Trouble When You Walked In (Contemporary Romance) Read online

  Cissie sighed. “It’s hard when your best friend is married and has two little boys. And the single people in Kettle Knob my age are either busy working parents or into extreme sports ranging from skiing to hang-gliding to bar-hopping marathons on a Saturday night. I’m just so … boring.”

  “Honey, we live in a small town. You have to make do. Get creative.”

  Cissie finished off her merlot. Her head was buzzing a little.

  “And you’re not boring,” Nana said. “Lord, child. You’re the opposite. Just remember this isn’t a practice run. Sometimes I think I’m in one long dress rehearsal and I’ll get to live all over again and do things right the next time.”

  But there was no next time, was there?

  There was only now.

  Cissie stood. “I’m going to do something about the library. I just don’t know what yet.” But she wasn’t going to budge on her belief that the library should stay. She was going to be like those mountains.

  “In my day,” Nana said, “people did splashy things.”

  “Says the woman who was at Woodstock.”

  “Letters to the editor are a start. But you never know if a paper will publish it or when. And if they do, they can edit the fire right out of it. I suspect Edwina will sit on yours. She’s a big fan of anything Boone Braddock does. So is the whole town, for that matter. And that includes me, you know.”

  “You can’t approve of this.”

  “My gut tells me no. But I can’t discount Boone. He’s no dummy. He might have his reasons. You sure you listened?”

  “Of course I did.” Cissie’s blood started to boil. “I can’t win against him. He’s too popular.”

  Nana didn’t deny it.

  “I need to do something besides a letter. I need to make news. Not react to it.”

  “Bingo,” said Nana. “That might go against the grain. Rogers folks tend to sit back and record events—and then file them away. Not me, though. I never had patience for that.”

  “You’re a bad influence.” Cissie grabbed her cigar and took a puff. “And I love it.” She coughed.

  A brown leaf scuttled across the porch, and old Dexter jumped off Nana’s lap to chase it.

  “What are you going to do?” Nana arched a thin gray brow.

  Cissie stared at her, and an idea bloomed. “Something I think you’ll like.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Cissie was busy rearranging the pencils in her ceramic cup to angle out like flower stems on the old maple desk that faced the entrance of the library. And for the millionth time since fourth grade, she swore she’d stop daydreaming about Boone Braddock bringing her real flowers—pink Gerbera daisies—and leaning over the desk and kissing her in the bargain.

  Especially since he was now Evil Incarnate, the man about to ruin the library and her own romantic future if this legend were to be taken seriously.

  Of course, she didn’t. But still, she hated to be the one who ended the streak. It had lasted a century, apparently, although who was keeping track?

  “No one,” she said out loud. “None, nada, zip.”

  It was just a silly story that had gathered momentum over the years.

  Silver-haired Mrs. Hattlebury, who—let’s face it—was one of Cissie’s dearest friends even though she was forty years older, walked in on a whoosh of cool mountain air and a flurry of orange and red autumn leaves, which she beat back with her shopping bag. “Has he come over the threshold yet, dear?” Her sharp eyes sparkled. “Your soul mate?”

  So much for none, nada, zip.

  Cissie made one last tweak to her pencil arrangement and forced herself to smile. “No,” she said lightly, “Prince Charming hasn’t arrived today, but if he did, he’d be after a vixen like you.” Mrs. Hattlebury loved to be teased about her past as a bad-girl extra in several Elvis Presley movies.

  But the older woman was not to be deterred. “I got your flyer. What terrible news. You might not have much time left for your intrepid lover to show. I’m so distressed on your behalf.”

  “I’m fine.” Cissie put her hand to the side of her tightly wrapped bun—it was hair colored, the forgettable hue that never made it onto color wheels at the beauty supply store—and vamped for an invisible camera from behind her glasses. “Maybe I’ll face the door and do this all day, like you in Jailhouse Rock. To heck with my librarian duties. I’ve got a man to catch.”

  Mrs. Hattlebury chuckled. “I didn’t meet my perfect man until later, either. I was all of twenty-four. An old maid in those days. But I had to compare everyone to Elvis. So what was a girl to do?”

