There was no way Jayne would cancel one of her new summer projects for the Divine Memorial Library. Between fifteen and twenty kids showed up every Friday afternoon for Kookie Kid’s Klub, which was a half hour spent in making a simple craft and storytelling time and then free time in the kids’ department of the library for the rest of the afternoon. The project had received coverage from the local paper and support from various businesses that donated supplies for the craft projects. Now the young librarian who read to the children and helped them with their little crafts wasn’t coming and might not be there the following week either. There was only one thing to do.
“I’ll handle the kids if you can stay at the checkout desk. We can do this, Rowena.”
Jayne hoped she sounded more positive than she felt. The kids had taken to the extremely gamine Daisy from the very first Friday that Kookie Kid’s Klub had opened. They hung on her every word and listened to all her instructions at craft time. Jayne couldn’t boast of the same gift with children, although she also hadn’t given it a try because Daisy had piped up and volunteered for the task as soon as Jayne had announced it earlier that spring. Jayne had always pursued quieter, less public pursuits.
She steeled her resolve, thinking she could just add this to her list of things she did in the name of seizing the day. Her cousin Grace would be so proud.
As if on cue, the first of several groups of moms with kids filed through the door and made their way into the kids’ department to wait for the event to begin.
“Are you sure, Jayne?” Rowena asked cautiously. “I could read to them, and…and…” She did an admirable job of keeping the terrified tremble out of her voice.
Jayne smiled at the elderly part-time librarian, who would be in over her head with that many rambunctious, noisy kids. As she rose from the seat, she said, “It’ll be fine. I’ll get everything set up.”
“All right, dear. But if you need my help, you know I’ll be right here,” Rowena said as she filled the seat Jayne had just vacated, relief evident in her posture.
Jayne rushed to the meeting room and rummaged through the craft closet, looking for the items needed for today’s craft, and located the storybook Daisy was reading aloud from each week. The theme for that summer’s club was Knights, Castles, and Dragons.
* * * *
Church bells a few blocks away chimed one o’clock as Seth parked his Harley outside the Divine Memorial Library, not kidding himself about the little wave of anticipation that centered in his chest. He was excited about the prospect of seeing Jayne, if only for a few brief minutes.
He reached in his leather saddlebags and retrieved the library books he’d checked out the day he’d met her and walked up the sidewalk.
The air-conditioning was a welcome relief from the blistering heat as he breezed in through the automatic sliding doors. The library was quiet, except for a sweet sound that was music to his ears. He followed Jayne’s voice to a large meeting room, off the central corridor that led into the library, and found her, perched in a small chair, surrounded by a large number of children, from toddler age on up to elementary school ages, all of whom were paying rapt attention to her story.
Hello, beautiful.
She was dressed in a teal-blue silky shirt that covered all her gorgeous pale skin but clearly accentuated her curvy body. The artist in him liked how the shade contrasted with her own coloring. She’d swept all of her wavy mahogany hair up into a loose knot at the back of her head, leaving tendrils loose here and there in a way that made him want to release the knot and see it fall around her shoulders.
She was scheduled to have her first tattoo session the following day. He’d worked on bare skin for years, but the thought of working on Jayne’s ignited his libido in a way that no other woman ever had. His hands shook just thinking about it.
She spoke in a funny character voice as she told the story of a dragon searching for his home. He smiled as she switched to a different character voice and he leaned against the doorframe to listen for a minute.
As she held the book up for them to see the picture, she glanced up and saw him. He couldn’t take his eyes off of her as her eyes glowed with welcome, her cheeks a soft shade of rose. He listened for a minute until she tripped over her words and he realized he might be making her self-conscious.
She nodded when he gestured with his thumb that he was going into the library and then he slipped away to return the books that were due back that day. He visited the art books department again and found several books that he’d been interested in but forgotten about. His meeting with Jayne that first evening at the library had distracted him.
“Did you find everything that you needed, sir?” the elderly librarian asked from behind the desk as she took his card and checked his books.
He replied to her, not even sure of what he said as he listened for Jayne’s voice, wondering if she was through with story time yet. The librarian spoke of the weather and who-knew-what-else as she stacked his books neatly and handed them to him. He thanked her when she was done and went in search of Jayne.
Outside the meeting room, he looked over the heads of several moms with strollers who stood around the doorway and smiled as Jayne reached the crescendo of the story.
“…and he spread his magnificent, sparkling dragon wings and soared into the sky!”
All the children gasped in wonder as she showed them the picture and cheered for the dragon who’d found his home. All the children converged on her at once, chattering about the story. She happened to glance up as she hugged a little girl with blonde ringlets and grinned at him. It was obvious the children loved their beautiful storyteller and he couldn’t blame them.
There was no way he’d get a word in edgewise with that crowd. He had an appointment in less than twenty minutes, so he pointed at his watch, indicating that he was pressed for time. She waved with regret in her expression, and nodded as she moved the group of kids toward tables set up with some kind of craft. At least he’d gotten to see her. He’d have to be happy with that.
* * * *
Jayne watched with disappointment as Seth turned toward the main entry and left. A soft sigh escaped her.
Bye, handsome. I want to kiss you…all over.
She noticed that several of the moms who had brought their kids to the club were craning their necks as they watched him walk away. Jayne felt a little streak of possessiveness when one of the moms made an obviously complimentary remark about Seth’s handsome face or muscular physique to the others.
With Kookie Kid’s Klub done, she returned to her desk, trying to remember what she’d been working on before Rowena had come in with Daisy’s bad news. Something niggled at her subconscious as she discussed sending a small bouquet of flowers to Daisy to wish her well. She gasped as her heart jumped up into her throat.
