Her Summer Crush. Linda Hope Lee

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ good.” Glen idly picked up a brochure from one of the stacks she’d assembled, riffled through it and then tossed it onto the table. “But don’t forget about the sand-castle contest.”

      Luci retrieved the brochure and carefully put it where it belonged. “Of course. I’ve been giving it a lot of thought.”

      He frowned. “You need to do more than that, Luci. You need to come up with an idea. A brilliant one. We need a new twist this year. Make us look good.”

      Not long after Glen left, Marge rushed in, her arms loaded with yellow file folders. She dumped them onto the worktable, where they slid into the neat piles of brochures.

      “Oops, sorry.” Marge leaned over the table, scrambling to corral the files.

      “What’s all this?” Luci rescued the brochures and set them aside.

      “Cleaning out more files.” Marge straightened and waved her arms. “Not my idea. Glen’s orders. This is stuff from decades ago. If it was up to me—” she thumbed her chest “—I’d toss it. But now that you’re here, he wants everything organized and up-to-date.” She rolled her eyes. “Pressure, pressure.”

      The phone in the outer office rang.

      “That’s probably the mayor,” Marge said. “Gotta go.” She scurried out the door.

      After Marge left, Luci abandoned the brochures and the rest of the mess on the worktable and migrated to her computer to research sand-castle contests.

      She was deep into her work when Cody arrived.

      Another man accompanied him. The newcomer looked vaguely familiar, like someone she might have passed in the hallway. He wasn’t as tall as Cody, but then most men weren’t. He was dressed in neatly pressed slacks and a plaid shirt that looked, well, sprayed on. His blond hair was cut short and combed back from a high forehead.

      “Luci, meet Ben Shapiro.” Cody gestured to his companion. “He’s new in town. An accountant. Has an office upstairs.”

      “Pleased to meet you, Luci.”

      Ben offered her a shy smile along with his outstretched hand. But his fingers barely touched hers before he drew back.

      “I thought I’d seen you here in the building. Welcome to Willow Beach,” Luci said.

      “Thanks.” Ben broke eye contact and looked around.

      “Ben’s also a bird fancier,” Cody put in. “That’s one of the reasons he moved here from Seattle. Right, Ben?”

      “Right.”

      Ben seemed to have found something interesting on the ceiling, although Luci couldn’t imagine what that was. “We do have a lot of birds here on the coast,” she said.

      No one spoke for a couple of seconds, and then Cody snapped his fingers. “Say, if we do an article on birds for Coastal Living, maybe you could be our go-to guy. Have you seen that mag, Ben? You got a copy handy, Luci?”

      “I do, somewhere around here.” Luci rummaged through a stack of papers on her desk and pulled out a copy of the magazine. She held it out to Ben.

      He riffled through the pages. “Yes, I’ve seen this around town.”

      “And didn’t you say you’d written some articles yourself?” Cody asked. “For professional journals? Birds something-or-other?”

      Ben looked up from the magazine. “Birds of the West Coast and Birdology.”

      Luci hadn’t heard of either of those publications, but, when nothing more was forthcoming from Ben, she said, “Oh? If you have extra copies, I’d love to read them.”

      Cody nodded. “Might give us some ideas.”

      “Sure. I have some extra copies.” He handed the magazine back to Luci and looked at his wristwatch. “I gotta get back to the office. Client coming in a few minutes. Pleased to meet you, Luci.”

      He finally made eye contact, along with a small nod.

      “You, too, Ben.”

      Cody walked to the door with Ben. “Don’t be a stranger now, you hear?”

      Ben mumbled a reply, but Luci couldn’t make out the words.

      She sat at her desk, ready to resume her work. Cody returned and stood over her, arms folded across his chest.

      “So what do you think?”

      She looked up. “About what? The article idea?”

      “Ah, yeah. About that.”

      “It has possibilities.”

      Cody paced a few steps and then turned. “How about Ben? What do you think about him?”

      “You mean as a resource person?”

      “Resource. Sure.”

      “I don’t know. I’ll have to talk to him some more. Except he doesn’t say much, does he?”

      “He might be a little shy.”

      Luci narrowed her eyes. “Cody, what is going on here?”

      “Ben went fishing with us on Saturday. He’s Max’s accountant. And when he mentioned he was interested in birds, I thought maybe he’d be a good contact.”

      “Uh-huh.”

      “Okay, since he’s new in town and, as you saw, shy, I thought he could use some help getting to know people... Say, I gotta run, too. Glen’s got an assignment for me. Do you have anything? I can come back later.”

      “I will have something on the sand-castle contest...soon. I’ll let you know.”

      Luci watched Cody hurry out the door. He was acting strangely today. But she didn’t have time to worry about him now. She had a job to do. She turned back to her computer and her research.

      * * *

      ANXIOUS TO GET away from Luci’s questions, Cody headed down the hall to Glen’s office. Had he been too obvious? This matchmaking stuff was harder than he’d thought it would be. Still, he’d gotten the ball rolling, and he wasn’t about to give up.

      The following day, Luci mentioned that Ben had dropped off copies of his articles and she had given him some brochures on the Wildlife Refuge. She made no mention of getting together with Ben after hours, though, and Cody didn’t want to raise her suspicions any further by inquiring. He waited a couple more days, and when no progress appeared to have been made, he figured he’d have to give Ben another nudge.

      He was at the post office when he spotted Ben pulling mail from a postal box. They exchanged greetings and a bit of small talk, and then Cody got down to business.

      “What’d you think of Luci?” he asked.

      Ben СКАЧАТЬ