  “You hit the jackpot with Colonel Hattlebury.”

  Mrs. Hattlebury smiled dreamily. “The colonel’s a younger man, too. By three years.” She patted Cissie’s hand. “So don’t limit yourself, dear. Writers’ conferences abound in this area. Surely we’ll get some luscious male scholars visiting Kettle Knob in the next six weeks. And you can count on me to help tonight. I’m bringing a tuna casserole.”

  “You are?” Cissie began. “Food’s not really necessary—”

  “I’m bringing my favorite pickled beets.” Laurie’s mother, Ginger Donovan, came around the corner. Her new hobby was spending time in the archives room researching local family history. “Just to be nice, really.”

  “That, um, is nice.” Cissie couldn’t stand pickled beets.

  “But the truth is,” Mrs. Donovan went on, “I like the idea of picking up milk and eggs and my books all at once. A library next door to Harris Teeter sounds mighty fine to me.”

  Cissie placed a hand over her heart. “But this building—it’s been our library forever.”

  The lights flickered on and off, as they were wont to do. Even Cissie didn’t believe it was a sign from the library gods that they were displeased. No, ancient wiring was the cause.

  Mrs. Donovan smiled pityingly at her. “You always were a sentimental thing. I remember you changed the name of your favorite Barbie doll after Laurie cried and said she wanted it for hers. What was it again?”

  “Kathryn MacKenzie.” Cissie had always wanted to be a Kathryn MacKenzie, a woman with a beautiful, breezy name and perky smile. Instead, she’d named her Barbie Polly—Polly Seymour, which now that she thought about it, was a prescient choice. It sounded like the name of a girl who said underpants instead of panties and didn’t have many boyfriends.

  A girl very much like Cissie.

  “I hate to tell you, but we need a much bigger movie section, darlin’.” Mrs. Donovan shook her head. “I can’t figure out how to rent a movie from my TV. That’s just too much for this overstressed brain.” Before Cissie could answer, Mrs. Donovan pointed at Cissie’s flat, un-Barbie-like chest. “Back to you and this legend. The dean at Tech is mighty cute if you don’t look at his profile. And he’s available. I’ll call him right now and see if he’ll come in. And then the magic”—she winked—“will happen.”

  Mrs. Hattlebury tut-tutted. “Cissie doesn’t want to marry a man with three chins who’s twice her age.” She looked expectantly at her. “Do you, dear? Would you consider it?”

  “No,” she said firmly. “Besides, doesn’t the legend says this romantic hero has to be from out of town? So ladies, that’s enough matchmaking for today. You had your Elvis Presley fixation, Mrs. Hattlebury, and I have my own for Mr. Darcy.” And an aging high school football star turned mayor who until yesterday had never entered the library in his life—anathema to any woman with half a brain. “I’ll just have to hold out for someone who really suits me. Okay?”

  “Oh, that’s fine, that’s fine,” Mrs. Donovan said, and laid a book and two DVDs on the desktop. “Who needs sex anyway?” She lowered her glasses. “Jay-kay. That means just kidding, according to my grandsons.”

  Sam and Stephen, Laurie’s two handfuls.

  Mrs. Hattlebury chuckled. “I need a new Dick Francis for the colonel. And could you find me one of those sexy Katharine Ashe historical romances? She’s my favorite.”

 
“Her latest is divine,” Cissie said, and finished checking out Mrs. Donovan’s items.

  When she handed them over—one DVD was An American in Paris—she had a scary yearning to be in Paris herself, eyeing guy candy from her seat at a sidewalk café instead of moldering away in Kettle Knob, swallowed up by a big old desk, lots of expectations, and her share of disillusionment.

  But then the dream disappeared in a flash when she caught a glimpse of her perfectly stacked library cards to be stamped, and she was glad for her old desk. It was sturdy, and she knew who she was behind it.

  Here lies Cecilia Rogers, the best librarian who ever lived. She knew her books and her other media, although she balked at being called a media specialist. No, she was a librarian, the best who ever lived.

  That was what her tombstone would say, minus the second “best whoever lived,” although driving the point across was not a bad thing, particularly when you were dead and couldn’t defend yourself against the onslaught of other librarians wanting to take your Best Librarian title.

