Relief washed over her as her eyebrows rose at Lindsey’s rapid-fire words. Chiding herself for overreacting—yet again around members of the Aaron family—she smiled and hoped her momentary suspicion hadn’t been noticeable.
It should have been obvious from the get go that Lindsey was related to Cody. That was why her brown eyes seemed so familiar—and it wasn’t just that they shared the same eyes. Their noses, cheekbones, and lips were similar, although the features were much more feminine on Lindsey.
“Yes, I’m Olivia. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Same! I wish I’d been in the shop when you came in. Based on my conversation with my brother, it seems like you made quite the impression on him.” Her cheeky grin faded as her expression turned sincere. “I really wish I’d have been there so you didn’t have to deal with Pops. He’s always been on the grumpy side, but it continues to get worse as he gets older. I can only imagine how rude he probably was to you. I’m sorry about that.”
She was so stuck on the comment about how she made an impression on Cody—and what exactly that meant, and most importantly, had he said something that hinted her attraction wasn’t one sided—it took her a moment to process the rest of Lindsey’s words.
There was no way she could zone out while the other woman was speaking. Her words came so fast, she had to keep up or she’d be hopelessly lost.
“It’s fine,” she replied with a wave of her hand—even though it hadn’t been. Maybe if she hadn’t gone through what she had, his behavior wouldn’t have scared her, but it had until Cody walked in. She smiled wryly. “Besides, Cody said he wouldn’t be involved in the actual renovation. That makes up for it.”
Lindsey let out a laugh that was genuinely amused, relieving her fears that she went too far with that last bit. While it was pretty much the truth, she didn’t want to come off as rude to the only person in town besides Cody that she’d had an actual conversation with.
“Sometimes I wish I had that option too,” she said with a twinkle in her eyes. Gaze darting to the book Olivia held, she smiled. “Oh, that’s a good one. You like romance novels, then? Do you read paranormal romance?”
“Vampires and ghosts and all that? Yeah, I enjoy them.”
“What about shifters?”
Breath freezing in her lungs, she stared at her and swallowed convulsively a few times. “Shifters?”
Not seeming to notice the strained quality of her voice, Lindsey nodded. “Yep, like shapeshifters. I love them, and I recently found a new author that I really like. If you like paranormal, I think you’ll like her books.”
Thankful she didn’t seem to expect a reply, since she wasn’t sure she could get a word out of her tight throat, she followed her over to the shelves the shifter books were apparently on.
Shifter books. She’d had no idea there was any such thing aside from Twilight, and as much as she read, she wasn’t sure how she’d missed that genre. The thought of humans having access to those books made her heart race uneasily, but she told herself it wasn’t a big deal.
After all, there were multitudes of paranormal books. Vampires, witches, ghosts—all of which actually did exist—and humans devoured those books without believing those entities were real.
She needed to read one. See how close the author was to the truth of shifters. If it was off base, she’d let it go and stop worrying.
Plus, if she was being honest with herself, the thought of reading one for pleasure was appealing. Even if the author’s shifters were nothing like the real ones, it would be nice to read something she could really relate to.
Lindsey gestured at the rows, and she leaned in closer, looking at the covers with fascination. All of them had some kind of animal, whether it was a grizzly, bird of prey, big cat—really, all kinds of different animals—and she had to assume those were the shifters’ animals.
Her interest was definitely piqued.
“This is the new author I found. The bookstore just started stocking them last month,” Lindsey said, picking up a book and showing it to her. “S. Fire. She’s amazing. She has a few standalones, but I prefer her different series. But really, you can’t go wrong with any of them.”
Taking the offered book, she flipped it over and read the blurb. It did sound good, and she wasn’t sure why that surprised her, but it did. “Which ones are her standalones?”
Lindsey pointed them out and she grabbed the other two and added them to her pile without reading the backs of them. Shrugging wryly when she gave her a pleased smile, she grabbed one more contemporary book by an author she’d read and liked before, and decided five books were enough for now.
But if she liked S. Fire’s standalones, she’d come back and get the two series.
An alert dinged on Lindsey’s phone, and she pulled it out with a grimace. “Well, my break’s over. The shop is closed, but I do all the clerical work too, so my workday’s not quite over yet.”
Arching an eyebrow, she looked at her in question. “It’s closed? It’s only three on a weekday.”
Lindsey shrugged. “Yeah, but it’s a Friday
night in a tiny town. Pretty much everything but the grocery store closes early. Oh, and the drive-in is open on Friday and Saturday nights. The bookstore will be closed in another half hour, just like pretty much everything in New Leaf.”
“Wow. I didn’t realize that.”
She looked at her with curiosity as they moved to the counter. “You haven’t spent a lot of time in town since you moved here, have you?”