LITMIR.BIZ

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sorry for your loss.”

      “Why are you saying that like he’s already dead? What’ya mean you’re sorry for my loss?”

      “I’m saying that because I can’t help you. There’s virtually no way to one hundred percent identify your friend’s wife as a lamia or to make her leave him.”

      “Virtually no way? What about Buffy? Where’s a vampire slayer when you need one? Or maybe an old-fashioned stake through the heart would do the trick—on second thought, scratch that. I don’t have the stomach to give someone a paper cut let alone shove a wooden stake through their breastbone. Just imagine all the blood. Have I told you that blood gives me the willies—”

      “There’s only one way to both identify a lamia and destroy her,” he interjected, cutting off her mindless rant about television characters and paper cuts. “But each step requires the possession of an extremely rare relic, which I’m not sure even exists. They’re the…Shoot, I can’t remember the names. They’re Hebrew. Never been good with Hebrew. Let me go back and get my book.” He took a single step away, then glanced over his shoulder at the piece of snake skin still sitting on Sophie’s desk. “I don’t suppose you’d let me keep that? For research purposes, of course.”

      She picked it up and handed it to him. “Sure. If you’ll help me. I think I’m in trouble over my non-vampire-believing head.”

      His eyes sparkled as he glanced down at the skin. “Like I said, I can’t help you much. But I’ll do what I can. Come on.” He led her back to his office. “Let’s hope, for your friend’s sake, the book I’ve read on the subject is right and the relics you need haven’t been destroyed eons ago.”

      Chapter 2

      “Excuse me,” Sophie asked the librarian a couple of hours later. She glanced down at the piece of paper she’d ripped from Tim’s notebook, then continued, “You got rid of the good-old card catalogue and I’ll admit I’m far behind the common kindergartner when it comes to computers—a real crime considering what I do for a living, but that’s beside the point. Where might I find a book on rare biblical relics?”

      The middle-aged woman, slim and scholarly looking with her brown hair pulled into a neat bun at the base of her skull, gave Sophie a pleasant, if not a little condescending, smile. “Let me see what I can find.” She tapped a few keys, moved the mouse around a bit, then looked up. “I’m sorry. I’m not finding anything under ‘biblical relics.’ However, you may find what you need under religious relics. Those are in the two-thirties. The nonfiction shelves are in this direction and they are numbered. In particular, this book Religious Relics, Icons, Visions and Cures by James Murrow may be of some help. The call number is two-thirty-one point seven M.”

      “Thank you.” Sophie repeated the title and number in her head as she walked in the general direction of the nonfiction shelves. She scanned the numbers on the ends of the shelves until she found the two- to three-hundred section, then focused on the books on the shelves as she walked toward the back of the section. “Two-twenty, two-thirty, two-forty…” When she reached the two-seventies, she stopped and skimmed the numbers on the book spines. “Two-seventy point three, point eight. Two-seventy-one…two-seventy-one point three, point seven, A, B, C…G, P. Hey, no M?” She turned her body, and while still reading the book spines, she started walking toward the very back of the section. But a brick wall stopped her before she reached the end.

      As she twisted her neck to inspect the wall, she realized immediately it wasn’t your garden variety brick wall. This one was wide, tall, hard, and yummy, with a head full of blond curls and eyes the shade of a Hershey bar.

      Those eyes traveled over her features for an instant, making her feel all goosebumpy inside, then returned to the book that was partly blocking her view of his face.

      She wondered if the rest of his face looked as good as the part she saw. Then she shook her head and reminded herself she was on the hunt for a book, not a delish man who knew how to fill out a T-shirt and pair of snug jeans properly. “Sorry,” she muttered to the wall.

      “Not a problem.” He stepped aside to let her pass. Naturally, his bulk took up a fair amount of the narrow aisleway between shelves, which meant to pass, she had to get mighty close to him. She turned sideways, her front facing him, of course—wouldn’t want to show him her less than desirable backside—and took a single shuffling step.

      As she paused, her body mere inches from his, the girly part of her—the part she’d begun to think had abandoned her ages ago—woke up from its slumber and started getting all vocal, protesting and demanding equal time as the logical part reminded her she was there to find a book, not ogle a good-looking library patron. Being she was short, his chest was at eye level—and it was the broadest one she’d ever seen. Hugged in black cotton, it was pure, unadulterated temptation. The way the thin fabric skimmed over the lines of his sculpted muscles made her toes curl.

      Okay, maybe a little ogling wouldn’t be out of order.

      “Excuse me?” the wall said. His book slid lower, blocking a significant part of those yummy pecs.

      With that lovely view obscured, Sophie went for the face, hoping it would be as pleasant as the rest of him.

      She felt her breath literally catch in her throat, like in the romance novels she loved to read. Oh my. Was it ever!

      Not quite as pretty as John Schneider back in his Dukes of Hazzard days, he had that all-American cutie pie thing going for him. But this wholesome boy next door was all grown up and one hundred percent bad boy. The angular line of his jaw and cheekbones, the coating of dark blond stubble, and the wicked glint in his liquid chocolate eyes was enough to make her inner girl swoon with delight. Immediately, without thinking, she checked his left hand for a ring.

      When her gaze returned to his face, she noted that one eyebrow had lifted in question. And one corner of his mouth had lifted in amusement, which reminded her that she’d been standing there, sandwiched between his scrumptious body and the bookshelf, for probably too long for safety—his safety, that is.

      “Sorry…” Sophie mumbled, not sure what else to say. She’d never behaved like this around a man before. Granted, she’d never seen a man this gorgeous before—at least not in real life. In the movies, yes. On TV, yes. In her dreams, oh yes. “I’ll just shuffle off to Buffalo now.”

      His chuckle hit her right in the belly, where it bubbled and tickled her insides. Her face heated.

      “I’m guessing you’re either a displaced New Yorker or a dancer then?” he asked in a low, rumbly voice that made that inner girly part perk up and take notice, along with a few other parts of her anatomy.

      “Actually, neither. I’m just a secretary from Hazel Park.” Who thinks you’re yummy. Want to go check out the park down the street? I know where there’s a cozy, dark little corner where we could have some privacy, let our tongues get acquainted.

      Both his other eyebrow and the right side of his mouth joined the left in their raised positions, producing the kind of smile that could drop a girl of weaker constitution at fifty paces.

      She took another step and cleared her throat because she was sure something very large had become wedged in there somehow when she wasn’t looking. “Doing some research on religious relics. I was looking for a book called…” She tried to remember the title but realized it had slipped her mind eons ago, like the second she’d seen him. “Oh, shoot. I forgot. Something about relics and cures.”

      He held up the book he’d been reading, turned it over, and said. “You mean, Religious Relics, Icons, Visions and Cures by James Murrow?”

      “Yes! That’s the one. Oh. You’re reading it then? Were you going to check it out?”

      “I was thinking about it.”

      “Oh drat! I…er…” She dropped her gaze to his toes because that seemed to be the only body part she could look at and still be able to operate her brain and took a

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