  Mrs. Donovan hugged her newly borrowed treasures to her chest and leaned in. “Woman to woman, Cissie”—she looked around at the empty space and crooked a finger at Mrs. Hattlebury, who leaned in, too—“Don’t give it away. That could be the problem.”

  Mrs. Hattlebury nodded sagely. “It’s bad enough when it only appears to be your problem. I was a pariah in my hometown after Easy Come, Easy Go, but luckily the colonel was from New York City and found my staged licentious behavior on Elvis’s set fascinating.”

  “That’s why the legend of the library will be good for you, sugar.” Mrs. Donovan winked at Cissie. “Some brainy stranger will walk in here and not know a thing about your history and sweep you off your feet. Before it shuts down. I feel it in my bones.”

  Mountain people always felt things in their bones. Cissie knew just what she meant. But nothing was happening in her bones.

  She stamped the date on a bunch of small manila cards with fine blue horizontal lines—this was an old-fashioned library of limited means, so technology was slow to come by—and smiled with her mouth closed. She stamped so hard, she was about to lose it—just a little. “I promise you,” she said to both ladies, “licentious behavior is not my problem.” Stamp. Stamp. “I wish it were.”

  Stamp.

  She wished she could go for casual affairs … whenever she flicked through magazines and saw gorgeous male models or watched her favorite Hollywood male celebs on TV or in the movies. But something in her was too much like Elizabeth Bennet. She wanted the real deal: a man to work hard, to think hard, to win her. She wanted the chase, the wooing, the drama, the romance.

  And then Boone Braddock walked into the library again—for the second time in his life.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “You gotta be kidding me,” Boone said to Cissie as soon as he stepped over the library threshold. “You’re holding a sit-in?”

  “Ssshh!” She put her finger to her lips—a trembling finger, he might add—and her ears turned scarlet.

  Damn. He was being told to shut up. In the library. Like it was 1942 or something.

  “I’ll see you later,” Mrs. Hattlebury told Cissie, then walked around him with Mrs. Donovan in tow.

  They were holding books, but what else were they doing hovering over Cissie like that? Scheming, no doubt.

  “Hello, Boone,” Mrs. Donovan said in a saucy sort of way.

  Mrs. Hattlebury gave him a flirtatious once-over.

  “It’s a fine day, ladies,” he muttered, his eyes still on the person in charge.

  “He’s hotter ’n doughnut grease,” Mrs. Hattlebury whispered behind his back. Mrs. Donovan giggled, and they shut the door behind them.

  Older women had such dirty minds.

  Librarians were—well, they were difficult. Prickly and stubborn. And they didn’t know how to dress. Cissie was wearing a drab green sweater and a high ivory collar, like a schoolmarm from the 1800s. If that was fashionable, he’d eat his Tom Landry–style fedora the football players all made fun of.

  “Is there anyone else here?” He strode to her desk and stood in front of it, his arms crossed over his chest.

  Cissie puffed up like a dandelion gone to seed. “No one else has come in yet. But any minute we’ll get someone.”

  Sure, she would. “How many people on average visit each day?”

  “It depends.” Her mouth thinned, and she looked down and away at some papers on her desk.

  He bent his head to stay in her line of sight. “Just give me an eyeball figure.”

  She threw him a scornful look. “At least a dozen, sometimes twice that.” Then looked away again.

  “Huh.” He wasn’t impressed.

  Now she crossed her arms over her delicate little chest and looked right at him. “Why are you here?”

  He had a stupid urge to pull those perky glasses off, yank her up from her chair, and kiss her senseless. “It’s a public library,” he said. “I have every right to be. And I’m here to warn you that if you go through with your plans for tonight, you’ll face arrest.”

  Her cheeks paled. “If you’d actually get Chief Scotty to arrest me for holding a peaceful protest about keeping a sweet old library open, then expect some publicity, which in turn may bring a lot of embarrassment to this town. Is that what you want?”

  Shoot. Who ever knew a librarian could be so conniving? They were supposed to be kind and helpful. “No,” he said, “but I’m sure that’s what you want.”