My book! Where is it?
Placing her fingertips on the now-cleared desktop she’d been sitting at, Jayne asked, “Rowena, what happened to the book with the red paisley cover that was lying here earlier when I got up?”
Rowena clamped her mouth shut and rolled her eyes back and forth as she searched her memory. Under other circumstances, her expression would’ve been comical. A troubled expression crossed Rowena’s face. “The last time I saw it was right before that attractive young man with the long black hair came to the counter. My goodness, I may be an old lady but he was quite handsome, except for all those scary tattoos. Why someone would want to do that to themselves is beyond—
Oh, my.
Jayne, I think I may have accidentally sent it home with that young man. Were you saving it for someone?”
Jayne prayed for a hole to open in the floor and swallow her as a cold chill swept over her. The book had her journal and her stories in it, including the story that featured a handsome cowboy matching Seth’s description and a virginal damsel in distress who, prior to the interruption, had been just about to give up “the goods” to said cowboy.
“Jayne? Are you all right? Were you saving it for someone else?” Jayne’s cheeks bloomed with heat as Rowena’s innocent question called to mind the erotic fantasy she’d had about Seth that had inspired the story. In her fantasy, she’d done exactly as her damsel in distress had been about to do. “Jayne, honey? You’re awfully pale. Come sit.” Rowena patted the chair back and guided Jayne into it. “I’m sure the other patron will understand and wait for him to return it.”
“The book was my journal, Rowena,” Jayne said weakly.
My stories. My journal, including everything I wrote about July 4
th
. Oh, stupid woman! To leave your private journal out like that! You deserve to be embarrassed!
“Oh, Lord have mercy! I’m sorry, Jayne!
Oh my goodness!
” Rowena turned six shades of deep red and sounded mortified as she flapped her hands and apologized. “Check your desk, and your purse! Make sure you didn’t put it in there for safekeeping.”
Their search turned up nothing. It was indeed gone and in the hands of the last man on earth she wanted reading it.
“Is your name and phone number inside it?”
Nausea coiled in the pit of her stomach. “No, just the date I started it.”
“Can you call him and explain? Call him before he has a chance to even open it and maybe he’ll do the chivalrous thing and respect your privacy once you explain the situation.”
Rowena was right. Seth was a decent guy. She’d call him and explain the flub to him. She had a feeling that he’d never knowingly invade her privacy. She wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt as she pulled her phone from her purse. Rowena wrote down the phone number they had on file for Seth in the library computer system and gave it to Jayne before she slipped into one of the empty meeting rooms.
The call rolled to voice mail as she swung the door closed, feeling bad for poor Rowena, who looked very guilty.
“Hi, Seth. It’s Jayne Sheridan from the library…”
Seth entered the dark house and laid the stack of books on the coffee table before going into the kitchen. His stomach grumbled as he peered into the refrigerator and decided on a rib eye. While the cast-iron skillet heated, he nuked a potato and chopped vegetables for a salad.
His phone chimed in his pocket while he had both hands busy, searing the steak in the blazing-hot skillet and removing the potato from the microwave. Deciding to wait until after he’d eaten to check his messages, he loaded his plate and got a beer from the fridge.
The ten o’clock newscast kept him company, as he sat on the couch and relaxed while he ate. He’d had appointments that afternoon in Morehead at Jim Durbin’s tattoo studio, Desired Ink, and had gotten home later than he’d anticipated.
He’d hoped to call a certain sexy librarian that evening, but now it was a little late to do that. She’d probably be getting ready for bed right about then. He imagined her brushing out her long reddish-brown hair, standing nude before her mirror. He laid his head on the back of the couch and smiled as thoughts of her brought warmth to his chest. She certainly was different from the women he’d grown accustomed to in his travels.
He sorted through each book in the pile as he finished the last succulent bite and then laid the plate aside on the coffee table. His hand stopped on a smaller book with a red paisley cover. This one didn’t look familiar. It had a delicate, if well-used appearance, and wasn’t one that he’d placed in the hands of the elderly librarian working at the checkout counter. He wasn’t sure where it’d come from.
He lifted it and noted that there was no writing anywhere on the outer cover. A faint, familiar scent tickled his senses, and he lifted the book to his nose. He opened it, to find that there was no pocket holding a due date card on the inside cover, only a phrase handwritten in black ink:
December 7, 2011
. The handwriting was distinctive, neat, and boxy, as though the author had taken drafting classes, but feminine too.
After a moment’s debate, he turned the page. Surely there was a nameplate or a due date pocket indicating the title of the book. What he found was more of the same neat, measured, cursive penmanship.
The book flipped open to the page marked with a thin ribbon. There was a date noted at the top,
July 4, 2012
, but it was the words on the page that grabbed his attention. He sat there for several minutes reading the erotic story. Seth knew he should close the book, but he couldn’t. Something about the author’s voice, the flow of the words, tickled at his subconscious, pushed him to continue, but also made him feel like an interloper reading obviously private writing. His cock grew wickedly hard as images of Jayne were superimposed on the heroine as he read.
Stephan’s smoldering blue gaze traveled up her naked body, searing her as much with his stare as he did with his flesh. He settled within her arms. The sensual smile on his face was made rakish by his neatly trimmed moustache and goatee, which tickled as he brushed his lips against hers. His slow, sensuous kiss was echoed with the rhythm of his hips as he rocked against her mound. Her juices wet the hot, steely hardness of his member. She gasped as the blunt head of his cock brushed insistently at her virgin entrance. Tilting his head, he deepened the kiss and lifted her thigh around his hip as he gripped her derriere with the other. His gaze met hers and he—