Playing with Words (Boggy Creek Valley #2) - Kelly Elliott Page 0,15
you think he’d rent it out to me?”
“I can ask him,” she replied. “How long are you planning on staying?”
My plan had been to stay a few weeks, and that was it. I figured I could get a lot of writing done in that time and be refreshed from the change of pace. But, suddenly, sitting in this room with the smell of jasmine and something else sweet filling the air, I didn’t even want to think about leaving anytime soon.
What came out of my mouth next surprised Greer as much as it did me. “At least a month.”
Her eyes widened in surprise. “Goodness, I adore Ron and Joanne, but I can’t imagine living at a bed and breakfast for more than a week.”
I rubbed the back of my neck and let out a chuckle. “Well, to be honest, me coming up here was a last-minute kind of thing. I packed a duffle bag of clothes, my laptop, some notebooks, rented a car, and started to drive. I didn’t put much planning into this little adventure.”
“Well,” she said as she clapped her hands, “I would love to help you get settled. And by the way, I am so sorry it didn’t click for me yesterday who you are. We’ve got a number of your books in the store, and your latest on our feature wall.”
“Thank you,” I said with a slight nod of my head. “I appreciate the support, and honestly wasn’t expecting you to know who I was.”
She chewed nervously on her lip once more before she stood. “And earlier, what I was saying…”
“I already forgot about it.”
“Thank you, Hudson.” As she started to walk backward toward the door, she tripped, and I immediately stood up to help steady her. She let out a nervous laugh. “I’ll call my dad now. He’s the police chief in town.”
I raised a brow. “Guess I better behave around his daughter then.”
Okay, where in the hell did that come from? That was twice now I had flirted with her. I watched as a beautiful rush of pink rose up from the base of her throat and colored her cheeks. God, it was the sweetest, yet sexiest, thing I’d ever seen.
“I should probably tell you my brother is a cop, as well, so you might want to be on your very best behavior.”
I made a crossing motion over my heart with my index finger as she let out a soft laugh and said, “I’ll let you get back to work.”
The door clicked shut behind her, and I watched as she made her way between the bookshelves.
I had already been anticipating my trip back here to Boggy Creek—but Greer Larson just made everything a bit more exciting.
I shut my laptop. I hadn’t written a single word. Not one. My mind had been somewhere else for the last two hours and not on the book I was supposed to be writing.
I looked up and out the large glass window into the bookstore. My breath felt like it caught in my throat as I saw the object of my thoughts helping someone look for a book.
Greer.
I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her. Or what she had said to her friend Candace when she didn’t know I was standing there.
“I would even do it in my office on my desk. Actually…I’d do it on the study office desk.”
For the last forty minutes, I had imagined taking Greer Larson on this damn study desk every which way possible. No woman had ever consumed my thoughts the way she did.
As if she knew I was staring, she turned her head and our eyes met. I smiled and stood as I slipped my laptop into my bag and placed it over my shoulder.
When I walked out of the room, I turned left and headed over to the area of the bookstore where my books would most likely be. She wasn’t lying; there were a number of them on the shelf. I glanced around and saw four comfortable chairs placed about the area. A young girl, maybe seventeen or eighteen, sat in one of the chairs, reading When We Believed in Mermaids.
“Good book,” I said softly as I walked past her.
She glanced up at me and smiled. “Greer lets me come in and read it.”
I pulled a random book off the self and sat down across from her. “Why don’t you buy it?”
The girl’s cheeks flushed, and I instantly hated that I had asked. I knew better.