Page 6 of With Stars in Her Eyes
This was not the Samantha Powell I had met at Marshall’s family’s events.
And hotdamn…
Who wasshe?
I could ask. I could speak. It wasn’t like me to be struck into silence by anything. But something kept my mouth from opening. I didn’t have to see my reflection to know I was smiling now.
It was like a scene from a movie. The kind with an epic soundtrack playing in the background.
Oh… wait… therewasan epic soundtrack playing in the background. That part wasn’t my overactive imagination.
I walked forward, aiming my steps toward the checkout desk at the center of the shop but keeping my eyes on the woman in the back as if hypnotized. She was climbing up one of the library ladders now. Her walnut-blond pixie cut glowed as she moved closer to the twinkle lights draping over the shelves. Every hand movement was graceful. Every step seemed sure-footed. She wasn’t dancing, but it was as if she was always aware of the music, feeling the nuances within every note. She paused her shelving at a particularly beautiful strings part, and her fingers made a few small movements before curling into a tight fist.
What was she thinking?
She climbed back down and stood in the center of that open space. The one brighter light wreathed her face and cast her features in shadow. I wished for my camera to capture the moment, but the only cameras I had in Kansas were back at Marshall’s.
I leaned an elbow on the counter, definitely not because watching the beautiful tomboyish Disney princess of a bookseller was making me weak at the knees. That would be silly.
A tug on my coat sleeve wrenched me from my pathetic trance. I turned, expecting to find Samantha Powell or some other bookseller who would tell me to stop gawking like a creep.
But instead, two glassy eyes stared up at me.
The eyes were attached to a head. The head of somethingwith spiky orange scales and iridescent orange wings—actual wings?—and claws that sank into my arm as the creature crawled up onto my shoulder until those oil-slick eyes were inches from my face.
And because Lady Karma was a quick-ass mother trucker, I screamed.
CHAPTER 2Courtney
A scream nearly jolted me off the rolling shelving ladder. I jumped down and sprinted to the front to find a brunette in a bright yellow Carhartt hat cowering in the corner.
“What the hell?What the hell is it?” The unfamiliar woman’s words shuddered through hyperventilated breaths. “Holy reptilian hell in a handbasket.”
I scanned the woman for injuries, taking in every visible detail, from her double nose piercing down to the toes of her worn brown Blundstones. The woman wasn’t bleeding, but she was ghostly pale and clutching her chest. “Are you hurt?”
“Watch out behind you. There’s a—there’s a—” She pointed a tattooed index finger toward the door.
I whirled, not fully knowing what to expect. An armed assailant? A fire? A flash flood? I saw nothing at first until a small horned head popped up behind the counter.
“Oh.” My rigid muscles that had been oddly ready to do battle on behalf of this terrified brunette relaxed. “Oh…”
“Am I hallucinating? I was just standing there. You were shelving books, and I didn’t want to interrupt, and I looked down… and…”
I approached the troublemaker slowly because he was fast when he wanted to be. I grabbed hold of him and spoke softly so that only he could hear. Although my lizard anatomy knowledge was lacking, so I wasn’t entirely sure he had ears. “C’mon, little dude. Why?”
When I turned back to the woman, her mouth was open in awe as if I just charmed a cobra rather than wrangled a highlyspoiled house pet. I grabbed his leash from behind the counter, where it had fallen during his escape.
“Since when doesKansashave goddamned winged micro-dinosaurs roaming its bookstores?” The woman had a hint of an accent. Southern maybe? Or possibly Texas? I could never tell the difference.
“No. No. No… He’s not… He’s a… well… he’s…”
“He’s a… what?”
Right,herewas where I needed to just start actually explaining, with words. I could do this.Speak. “He’s… he’s just misbehaving.”
“Misbehaving?” The woman was still on the floor, brown hair wild beneath her mustard-colored beanie.
“I guess I’m not sure if reptiles are aware when they’re misbehaving, but his carrier must not’ve been latched right. I’msosorry he scared you.” I held out my hand, but the woman seemed too nervous about the reptile perched on my shoulder to accept it. “Areyou hurt? Did you fall?”