  “Maybe I do. It’s for a good cause.” Her eyes behind those lenses glinted with something fierce. She reminded him of her grandmother for a flash of a second, the one everyone in Kettle Knob called Nana.

  His pulse was its usual slow, stable rhythm. But his chest tightened with annoyance. “Be careful what you ask for. You just might get it. Think about what it would feel like to have an arrest on your record. And how it would feel to have all of Kettle Knob aggravated at you for bringing the Asheville news trucks to our quiet little town. I can’t promise you that you’ll be able to keep your job.”

  “I’ve already thought about it.” Her starched collar stood in stark contrast to the cool column of her neck. “Good-bye, Mr. Mayor.”

  He turned on his heel. “Have a nice day, Miss Rogers,” he called back without looking at her. “Yours here will end promptly at five o’clock, when the library shuts its doors for the evening.”

  At the door he ran into wiry Sally Morgan and her handsome fifteen-year-old son Hank Davis, who loomed over his tiny mother. He wore a Steelers jersey, jeans, and extra-large sneakers. Sally had on a black sweatshirt that said “BATMAN IS MY BOYFRIEND,” gray sweatpants, white socks, and black rubber shower shoes.

  “Excuse me,” she said in a big huff, and pushed by Boone, her hand gripping her son’s. A neat row of pink curlers lined her thin brown hair.

  The Morgans were one of the oldest families in the nearby holler. Sally’s clan didn’t favor dentists, and usually quit school after third grade and took up homeschooling, which for their family was more a survival course: learning to shoot squirrels out of trees like nobody’s business, traipsing through the woods and gathering flora and fauna for selling to pharmaceutical companies to make into medicine, and figuring out how to keep fires going in their ramshackle homes through long winters.

  She was also a helluva mom to her special-needs boy. Sally made sure Hank Davis got what he needed from the school system, the family custom of shunning traditional education be damned.

  “Poop,” said Hank Davis, loud, like a foghorn in the night, to no one in particular, and grinned broadly.

  “Hey, Hank Davis.” Boone was glad to get outside, where the stronger-than-usual wind was blowing everything clean, including his head. The library was stuffy—he felt all weird in there, especially because of that fascinating owl-like creature behind the desk who disapproved of him.

  Sally held the door open and stared out at him. “Don’t you talk to me, Boone Braddoc
k. Don’t you say a word.” She pointed at him with her stubby little finger capped with a neon yellow nail. “You got the devil in you bad.”

  Boone stuck his hands in his front pockets, thumbs out. “If you’d like to hold a reasonable discussion about the library—”

  “Pooooooop,” said Hank Davis.

  “Is that so, Hank Davis?” Sally said. “Are you saying Boone is a piece of poop? He don’t listen real good. Maybe you better say it again.”

  “I heard him,” Boone said.

  “Humph,” said Sally. And slammed the library door in his face.

  Boone sighed. Being mayor of Kettle Knob was manageable most of the time. But suddenly, it wasn’t.

  He headed to Starla’s diner. A sign that said “Boone Braddock for Mayor” hung in the front window.

  When he walked in, the whole place went silent for a minute. And then he saw the flyer that had arrived at his inbox at school and on his desk at town hall on every booth and table and a few on the counter. Across the top of the paper were big, bold, black capital letters, like the world was about to come to an end or something.

  He picked one up, stared at it, his jaw clenched, and tossed it back onto the counter.

  Cissie Rogers had a lot of nerve.

  “A sit-in at the library tonight?” Starla said when she brought over his usual: a bacon pimiento cheese sandwich with a pickle and a cup of fruit. “Really?”

  “I got it under control,” he said. “Did you have to let her leave these here?”

  “I believe in free speech,” Starla said, “especially when it’s someone as shy as Cissie Rogers doing the talking. This might be interesting.”

  Boone dumped three creamers into his coffee mug and swirled it around with a spoon too hard. “We don’t need interesting, Starla. You know that. We like it simple around here.”

  The diner owner put her hand on her hip. “I’ll withhold judgment till I learn more about it.”

  “You’re not going?” He speared a strawberry with a dented fork.