Emma Bryant?”
“Yeah,” Mac said.
“I told you not to fly that banner,” J.J. said.
“What do you know about her?” he asked.
“Know about her?” He grabbed the pump from Mac’s hand. “We went to school together. She’s the same age as I am. Twenty-seven. She’s the town librarian. Her dad died when she was young and her mom passed away about three years ago after a long illness. Emma was devoted to her. Cared for her at home for almost four years.”
“If she’s such a saint, why do people gossip about her?” he asked.
J.J. gave him an uneasy look. “What do you mean?”
“She asked if I’d heard the gossip around town about her. What gossip?”
“Listen, I don’t like tellin’ tales. My mama said if I keep my mouth shut and my hands clean I’d go far in life. I always follow my mama’s advice.”
“Come on. If it’s something everyone around town knows, why can’t you spill?” Mac prodded. “Is she crazy? Like bunny-boiler crazy?”
J.J. shook his head. “She’s real nice. She’s one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. Always very generous with her time. Everyone loves her. Everyone.”
“So she’s perfect?”
He nodded. “As close to perfect as you’re going to get,” J.J. said. “You won’t catch me saying anything bad about her.”
Mac sighed. “You think she’d go out with me?” he asked.
“I doubt you’d be her type,” J.J. said.
“She’s picky, then,” he said.
“She’s careful,” J.J. countered.
Mac frowned. What did that mean? Careful? She was a twenty-seven-year-old single woman. If she was looking for love, she’d have to take some risks to find it. “So she hangs out at the library?”
J.J. grabbed the pump. “I gotta get back to work. That pump on your plane is shot. We should probably replace both of them while we’re at it. Want me to order two?”
“No, just get me one,” Mac murmured. “And find me a decent price.”
“I will,” J.J. said.
Mac’s gaze was drawn back to the road where Emma Bryant had disappeared. This was a strange feeling, Mac mused. It wasn’t often that he found himself genuinely intrigued by a woman. His reactions to the female gender came in one of two varieties—she’s hot and I’d like to take her to bed...or, no, thank you. But this was something very different.
“Emma Bryant,” he murmured to himself as he walked back inside. Marry-Me Emma. If he took the proposal sign up again tomorrow morning, he could be assured that she’d stop by again and register her opinion.
* * *
“I THINK HE asked me out.” Emma paused, then shook her head. “Or maybe I just imagined it. Everything just happened so quickly. The conversation jumped around so much I could barely keep up. But I’m pretty sure there was an invitation in there.”
“What did you say?”
“I can’t remember.” Emma turned to her best friend, Trisha Kelling, and shrugged. “I wish I could rewind the whole thing and listen to it again.”
“Wait,” Trisha said. “Pull over.”
“What?”
“Just pull over. We need your full concentration.”
Emma did as she was instructed, steering the station wagon to the edge of the dusty road. She threw it into Park and faced her friend, taking a deep breath.
“What did he look like?” Trish asked.
“Cute. No, handsome. Really sexy. Dark hair, pale blue eyes. You know like blue denim that has been faded by the sun.”
“Oh, God, I love that kind of blue,” Trisha said. “What else?”
“Straight nose. Not too big. Just right. Nice teeth. And a really nice body, at least, what I was able to see of it.”
“What about the goods?” she said. “Did you check that out?”
“No! Why would I check out his...crotch?”
“All right. Was he charming or just kind of full of himself?”
“A little bit of both. But I think he might have been teasing me. He was clever. He seemed really smart. He quoted Shakespeare at me.”
“Really? What did he say?”
Trish was an English teacher at the high school and knew her Shakespeare. Emma searched her memory for the phrase, but she couldn’t recall the exact words—a sign that Luke MacKenzie had really flustered her. “Something about being tempted and then falling.”
“’Tis one thing to be tempted? Another thing to fall?”
“Yes! That’s it. As You Like It?”
“I should remember where it comes from and don’t you dare tell anyone that I don’t.” Trish pulled out her phone and punched in the quote. “Measure For Measure. What do you think he meant?”
“I’m not sure.” Emma rubbed her face with her hands. “After that he started talking about the authorship controversy, the Oxfordians versus the Stratfordians. It was as if he knew I was fascinated with the subject and he was tempting me.”
“’Tis one thing to be tempted...” Trisha said.
Emma smiled. “This could be it. He could be the one. It makes sense, doesn’t it?”
“He’s handsome and sexy. He appears to have a brain. And an abundance of charm.”
“And he’s only going to be in town for a short time. Six weeks at the most. That’s perfect,” Emma said. “I can’t believe I’m finally going to rid myself of this awful virginity. I’ll have sex with this man and it will finally be done.”
Emma drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. She’d never intended to remain a virgin for this long. It had just happened. Each year had passed without a potential lover in sight and before she knew it, she’d ended up here, more than halfway to thirty and still as chaste as a nun.
“I shouldn’t have walked out,” Emma said. “I should have flirted with him.”
“You could always go back,” Trish suggested.
“Under what pretense?”
“An apology for being such a bitch?”
“I was a bitch. I just couldn’t
