Page 38 of I Met Him At The Library

“What?” I asked, looking between the papers and her shocked expression.

“That can’t be right,” she muttered as she stood up quickly from the table and marched out of the study room.

Confused, I followed her in a rush until I was walking next to her. She determinedly strode toward the romance section. She began scanning the shelves and then jumped back, her eyes fearfully wide.

“How in the hell did these get here?” She whispered accusingly as she pointed to the shelf and practically glared at me.

Normally, I’d probably feel some amount of fear over a woman glaring at me like she was, but with her it was adorable. Her cheeks reddened, and, despite the glare, there was a softness in her gaze.

Turning my attention to the shelf, there was a mixture of green and blue spines. The titles were odd names and the author name, Donna Smith, was on the spine. There appeared to be duplicates of each book, but some were missing the second. I assumed they were checked out since Donna Smith was one of our more popular authors.

My eyes widened with shock when I suddenly understood what I was staring at. I turned to Emily who stared at the books in complete shock, and was that fear?

“Are those, you?” I whispered so low, I didn’t know if she would hear me.

“Yes,” she hissed, then glanced around the aisle before grabbing the sleeve of my arm and started pulling me back down the aisle.

She released me before we were out of the aisle but continued marching back to the study room. Her head turned back and forth as if she were scanning the library for anyone who might know she was Donna Smith. Once inside the study room, I closed the door and she spun to me.

“What are my books doing on your shelves?”

“They are the library shelves. I’m not the only one who handles the ordering of books. It’s probably a coincidence, especially because I just found out you’re Donna Smith,” I defended myself.

Her eyes softened, and she sighed, “I’m sorry. It caught me off guard. I didn’t think my books were even in this library, let alone popular enough to warrant duplicates.”

“How did you not know they were here?”

“I never browse the shelves because I mostly read eBooks or audiobooks and purchase the physical copies as trophies for my shelf.”

Emily began pacing the room as she tried to make sense of her books being popular in the town where she lived. Her fingers pushed through her hair. Looking down at the table, I spotted the list. She was concerned about revealing her pen name to the town if she were to choose to do the signing.

As helpful as it would be to have such a popular author appear at our signing, I didn’t want her doing anything she wasn’t comfortable with. Authors kept their identities a secret for many different reasons. Some were as small as not wanting their immediate or extended families to know, and others were because of their jobs or community. Hell, I’d known of others who hid their real names to avoid potential stalkers. It didn’t matter the reason, you never ever revealed a pen name's true identity until they were ready to share it.

Looking back at her, there was an argument taking place in her mind. Unsure how to proceed, I waited patiently for her to decide how she wanted to handle this. I wanted to reach out to her and pull her into a hug, but my eyes went to the window where a few people sat at a nearby table. I needed to respect her decision to keep this thing between us a secret for now.

Chapter 22

Emily

With a sigh, I collapsed into the chair at the table - my eyes going to the list in front of me. I was a popular author in my hometown, and I had a hard time wrapping my head around it. Participating in the con with a signing booth, or even a panel could bring in loads of people. I could help in a big way. But, then everyone would know and their judgements would come down hard. Not only on me, but my friends and family too.

People would bring up those awful old rumors again.

“You don’t have to reveal who you are,” Ryan spoke softly and my eyes went to him as he sat in the chair next to me.

“It could help,” I said.

“But you aren’t ready to do that. I get it, and there is no pressure here. We’ll get other authors and we’ll make this happen. I hadn’t even considered asking you before, knowing how you felt about keeping your identity a secret. I wouldn’t dream of asking you simply because you showed up on this list.”

I smiled softly at him. He was being so incredibly supportive and we’d barely even agreed to try dating. Well, I could match his energy. I’d pull every string I could to make sure this event was a success and save the library, short of revealing to the town that I was Donna Smith, alien romance author.

Sitting forward and looking at my laptop, Poppy’s words popped into my head. Don’t let them take your sparkle. By keeping my pen name a secret, was I protecting my sparkle or dimming it?

What if the only chance of the festival being successful depended on me revealing who I was? It was a rather egotistical thought, but looking at the number of times my books have been checked out here, I considered there might have been truth to it. Chewing on my lip, I wouldn’t say no, yet. Instead, I’d think about it, talk to the few people who knew, and would make a decision from there.

Until then, we had work to do on contacting all these other authors and seeing if we could get them interested in saving our little small town library.

“Alright, let’s make this into a spreadsheet.” I pulled the laptop closer and got to work adding names and creating columns for the email addresses and social media accounts I could find on each author while Ryan started drafting the emails he hoped would convince them.

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