drummed her fingers on the table.
“Like a strong man doesn’t have to be afraid of a strong woman like Elizabeth Bennet.” Challenge accepted. “And it’s funny, too.”
She scowled. “In what way?”
“Her dad cracks jokes all the time.” Charlie rested his elbows on the table. “Any dude surrounded by all those women would have to see the hilarious side of life or go insane.”
“Oh, really?”
“You got any brothers and sisters?”
The librarian hesitated. “It’s just me and my parents.”
“So your dad was outnumbered, too. Is he funny?”
“My father and mother keep their heads in the clouds most of the time. Only thing I ever heard them declare amusing was a play on words in Middle English from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.”
Chaucer? Was Evangeline Shaw for real?
She pressed her glasses higher on her nose. “Once, my mother giggled over a scene from the Bayeux Tapestry.”
“The Bayeux what?”
She fluttered her hand. “Never mind.”
He stared at her.
She fidgeted. “Stop looking at me like I’m from outer space. Theirs is an acquired humor. You had to be there.”
“There where?”
She sighed. “Most of their sabbaticals are spent in the French countryside. That’s where they are now.”
With parents like that, no wonder Evangeline Shaw loved books so much.
If anything, what he’d learned raised more questions in his mind. Like, what was someone like her—who spent vacations in France and probably spoke fluent French—doing in a tiny town in coastal Virginia? He vowed not to underestimate Miss Shaw again.
She cleared her throat. “We still haven’t talked about the book yet.”
“We’ve talked about several books.”
The librarian blinked. “We did?”
“Sure, we did. The Canterbury Tales, Pride and Prejudice and that Bayeux thingy.”
The librarian pushed at her glasses. “It’s a tapestry, not a book.”
Charlie pursed his lips. “I’ll look that up when I get off duty and remedy my sadly neglected education.”
Her eyes, like liquid sky, flashed. “Are you mocking me, Deputy Pruitt?”
Charlie hadn’t meant to rile her. “No, ma’am. I wouldn’t do that, I promise.” His heart hammered.
Then, understanding dawned on her face. “This foray of yours into literature is about a woman, isn’t it?” She fingered the frame of her glasses. “It has to be about a woman.”
He frowned. “Why do you assume it has to be about a woman? Are you mocking me now?”
“Is it or is it not about a woman?”
He fiddled with a duck sauce packet. “In a manner of speaking, yes.”
“She’s the one who’s the classical reader?”
This one he could answer without any check to his conscience. “She is.” He opened his palms. “Out of my league entirely, but hope springs eternal.”
“And this is where I and the Kiptohanock library come in?”
He gave her the tried and true, ever-reliable Charlie Pruitt grin. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Okay, then. Because that’s what I’m about.” Her cheeks reddened. “As a librarian, I mean.” She reached for the ticket.
He was a split-second quicker.
“This is supposed to be dutch treat,” she protested.
“Next time you can treat me.”
Her eyebrows rose almost to her hairline. “Next time?”
“There’s next week’s book selection. I may need more tutoring.” He smiled. “By the way, what is next week’s Jane Austen book club pick?”
“You’re in for a treat.”
He got a sinking feeling.
“Another classic, Sense and Sensibility.” She batted those fabulous blue eyes at him. “You’ll have fun explaining to the group which you like better.”
Charlie slid out of the booth, the bill in his hand. “From your tone it sounds as if you’re assuming I won’t like Sense and Whatever.”
She scrambled after him. “My point, I believe.”
“Forget male pride. It’s your own female prejudice that makes you think guys can’t enjoy Jane Austen.” He laughed. “Did you catch what I did there?” He stuck his thumbs into his duty belt. “Pride...and prejudice...”
The staid librarian rolled her eyes.
“And there’s one other reason guys should read Jane Austen.”
She reached for her purse. “What’s that?”
He stuck a toothpick into the corner of his mouth. “It proves men and women can be friends.”
She planted her hand on her hip. “You got that from Pride and Prejudice?”
He twirled the toothpick between his thumb and index finger. “I think underneath the witty banter, the reason the chemistry worked between Elizabeth and Darcy was because they valued each other as friends first and foremost.”
Charlie shuffled his feet. “Maybe we can be friends, Miss Shaw.”
She tilted her head. “You think because I’m new here, I don’t have any friends?”
He remained silent, caught by the blond tips of her ponytail brushing across her shoulders.
She grimaced. “You wouldn’t be far wrong.” She extended her hand. “Call me Evy.”
He reached for her hand. “Evy it is.”
And she snatched the bill from him. With a triumphant glance over her shoulder, she marched toward the register. Where she proceeded to pay for both their meals while conducting a conversation with the cashier in a tongue he presumed to be Mandarin or Cantonese.
Middle English. Probably French. And now Mandarin?
Charlie held the door for her as they exited and shook his head.
