But Alex had barely opened the first text before the dark, broody mood kidnapped his attention. The problem was the legendary King Arthur. He was another blasted hero who’d lost his best girl. Another good guy who hadn’t done one thing wrong. But because honor couldn’t compete with a younger, sexier stud named Lancelot, Arthur had lost everything.
Alex wasn’t inclined to take the comparison too far. He was no King Arthur. Still, he knew that precise feeling of loss. Painfully, intimately well.
Another kerthump sounded from the next book aisle over. Then another. Followed by a trail of extremely loud and colorful curses from the same throaty female alto.
Alex shot an exasperated scowl in the general direction of Ms. Klutz. No one, but no one, ever hung out in the myths and legends section but him. And especially on this to-die-for spring day, he should have been guaranteed a private refuge in this back corner of the library. Couldn’t a guy wallow in a deep, dark case of self-pity in peace and quiet?
Apparently not. He’d barely thrown down his pencil before the lady abruptly charged around the corner, juggling a good dozen hefty books and heading for him at a dead run.
For a second Alex froze like the iceberg in the Titanic’s path. Not that the woman was so big—the tonnage of books teetering in her arms looked bigger than she did. But she was obviously hustling to get them to the table and set them down before they all toppled and fell. The mission was doomed. Alex caught a fleeting impression of flashing scarlets and wild silky hair before disaster struck.
She made it to the oak table, but not before the volumes started shifting and spilling. Her river of books crashed into the sea of his. Several sailed to the floor; one ended on his lap.
Curses followed. Not his. Being out of breath didn’t seem to limit her vocabulary, and totally incomprehensibly—once she got rid of her armload—she started laughing.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry! You just can’t imagine the day I’ve had. It’s been one thing after another. ... Here, I’ll get that. You don’t have to help—”
Alex instinctively sprang to his feet. Helping a lady in trouble was second nature, an integral part of the Southern gentleman’s code he grew up with—but in this case, basic survival instincts were the far more powerful motivator. God knew how much more damage she could do if left to her own devices.
She was breathlessly huffing and puffing as she bounced down to pick up the fallen books. On one of her bounces back up, her elbow came mortifyingly close to a poke in his crotch. He opened his mouth, closed it faster than a fish and caught a noseful of some spicy, exotic perfume. By the time he’d rescued the last of the fallen books, she’d managed to knock over more of his meticulously neat research stack.
“I’ll get it, I’ll get it. Sheesh, I’m sorry—”
“Nothing to be sorry about. Accidents happen.”
“All I had to do was make two trips, but no, I was trying to save time and carry all the books at one time. It’s just that they were all so heavy—”
“I can see that.”
“I must have sounded like a bull in a china shop, but I never expected to find anyone else back here. I’ve come to think of this as my sacred spot because no one else is ever back here. My air conditioner at home went on the fritz, and I just needed to get in a couple hours’ work where it was cool—you don’t mind if I sit at the same table, do you?”
Mind? Alex craved peace. He needed quiet. The Silvertree Public Library had two stories of sprawling space for her to choose another table. And not that a gentleman would ever lift his territorial leg on a lady, but he was here first. Still, manners had been imprinted so deeply in the men in his family that his response was automatic.
“No problem,” he said, and then swiftly pulled a book in front of him and ducked his head.
Eventually she quit huffing and puffing. Eventually she sat down. Eventually she noisily rearranged her hodgepodge of books and clattered in her purse for a pen, and finally—there was a God—she settled down.
Alex couldn’t.
He vaguely recognized her. Typical of North Carolina small towns, Silvertree was a friendly place. Maybe they’d pulled into the same gas station, or he’d seen her in a grocery store or on the street. Alex couldn’t imagine a man younger than 105 who’d fail to notice her.
She was several inches shorter than his six feet, but her figure—delicately speaking—could inspire a guy to crash a car or two to get a closer look. Her hair was caramel brown, shoulder length, with silky scoops of curls all over the place. No order. No control. Which about summed up the rest of her as well, Alex mused.
A long sun-shaped earring dangled from one ear, a long moon earring from the other. Apparently they were a matched set. She was wearing a scallop-necked red T-shirt—snug enough to give a man a heart attack—and a long skirt that was a swirl of colors: fuchsias, oranges and reds all blurred together. Her sandals showed off red-painted toenails—about the same color as her strawberry lipstick. Bracelets dangling clanged every time she moved.
Alex wasn’t trying to sneak looks at her, but she moved a lot. And every time he glanced up, faster than bad news, he found her hazel eyes on him.
Her eyes were huge. Deep set and as lushly dramatic as the rest of her. She wasn’t precisely pretty, but her oval face had a complexion as pale and soft as vanilla, with high broad cheekbones and a full sensual mouth. Her face was unignorably striking, and her figure was downright dangerous. The skirt concealed her legs, but she didn’t appear to be carrying any spare pounds—except upstairs. The stretchy T-shirt made no secret of the lush, voluptuous curves above her waist.
She was...Alex searched his mind for the right descriptive term. Sexy shot to his brain faster than a bullet, but was swiftly, uneasily rejected. Hell, he hadn’t thought of a sexist term like that since he was a teenager. Alarming was more like it.
In fact, alarming seemed to describe her perfectly. There was nothing wrong with her haunting hazel eyes, flashy style or mesmerizing red mouth. But Alex’s taste in women had always been more like...well, like Gwen.
His fiancée had been petite. A lady, inside and out. Gwen was soft-spoken and soft-mannered, prone to wearing fragile feminine pastels that suited her blond-and-blue-eyed fairness. She’d been everything Alex had ever dreamed of in a woman. Everything he’d waited a lifetime to find.
Until she’d left him at the altar, and run off with a ten-years-younger, good-looking rogue named Lance.
“You look really caught up in sad thoughts.”
Alex’s head shot up. “Beg your pardon?”
Those huge hazel eyes were all over his face again, studying him as intrusively as a cop could frisk a suspect. “I don’t mean to pry. You just had this look, as if you were carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders. Are you okay?”
No, he wasn’t okay. He wasn’t remotely okay. But he didn’t know the woman from Adam, couldn’t believe she would ask a total stranger such a nosy question. And for sure, he couldn’t imagine how to answer it.
His reticence seemed to fly right by her. The undauntable woman smiled...a slow, warm smile that crinkled those eyes into pinpoints of light. Impulsively she leaned over the table and extended a hand, offering him a view down the scooped neck of her T-shirt that turned his throat desert dry.
“I’m Regan. Regan Stuart. I know I’ve seen your face around town somewhere—do you teach at the college?”
“No. That is, I’m a teacher—but I teach high school history, nothing at the college level—”
“Well, I’m a teacher, too. I thought I might have seen you around the Whitaker College library before—I’m an assistant prof, teach women’s studies. And you’re—?”