Valentine Next Door Read Free Page B

caressing hers. It had been so long since she’d been kissed. So long since anyone had looked at her with as much heat and lust as Jeremy was now.
    Not since Leo. Not since her dead husband.
    She pulled her hand back, breaking their connection. She stood on dangerous ground. She could feel it. Somehow she had to bring the conversation back to a safer topic. Much safer. “At least you got to travel to some exciting places. Your mom showed me a bunch of your pictures. They’re beautiful.”
    “Thank you.”
    He took a sip of his wine, his focus still pinned on her, filling her with an unusual heat. He never looked away. It both excited and scared her.
    “I’ve been very lucky.” He tossed it off as though it were nothing.
    She knew from all his mother’s stories that he worked hard for the career he had. But she let him have his modesty.
    “It must be so much fun to travel, to see all these exotic places and people. To experience so much of the world.” She took a drink of wine, directing her attention out of the window, even as the temptation to turn toward him battered at her periphery vision. “I’ve always wanted to travel.” Instead, she’d followed the safe path. She’d gotten married to her high school sweetheart and settled into a job at the quiet library where she’d spent most of her high school days.
    “I thought you traveled every day at the library.”
    Miranda smiled. “So you believed those posters?” On the wall above the check-in desk, several old posters were hung there showing children stepping out of books into exotic adventures, fighting dragons, riding unicorns or joining a boat full of swashbuckling pirates. They were chichi but cute.
    “Well, I saw them enough. They’re imprinted on my mind.”
    “You did spend a lot of time at the library.” She’d always liked it when Jeremy stopped in between his classes or after school. He’d always been so sweet and interested. So few of the other boys who wandered in and out of her sanctuary cared about learning. They were too consumed with sports and sex to give books a second thought.
    He nodded. “You’re half the reason I became a photographer.”
    That got her attention. She snapped her focus back to his face.
    “I used to spend hours in the library, combing over those photography books in the back row. Ansel Adams, William Henry Jackson, Eliot Porter, Arthur Morris.”
    “Those great artists inspired you, not me.” Miranda shifted her feet beneath her, unsettled by the direction this conversation had taken.
    He smiled, and she could feel herself slipping again, falling into those deep, adorable eyes.
    “Why do you think I was in the library looking at those books so much?”
    “I have no idea.” Honestly, she’d never thought about it.
    “I only came to the library so often to be near you. The photography books were right next to your desk.”
    She shook her head, sure he must be saying all this to be nice. He’d always been considerate. There was no way he’d spent his time trying to be near her back then, instead of girls his own age. “I can’t imagine any of you boys even noticing me.” Sure she’d gotten some attention when she’d been in high school, but she’d already been with Leo then, and she hadn’t been daring enough to try her luck with another guy. Leo had always been nice, kind, attentive. What more could she expect?
    “Are you kidding? Every guy in school had a crush on you. They all used to be jealous that I lived next door to you.”
    “Really?”
    He flashed her the same devilish grin he’d used as a teen to get away with accidentally backing over Mrs Slater’s tulips. “Ryan Mason drove me to school every day just to try and catch a glimpse of you getting ready in the morning.”
    Miranda swallowed harder. She’d had no idea the students thought about her that way. She should feel objectified, used, but instead, all she felt was attractive, desirable.
    “Rides in Ryan’s Jag must have been