Alison nodded a second time, caught her hand, squeezed it and hurried to intercept Joan before she reached Scarlet. She put her arm around the teen’s shoulders, and they hastened out of the library together. Scarlet was grateful to see that Joan was smiling. She glanced down at her watch. There was still an hour until closing time. She had quite a few things to set into motion. She hastily sent out a text of her own. She needed a car and an alibi. An unbreakable one. Only then did she feel she could actually take a breath and look around the library.
The gorgeous woman was still there, and she wasn’t alone. Aleksei was standing face-to-face with her, shaking his head. They looked almost as if they were arguing, but if they were, they weren’t speaking aloud. She looked at their hands to see if they were using sign language. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind that they knew each other, and he wasn’t the least bit happy to see the beautiful woman.
As if he was connected to her, Aleksei looked up and instantly smiled at Scarlet. The moment he did, everything feminine in her reacted to that smile. She felt her insides melt. He was standing very close to a gorgeous woman and it was very clear they knew each other—not only knew each other, but had some sort of relationship—and Scarlet still wanted to just fall at his feet and worship him. It was pathetic.
The fact that he would look at her, his face lighting up the way it did, those eyes of his so completely focusing on her as if he didn’t see anyone else, thrilled her. And there was that smile, one she knew was rare because she’d watched him, studied him for over six weeks now, and he just didn’t give those smiles to everyone, making her feel like the only woman in his sight, even though he was standing beside the most stunning woman she’d ever seen.
She found herself smiling back. He took that as an invitation and came right to her, even though she did her brisk librarian walk that usually discouraged men from approaching her. She was ramrod straight, her glasses on her nose, as she strode toward her destination. Aleksei fell into step beside her.
“Is everything all right, Scarlet? It looked very intense with that young lady, so I waited to say hello until you were finished talking with her.”
His voice, that low tone, the way it played over her skin as if he were physically touching her, brushing her with his fingers when he spoke, sent a shiver of absolute awareness down her spine. She’d forgotten just how susceptible she was to him. When he walked, he was close, but he didn’t touch her. It felt as if he were stroking those long fingers of his over her body, her breasts, making them ache for him. She inhaled him with every step she took, and the heat from his body reached her. Warmed her. Somehow managed to find its way inside her.
She couldn’t allow herself to get distracted. She had a short window of time and Aleksei didn’t factor into it, no matter how much she wanted to see him and spend time with him. “Joan has problems at home, but her housekeeper, Alison, is an angel. She’s going to spend a few days with her, and all will be well.”
She let herself look at him again. Just a very small glimpse out of the corner of her eye as he prowled along beside her. The gorgeous woman he’d been talking to walked out with a small lift of her hand, but Aleksei seemed wholly focused on Scarlet, or he just plain ignored her—and neither seemed likely.
Absinthe shook his head, hoping he hadn’t blown his chances so early with Scarlet because he hadn’t called ahead. He’d been too eager, thinking only about getting there. He didn’t really know the rules of dating, because he’d never done it before, and truthfully, he hadn’t wanted to warn her he was coming. He wanted to see her face when he walked in. Now he realized he should have called her.
“I was hoping you would have time to go out with me this evening. It’s the first break I’ve had, and I raced here. I didn’t know I could get this evening off until the last minute. One of my friends stepped up for me,” Absinthe said truthfully.
Torpedo Ink was working hard to get the grocery store up and running so that Inez Nelson, who had lent her name to the business but had her own store in neighboring Sea Haven, could leave feeling they would make a go of the store without her. She couldn’t work in Caspar forever. Absinthe had given his time there, but it wasn’t ever going to be his thing and he told Czar that. He wasn’t a man to spend all his time indoors and around so many people. He doubted that any of them could manage the grocery store. Not even Lana, and so far, she’d been the best at training under Inez.