Page 86 of Authentically, Izzy
It was ridiculous. Brodie knew it. Most likely the stranger did too. And if Brodie had kept his good sense, he’d have stopped right there. But some primal urge spurred him back toward another bookshelf with the unstoppable quench for literary domination. In twenty seconds or less he returned with three undeniable winners:Middlemarch,The Count of Monte Cristo, and... the Bible, but he’d have won with just two of the three. The latter he brought along as a shameless boast.
Just as he was about to place the three-inch holy book on the tip-top of his book pile, the older librarian rounded the corner and came to a full stop. Her eyes bulged rather unbecomingly and then her entire expression firmed into a line of fury so fierce, Brodie lost every bit of his focus. His hand shook. From his periphery a movement of blue drew his attention and Isabelle emerged from a nearby doorway wearing a hat that looked like the massive head of a shark, her lovely bottom lip dropping.
And as the old adage proved, that was the final straw. The quivering book bumped Alexandre Dumas and in a slow, horrific motion, Brodie’s tower of literary classics plunged toward the stranger’s wobbly contemporaries, and both bastions plummeted to the floor in a massive crash.
Brodie’s breath halted into the deafening silence that followed the catastrophe and then a quiet whimper rang out from the direction of the doorway. Pale faced and beautiful in her old-fashioned, belted dress, Isabelle rushed forward, followed by a collection of about fifteen children, all wearing some strange form of hat or other as if they were little Disney dwarves following their beloved princess.
At first he almost grinned as she hurried directly toward him like some melodramatic movie ending. “Oh, oh, are you all right?” He opened his mouth to respond, but just as she reached him, she dropped to the floor and swept her arms around the nearest book. “The bindings! The covers!” Her voice raised in pitch as she lifted the hardbound editions of The Lord of the Rings to her chest, her shark-hat bobbing as if to attack. “My precious.”
“I really couldn’t do much about it, Izzy, truly.” The stranger waved toward Brodie, who’d dropped to his knees among the hatted children to collect the sprawling books. “He kept egging me on.”
Isabelle’s dark gaze came to Brodie’s, a look of horror creasing her brow. “What were you doing?”
Brodie shot the stranger a glare and then placed his books onthe counter, carefully taking a few the children offered. “Behaving as an imbecile.” He retrieved a few more of the books, his face growing warmer as the implication of the last five minutes bled clear in his mind. Isabelle clearly had some romantic attachment with this stranger. After all that had happened between them over the past week, had he really been so blind or naive to think he had truly won her heart?
“I found one too, MissIzzy,” came a child’s voice.
“Me too.”
“I told you that you shouldn't have brought this foreigner here, Izzy.” The librarian’s harsh whisper carried enough volume to make her point quite clear. “Not when you already have a perfect catch.” The woman’s face wrinkled into smiles as she looked over at the stranger.
“Aunt Louisa, that really isn’t—”
“You’ve always been my favorite librarian, Mrs.Edgewood,” came the stranger’s warm response. “The best I’ve ever met, actually. A perfect match, if you know what I mean.”
“MissIzzy, here’s another one,” a child interrupted.
But Brodie had already heard and seen enough. He needed air, distance. In usual style he’d jumped into a situation with full heart and found his expectations and reality stood chasms apart. He took the distraction as an opportunity to slide from the crowd and escape out of the library. His chest burned but he increased his pace down the walkway. Why had he opened up so much, so quickly? Had Anders been right? What an utter idiot he’d been!
Brodie knew it was possible she’d take a while to warm up to the idea of being with him, but... well... His feet faltered and he squeezed his stinging eyes closed. No wonder he’d taken so long to risk his heart again, but this time... he’d begun to truly believe in all the magic.
Not again.
***
Izzy had taken the hardback The Lord of the Rings into her arms and swept up theIllustrated King James Biblebefore standing from her place on the floor among the literary disaster.
“He wouldn’t stop challenging me on the books I’ve read.” Eli shrugged a shoulder and finally lowered himself to pick up one of the books from the floor.Ebony’s Fire,if Izzy guessed by the color scheme. One of his own. She replayed his explanation in her mind.
“Why would Brodie challenge you about books?”
“Because Eli made it clear that he was interested in you, is what I caught from the conversation.” Aunt Louisa raised a brow and sniffed the air, as if she cared very little for the whole thing. “Not that I could hear everything through the bookshelves, but I’d say Eli was making great strides in showing his reading abilities over thatforeigner.”
Another look at the books now stacked neatly back on the counter gave a clear distinction about who chose which books. Three books Eli had chosen were the ones he’d authored. Cheater.
And then there were the classics and beloved ones. All hardbound. All Brodie.
“Your interest in me?” She studied Eli, shaking her head. “We’re not dating.”
“I didn’t say we were dating, though I have high hopes of winning you back.” He shrugged a shoulder.
“Winning me back?” She shook her head, her voice rising well above story-time volume. “Eli, you never reallyhadme. I was your editor. We were working on friendship, not romance. Is that what you said to him?”
“Whoa!” He raised his palms in defense. “I only talked about your passion for books and how great you are with romance.”
“How great I am with...” Her mind clicked through the conversation.
She spun around to look for Brodie, but he was nowhere to be seen.
