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Since the first day when she hadn’t backed down, they had been in love with her.
He was a little bit annoyed because they were his dogs. They should love him. But if Peyton were around, both of them wanted to be with her. He supposed he understood; animals were notorious for being able to sense people’s feelings and their character, and his dogs had good sense.
“The French toast bake is ready. I thought we could eat it in the kitchen.”
Her head jerked up, and her mouth moved into an O. “My goodness, I didn’t hear you come in.”
Chapter 10
Communication. - Deborah Brantley from Delight, Arkansas
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“You look like you’reconcentrating pretty hard.”
“Yeah. It takes a lot of concentration to stick one of these in the front of a book.” Peyton laughed a little. “Actually, this is20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. One of my favorites as a child.” She ran a hand lovingly over what was obviously an old book, with the fancy binding and intricate title embossed in gold that older books often had.
He loved the way she held it respectfully, like she loved it. Like it was an honor to hold such a book and work with it.
It made him smile, because that’s the way his mother would treat her books.
She carefully slid it in its spot on the bottom shelf, and then she stood, dusting her pants off and wiping her hands on the front of them.
“I’m in a pretty good place. It’s going slow, but I don’t think we thought it was going to be a one-day job.”
“Definitely not. This is going to take forever.” He looked around at all the books, wondering if she would really be here until they were all finished. Somehow he doubted it. People didn’t stay anymore. They didn’t stick with things. Especially not things that were hard or overwhelming. They wanted things to be easy so they could have a quick resolution, a little pat on the back, and move on.
“You might find this crazy, but I love it.” She stood, stretching, and pulled the earbuds out of her ears, grabbing her phone out of her pocket, and walking over, setting them on a chair with the rest of her stuff. “I’ve been listening to audios, and I think I can do this job forever. It’s like reading, and working with books, and filling my need to organize things all bundled up in one.”
“There’s a lot of organizing to do. You’re going to go broke buying audios to listen to.”
“Actually, I’ve been listening for free on YouTube. Say with Jay is a great channel, although the man who does it seems to have some connection to Idaho and ladies and underwear, I’m not sure exactly what. There was some gossip on the ’net about it.” She shrugged. “You know how that goes.”
She hit him right in the heart, and his smile slipped. He had thought it neat that she had found a way to read books while she worked with books, but the idea that people believed rumors was one he was all too familiar with.
“I’ll be in the kitchen,” he said, turning abruptly and walking out, only getting a glimpse of the way her face had fallen and her brows had crinkled. Like she didn’t understand why he had such strange, shifting moods.
