Velvet Touch Read Free Page A

home."
    He stood for a moment, watching her as she came through the
doorway behind him. The gauze dress swirled around her, caught by a playful
breeze. "You know, I hate to say this because I don't believe in
stereotypes, but frankly, you just don't look like the small-town librarian we
were expecting."
    "Good."
    "What
does the 'L' stand for, anyway?"
    "Lacey." She smiled, stepping once more out of
the revealing sunlight She was uncomfortably aware of the faint warmth in her
cheeks. Holt Randolph hadn't bothered to disguise his purely male interest in
what was outlined by the sun. She wondered if that sort of outright perusal was
typical of men out here. Back in Iowa . . . She cut off that thought briskly.
Back in Iowa she would never have worn this dress!
    "And you," she went on crisply, "don't look
like the sort of person I imagined would be running this place. So much for
stereotypes, I suppose!"
    "Don't I?" This appeared to amuse him. His eyes
gleamed for an instant. "What sort of man do I look like?"
    Lacey tilted her head to one side, studying him with mock
attention. "Well, I can imagine you running a cattle ranch or working on
an offshore oil rig or . . ."
    "Actually," drawled a new voice behind her,
"Randolph's very good at what he does, aren't you, Holt? A born
innkeeper!"
    Lacey whiried in surprise to find a lanky, brown-haired
young man with warm brown eyes and a jaunty mustache standing on the path.
    "And you must be the librarian he promised! Hi. I'm
your next-door neighbor for the summer, Jeremy Todd." He thrust forward
the box of unopened painting supplies he had just removed from her trunk.
"Are you an artist, too?"
    "Hello, I'm Lacey Seldon, and as for being an artist,
I don't know," she told him cheerfully, taking the package of new paints
and brushes. "I've never tried it. It's something I intend to find out
this summer."
    "Good afternoon, Todd," Holt said quietly, coming
up behind Lacey with a silence that made her start slightly when he spoke.
"I see you're not wasting any time."
    "When I saw that car, I decided there might be more to
our little midwesterner than you had indicated," Jeremy Todd retorted
smoothly.
    Lacey
blinked, disconcerted by the tiny element of masculine hostility which seemed
to have entered the atmosphere. Didn't these two men like each other? Surely
they weren't reacting so coolly to one another because of her? She had only
just arrived, for heaven's sake!
    "I bought the car two months ago," she rushed in
to say chattily, telling herself the slight chill in the air was purely her
imagination. "Everybody in town thought I was nuts. None of the local
mechanics knew for sure how to work on it!"
    Jeremy
grinned, a charming, boyish grin that went well with his casual jeans and red
T-shirt "Are all the librarians back in Iowa like you?"
    "No," Lacey retorted, getting a bit irked by the
constant reference to the image of her profession. "Some are blond."
    Holt chuckled approvingly. "Come on, Todd. If you're
going to hang around Lacey's front door, you might as well make yourself
useful. There's a lot of stuff squirreled away in that Fiat"
    "Always glad to lend a hand," Jeremy said promptly
and followed Holt out the door.
    With
both men assisting her, it wasn't long before Lacey had her belongings piled
neatly around the floor of the cottage. "I think that does it," she
observed gratefully. "I really appreciate the help."
    "No problem," Holt responded politely, eyeing the
small collection with a curious frown. "That's really everything,
hmmm?"
    "Everything I own in the world." Lacey's look was
one of satisfaction as she followed his glance.
    "You must have left an awful lot behind in Iowa,"
he murmured.
    "I left twenty-nine years behind in Iowa," she
replied with a hint of grimness.
    "Going
back for them someday?" he asked.
    For an instant they met each other's gaze across the room,
ignoring Jeremy Todd, who glanced at them both in bewilderment.
    "Never."
    Holt nodded slowly and Lacey felt