The Pepper in the Gumbo (Men of Cane River #1)(23)

“Just hold on,” Alice interrupted. A little bit of her was replaying the ‘young and beautiful’ part, but the rest of her didn’t care what he thought would happen after another forty years. She crossed her arms over her chest. “I can’t believe you march into a bookstore, insult the owner, and still expect to walk away with rare books.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes for a moment as if he were counting in his head. Alice hoped she was giving him a headache. She’d never been so put off by a customer in her life. Her brothers had been urging her to carry mace in case someone broke in and attacked her. If only she’d listened. Nothing would have been more satisfying than to wave the little canister in his face and ask him to repeat that part about the cats.

“They don’t have to be rare. Just old.” His voice was calm. He looked up and Alice knew he was waiting for her to ask him to explain again. She pressed her lips together. She hated riddles but she didn’t want to be the one to give in. There were at a standoff.

There was a rustle from the stacks of paperbacks and Mrs. Gaskell walked between them, tail high, ears twitching.

“Oh, and I bet your cat is named Darcy,” he said. “Book owners always name their pets after characters.”

All the arguments she had been forming fled her brain and she felt her face go hot. “It’s a she, actually.” Darcy was perched not four feet above this man’s head but she wasn’t going to tell him that. But the cat had heard his name and for the first time in his life, decided to respond to it. He let out a low meow and jumped to the carpet between them.

The man shot a look at her as Darcy sauntered away.

“Jane Eyre?”

“No.”

A whisper of sound made him turn his head, but Alice stood stock still. Maybe if she didn’t move, Jane Eyre would go back into hiding. The next moment, the striped tabby stepped from between a row of books and put her nose to the man’s pant leg. He cocked his head and a small smile touched his lips.

“Mr. Rochester? Everybody loves him. Crazy wife in the attic and all.”

“No.” She wanted to keep him from guessing but couldn’t figure out whether to push him toward the poetry or out the door. A movement drew her gaze and Alice couldn’t believe her eyes as Mr. Rochester took up a position at the end of the row. His tattered ear was even uglier in the bright sunlight, and he looked mangy and old. Something in her expression made the man turn around and his smile spread into a grin. Then he went back to guessing.

“Elizabeth? Mrs. Bennet?”

“No and no. We weren’t talking about my cats. We were―”

“Just how many cats do you have?” He sounded simultaneously amused and alarmed as Miss Elizabeth padded over, her eyes bright with excitement, Mrs. Bennet following right behind her.

“Not that many,” Alice exclaimed. Her cats had never once responded to her, even for breakfast. They came when they wanted, as if they owned the building and she was just living at their convenience. But they all seemed to know it was time to visit the obnoxious know-it-all customer today and prove how truly odd Alice was.

“It’s from a romance. Definitely something made into a BBC movie. Let me think.” He put a finger to his chin and pretended to consider it, but cracked an almost-suppressed smile. If she hadn’t been so irritated, she would have let herself admire him a little more.

“It could be from a horror novel for all you know.”

“You’re a romantic,” he said. “Look at the size of your poetry section.”

She couldn’t think of a word to say. She’d been called a lot of things. Odd, weird, reclusive, introverted, quiet. She’d even been called impossible to please by a few boyfriends. Just last week, Eric called her stubborn because she refused to trade in her perfectly nice car for something newer. But no one had ever called her a romantic. And she was, to her very core, a romantic.

Every relationship she’d ever had was doomed from the start because the men couldn’t measure up to her book heroes. She wanted a Darcy, a Rochester, a Thornton, a Colonel Brandon, a Captain Wentworth. Alice couldn’t change that fact, no matter how much she tried. This dark secret fueled her fear that she would never find true love, never marry. Now this stranger stood there describing her so perfectly, it felt like someone had peeled back a layer of her skin and exposed her very heart beating within her chest.

“Her name is Mrs. Gaskell,” she whispered.

He snapped his fingers. “Right! The author of North and South. Richard Armitage as the cotton mill owner.” He glanced at her face and the smile faded away. “Look, I didn’t mean to offend you,” he said, his voice no longer teasing.

Alice looked at her feet. The whole day had been a disaster and it wasn’t even noon. She’d flirted ridiculously online, accused a customer of book abuse, been called the early version of a crazy cat lady, and now she was going to sell this man some books even though she really, really wished he’d just go away. She lifted her head to tell him to choose what he wanted, but she couldn’t seem to get the words past the ache in her throat.

He seemed uncomfortable now. “About the books, they’ll be read and enjoyed, I promise,” he said. He cleared his throat, as if waiting for her to continue the argument. She stayed silent. There was something like tenderness in his eyes as he said, “They’re not for me.”