“Wow, that long,” Kingston said. “I don’t blame you. Most of them are garbage anyway. So what do you and your dates do for fun, then?”
“Dates?”
“You know.” He gave her a wry look. “Guys you go out with?”
“Oh, I don’t have any dates.” Her cheeks flamed.
He scoffed. “You’re kidding.”
She shifted in her chair. How had they ended up on this topic? She’d never been bothered by her lack of a dating life before . . . for the most part. Thanks, Flo. “No. I’m not.”
Kingston paused. “Always the serious librarian.”
“I’m not always serious—” Wait. That was exactly true. She was a serious person, in addition to being in a serious rut.
“Hey, it’s not an insult. I’ve been accused of the same thing myself.”
“By your dates?” She arched a brow.
He glanced away. “Um, a couple. There haven’t been that many for a long time.”
He said the last words so quietly that she barely heard them. Shocker. She knew he was busy, but she figured he’d made time to date.
He was smiling again. And once again, she couldn’t look away. He appeared relaxed, almost boyish, making him even more attractive. Her spine started tingling.
Oh no. This wasn’t good. It felt good, but she wasn’t supposed to tingle around Kingston. She wasn’t twelve. She was twenty-seven, and he was her best friend’s brother, not some teenage crush.
But the sensation inside her wasn’t adolescent. It was definitely adult.
Thankfully the lights dimmed, and images hit the screen. She could pay attention to the movie and not the tingle. She faced the front and, without thinking, shoved her hand into the bucket. Instead of popcorn, her fingers brushed against his.
Tingle. Tingle.
She jerked away, tipping the popcorn to the floor. “Sorry!”
“Shhh” came from several directions in the theater.
“Sorry,” she whispered. She reached for the bucket as he scooped it up, leaning close. Their shoulders touched.
Tingle tingle tingle. Three tingles now?
“Don’t worry about it,” he whispered back. “There’s still plenty to share.”
A steam engine appeared on-screen, smoke billowing out of the top, the wheels chugging, horn blowing. But it was all background noise. Her ears were tingling now too.
None of this made sense. This was Kingston, Anita’s brother. A guy she’d known all her life but admittedly knew little about. And this was her favorite movie, in her favorite theater, on the third Monday in January. She wasn’t about to be distracted, not when Wayne and O’Hara were on the screen. She would ignore Kingston, enjoy the movie, and stay away from his popcorn. Afterward, they would say goodbye and go back to their busy lives, two classic-film buffs passing through the night. The tingling would disappear, and although she might give a few minutes of thought to why she’d even tingled to begin with, she would go back to her rut.
Just like she always did.
* * *
Kingston had experienced several surprises so far this evening. First, he’d gotten off work early—which was more a miracle than a surprise. Second, he’d arrived at the theater before the feature film had started, something that hadn’t happened for at least a year. Two, now that he thought about it. Coming to the Sunset was his secret indulgence—it gave him a chance to relax with very little risk of running into a parent of one of his patients.
The third revelation was finding out that Olivia Farnsworth was a vintage-movie fan.
And the fourth—and most confusing—surprise was that he couldn’t take his eyes off her.
The Quiet Man continued to play on the big screen, accentuated by the scents of salty popcorn and ancient upholstery. Currently an aggravated John Wayne was arguing with a spunky Maureen O’Hara, but Kingston had no idea what the fight was about. He was trying to figure out when he’d last seen Olivia and if at that time he’d had such an intense . . . Well, he wasn’t sure how to define his reaction. Attraction seemed too strong a word, and curiosity didn’t quite fit. All he knew was that for the first time in months, maybe close to a year or so, he was in the company of a female who didn’t work for him, wasn’t related to him, and wasn’t the mother / aunt / grandmother / legal guardian of one of his patients. It was nice.
He tried to focus on the screen again. He’d known Olivia since she was a young girl and he was a goofy—in his opinion, anyway—yet driven kid. Even then she’d had chin-length stick-straight black hair and flawless olive skin, and she had always seemed older than her chronological age. She and Anita were usually inseparable, and she had stayed for dinner and/or spent the night more times than he could count during those years. Often, he’d been too busy with school, sports, church activities, and whatever else his mother expected of him to pay attention to either of them. The other times she was just Anita’s little friend, both in stature and in age, and he’d barely noticed her.
For some mystifying reason, he was noticing her now.
Although he tried to stop from looking at her again, he failed and watched as she mouthed the movie’s words:
“Don’t touch me. You have no right.”
“What’ya mean, no right?”
Kingston glanced up at the movie to see the two leads standing in front of an Irish cottage, the woman in a wedding dress. Huh. When had they gotten married?
“Until I got my dowry safe about me, I’m no married woman.”
He’d spent so much time thinking about the past and gazing at Olivia that he’d lost the plot of the movie, and he couldn’t exactly ask her what was going on without looking like an idiot. He grabbed another handful of popcorn and watched as the couple continued to fight.
“This is my favorite part,” Olivia whispered, more to the screen than to him.
Wayne had just kicked down the bedroom door. Now he was kissing O’Hara, and quite passionately—for the 1950s anyway. Kingston looked at Olivia again. She stared at the screen, mesmerized, her hand gripping her soft drink.
Her favorite part was the make-out scene. Interesting.
Wayne scooped O’Hara up into his arms, carried her to the bed, and plopped her down on it. Snap! The bed broke.
Kingston jumped, not expecting the result. The woman was unharmed—and had kind of gotten what she deserved, considering her petulance.
Olivia softly chuckled.
He looked at her again, the light from the screen illuminating her smile. Had she always had such a pretty smile?
He must be overworked (always) and overtired (ditto), because he was paying way too much attention to her and not the movie. Using the laser focus that had made him Maple Falls’ valedictorian and gotten him through an Ivy League college and medical school in under seven years—including his internship—he set his mind to watch The Quiet Man and his not-so-quiet lady.
When the credits started to roll, he thought he heard a sigh coming from Olivia. “I guess you enjoyed the show,” he said, picking up the almost-empty bucket of popcorn.
“I always do. Especially when it’s this movie.” She gathered her purse and coat, then stood.
He rose as well. “How many times have you really seen it?”