The lawyer had gone on to reassure her he would look into it further. In fact, he planned to go straight to the source and speak with her father and brothers directly. If they didn’t have the information, they would need to be warned, as well.
She aligned the books and started back down the ladder. A hand clamped her calf. Gasping, she grabbed the railings to keep from pitching over backward. She looked down fast—
“Jonah,” she whispered, her world righting and narrowing to just him,”you scared the hell out of me.”
“Sorry about that. Wouldn’t want you to fall.” He kept his hand on her leg.
Eloisa continued down, his hand naturally sliding up for an inch, and another. Her heart triple-timed as she wondered how long he would keep up this game.
She descended another step.
His hand fell away. The heat of his palm remained.
Soft chitchat sounded from a couple of rows over, the air conditioner nearly as loud as the conversation. Otherwise, this section of the library was pretty much deserted this morning.
Eloisa gripped a shelf since the floor felt a little wobbly.”What are you doing here?”
“I came to take you out. Unless you have to do something with your sister’s wedding plans, in which case, I’m here to supply lunch.” He gripped the shelf just beside her, his body blocking the rest of the row from sight and creating a quiet—intimate—haven.
A lunch date? God, that sounded fun and wonderful and more than a little impulsively romantic. So unwise if she wanted to keep her balance while finding out what made Jonah Landis tick.”I already bought a sandwich on my way in.”
“Okay, then. Another time.” He looked past her, then over his shoulder, a broad shoulder mouthwateringly encased in his black polo shirt.”Mind if I have a tour of the place before I leave?”
Her mouth went dry at the thought of more time with him. She eyed the water fountain.”It’s a public library. As in open. To the public. Like you.”
He traced down the binding of a misplaced Dickens book.”I was hoping for my own personal tour guide. I’m partial to sexy brunette librarians who wear their long hair slicked back in a ponytail. And if she had exotic brown eyes with—”
“I get the picture, you flirt.” She held up her hand and stifled a laugh.”You want a tour?” She pulled A Tale of Two Cities from the shelf and tucked it under her arm.”Of a library?”
“I want a tour of your library. You saw my workplace in Spain.” He propped a foot on the bottom step of the ladder.”Now I want to see yours.”
Could he really be serious here? Could he perhaps, like her, need some additional insights in order to put the past behind him? The whole flirtation could just be his cover for a deeper confusion like she felt.
And she was probably overanalyzing. Didn’t men say things were a lot simpler for them?
Regardless, what harm could there be in showing him around the library? She couldn’t think of anywhere safer than here. Now where to start?
If she took him downstairs to the reception area, she would face questions later from the rest of the staff. Better to go farther into the stacks.
She mentally clicked through other areas to avoid. A book-group discussion. A local artist in residence hanging her work. Eloisa discussed the facility’s features by rote.
Jonah reached ahead to push open a doorway leading into a research area.”What made you decide on this career field?”
She looked around. Definitely secluded. She could talk without worrying about being overheard, but also she wouldn’t have the same temptations of being alone in her town house with Jonah.”My mother spent a lot of time staying under the radar. I learned low-key at an early age. Novels were my …”
“Escape?” He gestured around the high-ceilinged space that smelled of books and air freshener.
“Entertainment.” She shoved a chair under the computer desk.”Now they’re my livelihood.”
“What about after your mother married what’s-his-name?” Jonah followed, palming her back as she rounded a corner.
“My mother still liked to keep things uncomplicated.” How in the world had her mother ever fallen for a king? And a deposed king at that, with all sorts of drama surrounding his life? Enrique Medina seemed the antithesis of her stepfather, a man who might not be perfect, but at least had been a presence in her life. Loyalty spurred her to say,”His name is Harry Taylor.”
“Yeah, what’s-his-name.”
Eloisa couldn’t help grinning. Her stepfather wasn’t a bad guy, if a bit pretentious and pompous…. And she knew in her heart he loved his biological daughter more than he loved her. It hurt a little to think about that, but not anywhere near as much as it used to.”While I appreciate your championing my cause, I truly can stand up for myself.”
“Never doubted that for a second,” Jonah answered without hesitation.”What’s wrong with other folks—like me—throwing our weight in along with you?”
She simply shook her head.”I thought you wanted a tour.”
“We can tour and talk.”
Sometimes she wasn’t sure if she could walk and chew bubblegum around this man. She plastered on a smile.”Sure we can. And here’s my office.”
Eloisa swept the door open wide and gestured for him to follow her into the tiny space packed full of novels, papers and framed posters from literature festivals around the world. She placed the Dickens classic on a rolling cart to be shelved later.
The door clicked as it closed. She turned to find the space suddenly seeming way smaller with Jonah taking up his fair share of the room that wasn’t already occupied by her gunmetal-gray desk, shelves and an extra plastic chair for a guest.
Maybe her office just felt claustrophobic because there weren’t windows or even a peephole in the door. Not because they were alone.
Totally alone.
He hadn’t planned on getting her alone in the library.
Yet here they were. Just the two of them. In her tiny, isolated office.
Jonah pivoted away to find some distraction, something to talk about, and came nose to nose with a shelf of books. Art books and history books, all about Spain and Portugal. She wasn’t as detached from her roots as she tried to make out.
Jonah thumbed the gold lettering along the spine of a collection of Spanish poetry. He recalled she spoke the language fluently.”Have you ever met your biological father in person?”
“Once.” Her voice drifted over his shoulder, soft and a little husky.”I was about seven at the time.”
“That’s years after the last-known sighting of him.” Jonah kept his back to her for the moment. Perhaps that would make it easier for her to share. So he continued to inventory her books.
“I don’t know where we went. It felt like we took a long time, but all travel seems to take forever at that age.”
He recalled well the family trips with his three brothers and his parents, everything from Disney to an Egyptian pharaoh’s tomb. Their vacations would have been so different from that mother-daughter trip to see a man who barely acknowledged her existence. Sympathy kicked him in his gut.”Do you remember the mode of transportation?”
“Of course.”
“Not that you’re