“Ooh. Did Paige come with?” she asked, hoping Simon would nod.
More laughter from Holt.
“She stayed back in Dallas to finish laying some audio in the last episode,” he explained.
Well, that made sense. Paige Avery was the miracle worker who tied everything together and made the details come to life.Without her, she imagined the storytelling would be flat, and Simon Jennings wouldn’t be as famous as he was.
Simon looked at Holt. “Is she gonna be okay?”
Violet pulled herself out of her trance, scrambling for composure. She was not the sort to fangirl over anyone. Ever. And if she could meet Cheyenne Montgomery—only her favorite country singer of all time—and not fall to pieces, she could meet anyone. And she hadn’t. Her introduction to Cheyenne had gone off without a hitch. Mostly. She might’ve created a cheer, complete with pompoms and high kicks, which she performed in the privacy of her bedroom back when she learned that Cheyenne was marrying her cousin Brendon, but that was a long time ago. And no one knew about that.
Hopefully.
Holt cleared his throat.
“What’s the podcast name again?” Violet asked, realizing both men were staring at her.
Holt laughed. “Nice try.”
Thankfully, she wasn’t the sort to blush. The heat she felt at the tips of her ears probably meant she was coming down with something.
She made a mental note to get that checked out.
•••••
Simon Jennings didn’t believe in love atfirst sight. Hell, up to this point in his life, he wasn’t sure he even believed in love.
Lust, definitely.
Desire, absolutely.
Infatuation, probably.
In his line of work, he rationalized a lot of behaviors and the emotions that drove them. When trying to get to the bottom of why someone did what they did, he didn’t merely walk a mile in their shoes to recreate the scene. He also attempted to narrow down their motivation because it was imperative in order to understand how the crime in question happened. Even if he had no frame of reference.
For instance, obsession. He’d never understood how anyone could get so wrapped up in one person that they would become consumed by a driving, passionate need. Whether to harm or worship, it never made any sense to him.
Until now.
This … whatever the hell this foreign sensation flooding his veins was, it felt like a potent combination of lust and obsession.
Which was absurd, right?
Of course it was absurd. It wasn’t like he could’ve spent the past thirty-four years never experiencing anything remotely close to an attachment to one person only to make his first trek to Coyote Ridge and get waylaid by every emotion he’d questioned.
Here.
In this quaint little bookstore.
With its not-so-quaint little bookstore owner.
Violet.
Even her name was sexy, and when he let those six letters roll around on his tongue, it caused him to think some very dirtythings about the most stunningly gorgeous creature he’d ever laid eyes on.
Violet Anderson was the sort of woman you watched from across the room because you were magnetically drawn to her, even if you didn’t know why. Her aura was as vibrant as the emerald green halter top she wore, and it exuded from every pore as though charged by a light from within because her body was too small to contain it all.
Yeah, so what if he was waxing poetic about a woman he’d just met? It was merely a hazard of the job. Simon considered himself a good judge of people and a better-than-average journalist. Plus, he was a creator of sorts, so it made sense.
