The woman looked up and smiled slightly as Cecily approached. “Can I help you with anything?”
“I’m looking for Reed, actually.”
Something flickered over the woman’s face—a quick darkening of expression before she seemed to shake herself out of it and reaffix her customer smile. “He’s in the back, in his office.”
Wondering what that was about, Cecily headed toward the back of the store. In some long ago lifetime, the building had been someone’s home. She wandered through the wide, cased openings, past row upon row of shelves and the comfortable furniture grouped here and there to invite people to sit and stay a while. The overall effect was one of warm welcome. The only thing missing was the scent of baking cookies from the kitchen they might not even have.
As the woman had said, Reed was in his office. She found him at his desk, a pair of horn-rim reading glasses perched on his nose as he peered down at a catalog of some kind. The sleeves of his button-down shirt were rolled up, revealing muscular forearms. The muscles in one of those arms flexed as he made notes with an honest-to-God fountain pen. Something in her brain short-circuited and her mouth went dry. God, the sexy professor look worked on him.
As if sensing her eyes on him, he looked up, brightening. “Cecily. Hey.” He pulled the glasses off as he stood, and she felt a pang of regret. “Did she like it?”
Cecily blinked. “Did who like what?”
“Blair. Did she like Dark Defenders?”
“Oh.” She relaxed against the door frame. “Yeah, she loved it. We’re in intense debate about Cass and whether she’s good or bad and why she keeps showing up at all the stuff Mena is investigating.”
Reed grinned. “You read it?”
“Cover to cover. Impressionable teen and all that. I had to know what I was giving her.”
“And what do you think? Good or bad?”
“I think Cass has her own agenda and that Derrick knows more than he’s telling Mena. His reaction is way too vehement.”
“Derrick is a pretty straight-forward dude. Very black-and-white. From his perspective Cass is a villain.”
“Exactly. So how the heck are he and Mena supposed to work? She’s so gray. That’s part of what makes her good at what she does. I just don’t see how such a straight arrow can be a match for her.”
Reed crossed his arms and leaned a hip against the desk. “I think she fascinates him. He’s keeping her secret for reasons even he doesn’t understand—and that makes for compelling conflict.”
Cecily had the strangest sense he wasn’t talking about the comic anymore. Which was ridiculous.
“Guess I’ll find out more in Volume 2.”
He started around the desk. “I’ll show it to you.”
“Later. That’s not actually why I’m here.”
“Oh. Then what can I do for you?”
You can stop being so damned appealing.
She steeled her spine. “It’s more what I can do for you. Norah’s tied up with conference stuff, so she sent me in her stead. My marketing expertise is at your disposal.”
“Really? Wow, that’s awesome. Nice of you to put in the time.”
She could’ve said something about how it had nothing to do with her being nice and everything to do with her job. But he was being so gracious, she didn’t see the point in mentioning it.
“Where should we start? Do you need to know the details of the author? It’s Tony Becker.”
The name sounded vaguely familiar. “Mysteries, right?”
“Yeah. He’s a solid, midlist author. Biggest one we’ve managed to land so far.”
“That’s good. If he’s given any thought to this at all, he ought to have some kind of press kit we can use. But I’ll get into that later. If he hasn’t, I can make one. I’ve done it before.” I can piggy back on what I did for Aunt Dinah. Probably. She made a few mental notes
on what might need tweaking there before turning her attention back to Reed. “But before we get into the specifics, I need to get a better idea of what kind of information dissemination infrastructure you have in place. So, let’s start with an assessment of where you are now. Just the basics. Do you have a website?”