Page 10 of One Christmas Eve
She looked startled by the compliment. “Thank you. I love the store so much that it doesn’t really feel like work.”
“Recommended by Zoe, huh?” He stepped closer to the standalone bookshelf he’d reached, tilting his head in an effort to read the spines. “And what kind of books do you usually recommend?”
“Notyourkind of books.”
“You have no idea what kind of books I like to read.”
“I’m going to take a wild guess and say nonfiction. Biographies. Productivity guides. History books that promise to offer a fresh take but never do.”
“Surprisingly judgmental for a bookstore owner.”
“Am I wrong?”
“I also like murder mysteries.”
“Youalsolike? So I wasn’t wrong.”
“Still judgmental, though.”
“That’s really funny, coming from you. We do have a pretty decent self-help section if you have any annoying personality traits you’d like to work on.” She winked to take the bite out of the words. “And the books I recommend are very steamy, if you must know.”
“Really?” He actually did want to know a lot more about that.Zoeandsteamywere words he liked in a sentence together.
“Carly didn’t think putting up a sign that saidthe books with the really hot sex in themwould go over well, so we went withRecommended by Zoeinstead. They’re all really great books I would recommend anyway, but our regular patrons know they’ll also be very, very hot.”
His brain seemed to be short-circuiting, since he couldn’t really come up with a response to that. Especially when she was looking him in the eye, obviously waiting for his reaction and expecting it to be disapproving.
“Maybe I should buy one so I can get a better idea of what it is you...recommend.”
The warmth flooded her cheeks again—holy hell, she was gorgeous when she was all flushed like that—and he was trying to figure out what came next because the flirting had escalated on him and he wasn’t sure what to do next when the bell over the door rang again.
“I’ll be back,” she said, and she was gone before he could say anything else.
He moved to the nonfiction section and found a couple of books he wanted, including what looked like a good history of the town, and eventually ran out of shelves to look at. Rather than linger to the point of making things awkward, he stepped up to the counter as her customer left the store.
“Oh, you found something. That’s good.” She scanned the books and put them in a small paper bag with the store’s logo stamped on it.
“Your new window display is amazing, by the way,” he said. “It’s an incredible tribute and I’ll be sad to see it go.”
“So it meets your approval, then?” Her tone and the way one eyebrow lifted just a little warned him he was back to treading on thin ice. But it was also an opening to maybe mellow things between them a little.
Not only because Joe had warned him that the harder he pushed at Zoe, the harder she’d push back, but because he didn’t want this beautiful, vibrant woman angry at him all the time. He liked her smile—her sparkle—and he didn’t want to be the reason it dimmed.
“About that,” he said. “I’m sorry I overreacted to the Halloween display and then doubled down when you called me on it. I was so stressed about everything being perfect when it came to opening my own business and... I don’t even know why it set me off, but it was unreasonable. I’m sorry if you felt as if I was being judgment—no, that’s not right. I’m sorry I actuallywasbeing judgmental.”
Since he usually went out of his way to avoid doing things that triggered the need for apologies, he didn’t have a lot of experience giving them and he wished he could explain his reaction better. Tension tightened the muscles along his spine as he waited to see if she’d accept what he’d said or laugh in his face.
“Wow.” Her dark eyes seemed to search his for a long moment and then she smiled. “You give good apology, Mr. Wheeler. Thank you. And I’m sorry, too, for blowing it all out of proportion. You really pushed my buttons, I guess.”
“I think we push each other’s buttons,” he said, and even though he’d been trying to imply they’d both blown things out of proportion, it sounded a little dirty.
She laughed and then held up one finger. “Hold on just a sec.”
He watched her walk to the Recommended by Zoe section, and after running her hand over a row of spines, pull a book from the shelf. Then she walked to the desk, and flipping through the pages, stuck small yellow sticky notes on three different pages.
Without even showing it to him, she slipped it into the bag with his purchases and then winked at him. “A sample, on the house. You can bring it back if it doesn’t suit your fancy.”
He took the bag when she held it out to him. “Trying to broaden my literary horizons?”
