Batter of Wits (Green Valley Chronicles #22) - Smartypants Romance Page 0,79

I’d ever heard someone speak in a library.

The woman shelving books grimaced.

One of the other women from the planning committee joined us. Popular aisle, this was. She snatched the book from Maxine’s hand.

“Ladies,” she said with a smile. “This one is mine.” The cover caught the light, a half-naked man clutching a scantily clad woman to his brawny chest.

Maxine rolled her eyes. “Who do you think is fighting you over it, Ruby?”

“You’d want it too if you read the last one. There was a scene in a ship that had me in hot flashes for a solid week. The things he did with his pe—”

“Okay,” Maxine interrupted with a raised hand. “We get the idea.”

Ruby looked down at her book, and I snapped another picture, the rapturous expression on her gently wrinkled face had me grinning.

“Lord, don’t let me keel over dead in this library aisle, talking about that book,” Maxine grumbled. Then her eyes pinned me in place like a dead bug on a corkboard. “What have you been doing to keep yourself busy? Because I know you’re not always hunting around for new pictures.”

Every single possible answer that sprang up on my tongue was completely inappropriate, so I bit down on my smile. “Just getting settled in. Discovering all my new favorite parts of Green Valley.”

I had lots of favorite parts. Just none that I could talk about with this group.

Tucker’s hands.

His abs.

His tongue.

Other parts as well, that would give me the same facial expression as Ms. Ruby looking at her dirty novel.

Maxine studied my face, like she damn well knew what I was hiding. “What might those be?”

Ruby and the librarian waited for me to answer, when I saw Maxine’s eyes flick past my shoulder.

“Umm,” I started. “You know, hikes and … restaurants and stuff.”

“Well now, if I’d known half the committee was going to be here, I’d have called a regular meeting.”

“A happy coincidence, Miss Barton,” Tucker’s voice said from behind me.

How I was capable of keeping my face neutral at the sound of it was a testament to my secret acting abilities. Just being near him, my entire body reacted. For some reason, I thought about the first day we met, and how I’d thought of magnets turned the wrong way. How they repelled each other no matter how you moved them.

I was well and truly flipped now, because knowing he was there, every cell in me was being pulled in his direction. I wanted to feel the heat of him at my back, wrap his arms around my waist and tangle his fingers in mine.

But I couldn’t.

It turned my stomach uncomfortably, these three women watching us, and knowing that I couldn’t touch him the way I wanted to, because there was some invisible barrier that we weren’t allowed to cross.

“Can I help you find something, Tucker?” the librarian asked, her voice stumbling slightly over his name. She had a hard time moving her eyes in his direction too, another flush of pink covering her neck.

Couldn’t really blame her.

The way he looked in his black slacks and dark gray shirt was practically criminal.

I casually turned so my back was to the shelves and slid my eyes toward his. What was he doing there?

“I’m all right, Sabrina. Just walking by and saw Grace’s car,” he said. My head about snapped up at his admission, but he kept talking before I could react. “We were supposed to meet about the festival later, and thought I’d see if she had some free time now.”

“How’s your dad doing?” Maxine asked.

Tucker coughed loudly, and I gave him a sharp look. “Fine,” he cleared his throat. “He’s just fine, Miss Barton.”

“I heard—” Ruby started, and Tucker coughed again.

He pounded a fist on his chest. “I’m so sorry, ladies,” he croaked. “Must have a frog in my throat.”

“Are you okay?” I asked, physically stopping myself from sliding a hand up his back.

“Fine.” His face was turning red. Maxine and Ruby were staring at him like he’d grown a second head, and Sabrina practically fled the aisle at the commotion.

“Good Lord, boy, you sound like a pack-a-day smoker,” Maxine said.

“Must be fighting a cold,” he said.

My ass he was.

He turned his dark eyes to me, face a perfectly pleasant mask. “Did you have some time now? No big deal if you don’t.”

In the last week, this man had rapidly become the most important part of my life, and I was forced to stand in this much too small library aisle and pretend like