Page 73 of Accidentally Wedded To A Werewolf

Oliver desperately rearranged his face into something less incriminating. “What face?”

“The…” Luna frowned. For a moment, Oliver felt something brush up against the bond. Before he could ask her what the hell she was doing, the touch was gone and Luna averted her gaze.

“Sorry,” she said thinly. “My bad. Let’s go!”

Luna kept up the chatter as they darted around the stores on Main Street, handing himbags to carry.

“Careful with the paintings,” she reminded him as they ducked into Sweethelm Books. “And holdthatbag perfectly straight, it might leak otherwise.”

“I got it,” Oliver assured her.

Luna did a distracted little shimmy. Oliver had to hide a smile. The shimmy was an unconscious tic that cropped up whenever she was stressed about veering too far away from Un-Fun Luna, a tactic to convince others, or maybe just herself,we’re all having a good time, right?

“Busy,” Oliver commented as he closed the door behind him. “Nice work.”

“Aw, it wasn’t all me.” Luna grinned, cheeks flushing as she surveyed the crowded bookstore. Tourists wereeverywhere, cooing over fountain pens and debating whether they should get into poetry.

“It was mostly you,” Oliver pointed out, holding his bags out of the way for yet another tourist to come through. “I heard you on the phone last week talking her through putting the ad up.”

“Yeah, well.” Luna’s grin went uncharacteristically shy. She bit her lip, and Oliver felt it echo through the bond. His tongue darted out to swipe his own lip. Luna’s gaze dropped down to it, and Oliver had a bizarre moment where he considered kissing her right there in the supplies aisle with his arms full of bags and everybody watching.

Then Luna cleared her throat, whirling to inspect the shelves.

“Wolf bookmarks,” she murmured under her breathas she stalked the aisles. “Bookmarks, bookmarks, bookmarks…”

A short human with a purple ribbon in her hair and the most precise customer service smile he’d ever seen appeared behind Oliver, beaming.

“Hi there,” she said. “Are you two looking for bookmarks?”

Luna whirled. “Vi! Oh my god, hi!”

Vi’s smile suddenly became more solid. “Luna! It’s so good to see you in person. I feel like I’ve sent you a hundred emails.”

“Right?” Luna darted forward and tweaked Vi’s hair ribbon. “Aw, it’s even cuter than they said it was. Where’s my favorite dragon?”

Vi pointed. “Chester’s out back.”

Oliver concentrated. Sure enough, he could hear the old dragon swearing under his breath in the back rooms about an “idiot customer who wanted the stupidest edition” of a book. Oliver didn’t get out much, but it was hard not to know about Chester, the elderly dragon who ran the bookstore who had one wing and intense opinions about anything bookish. Apparently, Ben had the misfortune of mentioning he liked Lee Child books while he wrapped up a Danish. Then he’d been treated to a ten-minute rant on the downfall of modern literature. Oliver was in no hurry to meet that man.

“You’ve done such a good job,” Luna gushed to Vi. “Look at you, back in your natural busy habitat! How are you? How’s your sister?”

Vi blinked. Her smile was still in place,but it was her pause that let Oliver know she likely didn’t love talking about personal matters with people she’d only talked to over email. If he remembered Vi correctly, she had moved to town to look after her sister after her husband died unexpectedly. Oliver wouldn’t want to talk about that either.

“Beth told me,” Luna said apologetically. “Sorry! I’ve become that small-town person I keep making fun of. I can’t help it; everybody knows each other’s business!”

“I suppose I’m still getting used to it,” Vi said graciously. “Gabby’s fine. Thank you for asking.”

She turned toward the back counter, slipping expertly between the crowd of customers. “I have your bookmarks behind the counter. We threw in those pens you liked.”

Luna preened. “She threw in the pens I liked,” she whispered to Oliver.

“I’m right here,” Oliver pointed out, trying and failing to hide his smile. “And my hearing is better than yours.”

Vi emerged from behind the counter holding a neatly folded paper bag. “And while you’re here, we’re having another problem with the shipping website. If you’re not busy, could you come around next week and teach me how to fix it so that I know what to do next time?”

Luna paused. “Sure! If I’m here next week.”

“Of course,” Vi said apologetically. “I’m so sorry, I’ve been so busy lately. Right, the snow will have melted soon. You can go and get that flower any day now.”

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