Page 30 of It'll Always Be Her

Aside from looking very “movie-star ghost hunter,” he also appeared marginally less tetchy than he’d been yesterday morning.

“Bee Delaney.” She smiled somewhat warily. “Library director and head librarian. How are you, Mr. Constantine? First chakra clear?”

“Better than it was.” He shrugged, looking past her in a weird, squinty way. “Turned out Bliss Cove doesn’t have a foot masseuse, so they had to hire one to drive in from San Francisco. Not as good as my Hollywood girl, but she got the chi flowing pretty good. I’m just accustomed to higher standards.”

“I imagine you are.” She noticed his eyes were a shockingly bright blue rather than the watery brown they’d been yesterday. No way was such a drastic difference a trick of the lights.Contact lenses, she thought.

He patted his blond hair, which was styled in a perfect blowout with the signature curl right in the middle of his forehead. Bee realized he was looking at his reflection in the window that separated the returns box from the circulation desk.

“Can I help you with something, Mr. Constantine?”

“Clyde.” He moved a lock of hair into place and turned his attention back to her. “Easy to remember. Rhymes withride, as inClyde gives a great ride, ortake a ride on Clyde, or—”

“I understand.” Bee cleared her throat.“Jekyll and Clyde.”

He blinked. “Huh?”

A snort came from nearby, and Adam Powers approached. Though both men were well-built, they were a study in contrast—Adam was taller, his dark, scruffy good looks the opposite of Clyde’s sleek, powdered polish.

“We’re about ready to start.” He indicated Clyde’s face. “Better go find Krista. You’re a little shiny.”

Clyde’s eyes widened slightly as he hurried off to find the makeup artist.

Bee couldn’t help giving Adam a rueful smile. “He seems a bit high-maintenance.”

“That’s one word for it.” He pointed his thumb over his shoulder. “We’re ready to go whenever you give us the green light.”

“The library is officially closed, so the place is yours. I’ll just watch and stay out of the way.”

She stepped out from around the counter, aware that she was now close enough to Adam to mix their energies.

But regardless of Destiny’s dire warnings, Bee didn’t experience the slightest hint of imbalance or negativity. Just the opposite, in fact. She wanted to get close enough to rub up against him like a cloth polishing steel.

Her mind fired up with an image explicit enough to put all celebrity sex tapes to shame.

“Um, I did want to apologize for what happened earlier.” Trying to calm her flush, she rubbed the black tourmaline stone that still hung around her neck. “Destiny is one of my closest friends, and she isn’t usually that standoffish. She was having a bad day.”

He shrugged as if the mystic’s opinion of him didn’t matter one way or the other. Bee couldn’t tell him about Destiny’s reading or her intuition. She was certain he would scoff at things like auras and energy fields.

“What’s your astrological sign?” she asked. The question popped out so unexpectedly that she almost wasn’t sure it had come from her.

Adam raised an eyebrow. “From any woman but you, I’d think that was a come-on.”

Bee frowned. “What, you don’t think I’m capable of hitting on a man?”

He laughed, and the deep rich sound settled right in her core. “You don’t have to say one word to capture a man’s interest, let alone hit on him. All you have to do is be you.”

A little frisson of pleasure skimmed over her. She fought the urge to bat her eyelashes.

“No,” Adam continued. “I meant that your question probably has something to do with John Marcus’s ghost or which signs are most apt to believe in the paranormal.”

“But you won’t care anyway since you pooh-pooh all that.”

“True. I’m a Capricorn.”

Damn.

“Well.” Bee exhaled a long breath. “There aremillionsof Capricorns in the world.”

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