Page 10 of An Overdue Match
“Isn’t it just.”
Tai stared at his cousin. Hayley stared right back.
“Hayley.” He tried for a serious tone, hoping she’d crack and confess to her interference.
The problem came when one’s cousin was more like one’s sister and could still remember the days of watching cartoons together in their superhero and princess pajamas. Serious tones didn’t lead to pressure-induced confessions.
The corner of Hayley’s lips twitched, but her laser beam eye contact never broke. “Tai.”
Laughter erupted from the sitting area in front of the multimedia section. Both Hayley and Tai’s heads swiveled in the direction of the sound. A little old lady with the style of the late Queen Elizabeth sat in a wingback chair, presiding over her court of a half dozen rapt listeners.
“What’s going on over there?” Tai asked.
“It’s a new program that Evangeline established. Mrs. Goldmann is the first living library book that patrons can check out and listen to her tell her story.”
Tai felt his brows rise. He’d never heard of such a thing. Being able to check out a person at the library? Definitely a new concept. Although by the spellbound look on the five patrons’ and one librarian’s faces, the idea held a lot of success.
Tai let his gaze settle on the niminy-piminy woman perched on the edge of a folding chair, the eraser end of a sharpened pencil lightly tapping against rose petal–pink lips. Evangeline’s posture was one any beauty pageant contestant would be proud of. He had a feeling that the wordslouchwasn’t in her vocabulary.
Her skirt hugged her thighs, her legs pressed together and slanted at an angle until her toes touched the floor, the epitome of ladylike decorum. What would it take for her to lose her tightly bound control? To give in to the hint of free spirit she showcased with the graphic tee and canvas high-tops?
“I think I might need help finding a specific book,” Tai murmured without taking his eyes from Evangeline.
“What’s the title? I can look it up in—”
But Tai didn’t wait for his cousin to finish offering her help. When it came to librarians, there was only one who could give him the assistance he was looking for.
He approached Evangeline, loving the way her eyes rounded the moment she spotted him advancing in her direction. She stood, pressing the notebook she’d been writing in close to her middle, as if it held her deepest, darkest secrets.
Her throat worked as she swallowed, then she gave him a practiced, polite smile. “May I help you?”
He looked pointedly at her notebook, grinning as she pressed it even more tightly against her stomach, her arms crossing over the cover. When he lifted his gaze to meet her eyes, her chin rose in a defiant tilt.
The change in position gave him the perfect angle to inspect her features. There was symmetry to her heart-shaped face. Her green eyes were evenly set. A proud turn to the slope of her jaw and the elegant angle of her neck flowed into a stark contrast with the sharpness of her collar bones. Her skin was smooth, with three small freckles in a tiny triangle on her right cheek. What some may call an imperfection only added allure and character in his opinion.
That niggle he couldn’t place came back to him. The feeling that he was missing something right in front of his eyes. But what?
“Mr. Davis?”
Evangeline’s voice made him blink, and he focused again on her eyes. “Tai.”
She tucked her chin a notch to let him know she’d heard him.
“I’m looking for a book.”
One corner of her mouth twitched in a barely there smile. “Then you’ve come to the right place. Any specific title that you’re looking for?”
Hayley had been right when she’d said he preferred reading on a Kindle. However, with art books, he liked being able to closely inspect each stroke and study the craft of the artist, and that was better done on printed pages than pixels. “Henna art.”
Evangeline pursed her lips in thought. He could imagine her brain riffling through a mental card catalog.
“I think we have a couple that might interest you.” She turned, an unspoken invitation for him to follow.
They passed a few shelves before stopping in the center of a nonfiction aisle. Evangeline grazed a finger along a row of spines, then stopped at a thin hardback and tugged the book from its cozy spot wedged between a treatise on watercolor and a how-to for pen and ink.
“Will this work?” she asked as she handed him the book.
Tai opened the cover. He paged through the history and culture of henna, slowing to take in the tiny details, scrollwork, and symmetry of the designs. Yes, this would do nicely for his purposes.
