Page 12 of Christmas By The Book

Pushing back my shoulders to try and hold both sides of the dress together, I put a smile on my face and opened the door. He greeted me with a grin.

“Hey, Jorja,” he murmured. Oh, the sound of my name on his lips, it made me a little weak at the knees. Which, I was pretty sure, wasn’t supposed to be how you went about a business meeting. Thankfully, Mia took some of the spotlight from me, as she rubbed between my legs to say hello.

“And who’s this?” he asked, stooping down and holding a hand out to her.

“Mia,” I replied, backing toward the wall at the far end of the corridor. If I could just slip my hands up, crouch down a little, and pull this zipper up, I would be ready to go. But I had to do it without him noticing.

“She’s beautiful,” he remarked, as she butted her head into his hand.

“She really is,” I agreed. I squirmed my hands behind me, but, just as I got a grip on the zipper, he glanced up. I froze to the spot, hoping I didn’t look too crazy.

“You okay?” he asked me, frowning. I was about six feet away from him, and I guessed it must have looked like I had just backed off out of nowhere.

I nodded quickly. “I’m fine,” I assured him. “Just...”

I trailed off. Hell. I had no idea what to say. Luckily, Mia cut in with a little chirrup, and he glanced down at her again. There, I had a chance! I pulled up the zipper, shifted the dress into place, and quickly put on a smile.

“I’m ready to go when you are,” I announced. I could already tell how awkward I had been, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had just decided he wanted to cancel the whole thing right then and there.

But, instead, he grinned at me as he straightened up.

“Great,” he replied. “You look lovely, by the way.”

“Thanks,” I murmured. How long had it been since I had been out with someone like this? Even though I had laid down the law and made it clear this was about nothing more than the book fair, I couldn’t help but remember how it had felt to have his fingers brush against mine. How it had felt to have his skin touch mine, if only for a second.

He held the door for me, and I locked up, taking several tries to get the key into the lock, of course, because my hands were shaking so much. Did he notice that? If he did, he was kind enough not to say anything about it. I would have been so mortified if he had spotted how I was acting right now. Wherever he was from, I doubted the girls acted this weird when he was taking them out to dinner.

He opened the car door for me, a perfect gentleman, and I slipped in to the passenger seat, shooting one last look at my comfort zone, my home, vanishing as we pulled away. I forced myself to take a long inhale and exhale, reminding myself what I was here for.

I tugged at the skirt of my dress, hoping I had worn the right thing. Because, tonight, it felt like I couldn’t do anything right.

Chapter Eight

Seth

I WISHED THERE WAS something I could do to help her relax.

From the moment she had opened her door, I could feel the nerves coming off her in waves. I found it pretty endearing, how nervous she was, but at the same time, I didn’t want her feeling like she had any reason to be worried or on her guard around me. I knew this wasn’t a date, and I wasn’t going to try and push it into anything she didn’t want it to be, but if we were going to be working together, then she was going to need to be, at the very least, comfortable around me.

“So, how long have you lived in Mastin Falls?” I asked her, as the waiter arrived with our menus. There weren’t a whole lot of places to choose from in terms of dining out in this small town, but I had picked a little Italian place just on the edge of the Falls, somewhere that felt a little more private and removed from the now-bustling center of the town.

“Uh, all my life,” she replied, glancing up at me for a moment as she spoke. Her dark hair fell into her eyes, and she swiped it back quickly, almost a nervous tic.

“Does your family still live here?”

She shook her head, dropping her gaze down for a moment. “No, uh – my parents passed away when I was young.”

“I’m so sorry,” I murmured. “I had no idea.”

“You couldn’t have known, it’s fine,” she replied. “It was a long time ago.”

“Still,” I replied. “I had my grandma. She raised me. And she was an amazing lady.”

“Was she the one who owned the bookstore?” I prompted her. As soon as I brought up the shop, she seemed to soften slightly, as though she was unlocking some part of her she had been keeping under wraps.

“Yeah, she did,” she replied. “She started it because she felt like she was running out of books, living somewhere like this, and she wanted to make sure we always had access to whatever new stuff was coming out.”

“Is that her house, that you live in now?”