Page 14 of The Librarian Spy

She might as well have delivered the Gutenberg Bible to him for the joy lighting his face.

“Thank you.” Then before anything else might be said, he opened his door and disappeared within once more.

The strange encounter concluded, Ava made her way down the stairs, escudos nestled safely in her purse. She exited the building and opted to go left where the bustle of people seemed to be flowing. Several paces later, her heel slipped on the slick limestone walkway.

She righted herself before the misstep could be noticed and put more focus into her gait. The stonework she had admired so ardently earlier swelled and dipped beneath its uneven paving from long ago, leaving the surface rolling like frozen waves and markedly treacherous for one in heels.

Rather than return to her apartment for more sensible footwear, she carefully navigated to a kiosk with several newspapers pinned to boards set before the small stand and along its base.

The Daily Mail occupied one section, its date two weeks behind on April 8, 1943, with a headline proclaiming, “Allies Close in as Rommel Runs.”

Das Reich was at its side, mentioning nothing of the defeated German general. For that matter, nor did Le Nouvelliste—a French distributed paper that appeared to be from Lyon. She reached for the Lyonnaise newspaper to examine it more closely when a man’s fingers brushed hers.

They both snatched back their hands and looked at one another. The man was tall, his blond hair swept effortlessly to the side, eyes as cerulean blue as a perfect spring sky. He gave her a broad smile that showed a dimple in his right cheek.

Adonis.

If she’d ever wondered how a god in true form might appear to mere mortals, now she knew. She had never been one for falling for any man on appearance alone, but that dimple could sweep even the most stoic of ladies away with romantic notions.

“Forgive me,” he said with a light Bavarian accent.

“You’re German.” She stiffened, doused with icy reality. Suddenly her breathlessness had nothing to do with his good looks and everything to do with his nationality.

“Austrian,” he corrected her.

“You’re a Nazi,” she exhaled, unable to stop the hiss of accusation.

Even as she did so, she acknowledged the sorrow at her immediate reaction. Once, the German language had made her recall fond memories of her father, whose grandparents had immigrated to America from Cologne before his mother and her sisters were born. It was their legacy that encouraged his studies and his passion for their heritage. It was why Ava had wished to learn the language as well. And now it had been sullied by the Nazis.

“A refugee,” he corrected. “I came here five years ago to avoid Anschluss.”

Heat seared her cheeks. She shouldn’t have been so quick to judge. Reading of nothing but German aggression in the papers back home had given her a knee-jerk reaction she needed to temper.

While she couldn’t remember much about refugees in Lisbon prior to 1940 from the little bit she’d managed to research, she was aware that Anschluss was the Nazi war effort that occupied Austrians were forced to join.

“I see,” she replied shamefaced. “Please forgive me.”

“The accent.” He grimaced and gestured to his strong throat. “It is an understandable mistake.”

She gave a nervous laugh that came out something like a giggle. She cut it short, resisting the urge to cringe.

“I am sure I can forgive you if you would join me for coffee and pastéis de nata.” His lips widened into a full, devastating smile. “I’m Lukas.”

Pastéis de nata.

She bit her lip to keep from agreeing, if nothing else than for the opportunity to sample the custard pastry she’d read about.

He held out his large hand. His sleeves were rolled up, revealing his tanned, strong forearms. She gave his warm hand a quick, firm shake, then forced her attention to the newsstand. “I’m afraid I have a few things to gather here first.”

He chuckled, the sound a rich, rumbling timbre in his chest. “Everyone is so concerned with publications these days.”

An awkward silence settled between them as the conversation volleyed back to her. “You should have seen how happy my neighbor was with a copy of Time,” she offered for lack of anything more interesting to say.

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt. The quote from Abraham Lincoln rushed at her in that moment, and she wished she could snatch the words back from the air like pages caught on the wind.

Lukas’s eyes narrowed. “American magazines are a rare find here in Portugal.”

He said it in a way that suggested she might have done something wrong in giving it away.