say, “It was love at first sight…for one of us.”

My hubby always responds, “I was blinded by your beauty.”

Don’t you just love a happy ending?

It's probably not giving away the ending of Protecting His Brother's Bride to say that it has a happily ever after:)  So scroll to the bottom and jump through a few hoops to earn extra entries and check back tomorrow for a new blog and more chances to WIN!

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Do you believe in love at first sight?