Secret Admirer by Gail Sattler Read Free Book Online

kisses and hoped and prayed Faye wouldn’t ask for more details.
    â€œWow. Someone has a crush on you, I’ll bet.”
    Shannon had a bad feeling it was more than a crush, since someone was going to a lot of trouble and for so long. “Naw. It’s probably just someone who knows I like this kind of chocolate. I’ll bet they’re even wondering why I haven’t thanked them. I should probably know who it is, but I can’t figure it out.”
    Faye sighed, her eyes drifted shut, and she pressed her free hand over her heart. “I wish some handsome knight would woo me with chocolate kisses. He’d have my heart for sure.” Her eyes opened, and she grinned at Shannon. “I’d really like it if Todd would leave me romantic stuff like that.”
    â€œTodd?” Shannon blinked. The only thing he’d ever left her was a cold, slimy live frog. “That man doesn’t have a romantic bone in his body. Don’t tell me you have a crush on him.” His remark from the previous day—that he thought Faye liked him—repeated in her head. It appeared he was right.
    â€œHe’s so–o–o handsome. And so funny!”
    â€œHe’s also. . .” Shannon’s voice trailed off. Todd was funny, when a person wasn’t the target of his jokes. And she couldn’t argue that he wasn’t handsome, because he was. The biggest problem was he knew it.
    She tried to think of something else to say about Todd to discourage Faye, to tell her what he was really like, but again, she had to be fair. They’d worked together for nearly a month, and he’d done nothing untoward. He hadn’t played a single practical joke on anyone. He was polite, helpful, and appeared to be doing a good job. If she had to draw a dotted line in time, from the day he started working there, she couldn’t think of anything bad to say about him.
    As well, Todd continued to be her brother’s best friend after fifteen years. Craig always chose his friends carefully. He had many acquaintances but only a select group of people he would call close friends. Craig said repeatedly that Todd had turned his life around and changed into a decent human being.
    Faye waited expectantly beside her. “Todd’s also. . . ?”
    â€œNothing,” Shannon mumbled as she typed in her password and opened her e-mail. “I forgot what I was going to say. Just remember that even though Todd isn’t bad looking, beauty is only skin deep.”
    Faye nodded. She began to walk the three steps to her desk but stopped after only two steps. She turned her head to look over her shoulder at Shannon. “That may be so, but beauty is also in the eye of the beholder.”

Five
    Todd walked into the bookstore, trying to make it look as if he were comfortable in such a place. He stared up and down one aisle, then another, unable to believe there could be so many books under one roof. They even had a coffee shop in the back. The public library hadn’t been as large as this store.
    The book he’d wanted had been marked “library use only,” and he couldn’t go into the library every few days. Therefore, he had come to buy the book.
    If he could find it.
    A young lady wearing a green polo shirt with a pin-on badge showing the logo of the store and the name “Staci” approached him, proving he looked as lost as he felt.
    â€œMay I help you?” she asked.
    He didn’t know if he should admit he’d just been to the library, where he didn’t have to pay for anything. “I’m looking for one of those books that has rhyming words in it. For writing stuff.”
    She smiled politely. “You mean a rhyming dictionary? We have a number of different kinds. There are rhyming dictionaries for both children and adults. Some are geared for poets. We have a nice one for musicians—and a few in more of a dictionary format. We have them in