Page 100 of Hearts Aweigh
“She’s the sort of woman you’d expect Spencer to marry. Elegant, alluring, well-educated.” Abby licked her lips. “Yes, she’s kind of snooty. But she appeared genuinely happy toreunite with Spencer and Madeleine. Maybe there’s hope for a reconciliation.”
The statement slapped her in the heart. A physical pain spread throughout her chest. Abby pressed her lips together. What a fool she was, moping over a man who saw her as an employee. A man who was at that moment probably softening toward his beautiful and glamorous ex-wife. And wasn’t it better that way? Maddie would have both parents again. Priscilla might come off a little chilly. But so had Spencer when Abby first met him. Perhaps his family only needed time and understanding to heal the breach.
Who was she to get in their way?
CHAPTER 50
EMILY MARCHED INTO THE LIBRARY. She passed the towering walnut cases filled with books and found Gerry at her favorite table by the window. The cover of the woman’s latest novel featured a man in a trench coat embracing a woman wearing a fedora. The heroine’s coy expression was mirrored on Gerry’s face.
“How can you read at a time like this?” Emily slapped the table.
Gerry jumped. “Why? What’s happened?”
“What hasn’t happened? Daisy’s son is spending a dangerous amount of time with his shrewish ex-wife. Poor Abby’s walking around with a drooping mouth that rivals a hound dog’s. And a blackmailer is persecuting our poor friend.”
Gerry thumbed the pages of her novel absentmindedly. “Sounds like things are the same. We haven’t any leads, and worrying won’t do a bit of good.”
“Doesn’t it bother you that someone thinks you’re a murderer and is trying to make you pay through the nose?”
Gerry’s lips twitched. “That’s my favorite part. I’ve never sounded so interesting in my entire well-behaved life.”
Emily flopped into the chair across from Gerry. “I’d love to see the humorous side, but there’s a criminal on the loose, andhe must be stopped. Or she. We don’t even know that much.” She tapped her shoe against the carpeted floor.
“Fancy running into you two ladies.” An Irish accent intruded. Seamus stood at the end of the bookcase row, dressed in a white shirt, plaid vest, and dark jeans. Though his words included both of them, his twinkly green eyes pointed at Gerry.
She answered with a stiff, “Good evening.”
“Hello, Seamus.” Emily indicated an empty chair. “Care to join us?”
“Don’t mind if I do.” His grin grew broader as he sat and scooted his chair closer to Gerry.
She barricaded herself behind her novel. Undeterred, Seamus propped his chin in his hands. With a good-natured flash of his brows at Emily, he focused on the former librarian.
Emily kicked her friend under the table. Gerry winced but made no comment. For a professional matchmaker, she was surprisingly resistant to any romance in her own life.
“You must forgive her,” Emily told him. “She forgets her manners when there’s a good book around.”
“Don’t we all,” Seamus said. “Me own dear mother, God rest her soul, used to call me to dinner twenty times before I’d answer. I was that lost in the words of Robert Louis Stevenson.”
“Oh?” Emily cut her eyes to Gerry. “You’re fond of reading?”
“Can’t get enough. The only thing better than a good book is a beautiful woman holding a book.”
Gerry deigned to twitch one eyebrow. She turned the page with a slow, deliberate motion and lifted the novel to hide her face from view.
Emily sighed. The poor man tried so hard. “You must spend a lot of time in the library.”
“A well-stocked library is as close as we get to heaven on earth.”
“Funny,” Gerry murmured from behind her paperback shield. “I don’t recall seeing you in here. Ever.”
The second kick Emily delivered swished through the air. Gerry had anticipated her. The woman uttered a triumphant “hmmph” as she turned another page.
“If I’da known you were looking for me, I’da come sooner.” He chuckled. “I packed a whole duffel bag of books. I’m halfway through my to-be-read pile.”
Gerry lowered her novel. “You have a TBR pile?”
“Sometimes I think it grows while I’m sleeping.”
