At the start of 6th Spice and Wolf light novel, what's up with the discrepancy between “like” and “love”? Note: Please no spoilers beyond the start of the 6th novel.



At the very end of the 5th Spice and Wolf novel, Lawrence says "I like you". 



Love is never once used by Lawrence toward Holo so far in the story. I even ran the search function to check the PDF, I'm certain. 

Yet, in the next book, at the very start, on the same day that the previous novel left off, Holo teases Lawrence about saying "I love you". 



The best I can tell, the author meant to write "love" in the previous novel, or else my PDF copy is simply wrong.

What's the explanation behind this?

I'm afraid to do a Google search on the topic since I'm only starting the 6th novel and searching "love" in regards to a romance that I'm 6 of 17 books through is just begging to run into all sorts of spoilers.
Apparently, the same word 好き is used in both instances in Japanese version of the light novel.

Quoting the same lines from Page 345 of Spice and Wolf 5 (emphasis mine):


  それでも、ロレンスはホロを抱きしめて、そして。
  「俺は、お前が好きなんだ」
  それから、右頬に軽く口づけをした。


Quoting the same line from Page 29 of Spice and Wolf 6 (emphasis mine):


  「わっちゃあ嬉しかった。そう。ぬしがわっちを好きじゃと言ってくれて。じゃからー」


Regardless of whether "like" or "love" is the correct translation, the same word should have been used in both places, since Holo was simply quoting Lawrence's confession to her the night before.