appreciate the invitation, but my time is really limited these days.”
“Oh. Okay.” She forced a smile, but he could tell that she was disappointed. “Well, if you change your mind, you know where to find me on Tuesday mornings.”
“Yes, I do,” he confirmed.
Somehow, while he’d been putting on her shoes, Saige had found his phone and was using it as a chew toy. With a sigh, he pried it from her fingers and wiped it on his trousers. “Are you cutting more teeth, sweetie?”
Her only answer was to shove her fist into her mouth.
He picked her up and she dropped her head onto his shoulder, apparently ready for her nap. He bent his knees carefully to reach the daisy pillow and carried it to the librarian. “Thanks for the loan.”
“You’re welcome,” she said. Then, “I wanted to ask about your mother earlier, but I didn’t want you to think I was being nosy.”
“What did you want to ask?”
“In the past six months, Ellen hasn’t missed a single class—I just wondered if she was okay.”
“Oh. Yes, she’s fine. At least, I think so,” he told her. “She chipped a tooth at breakfast and had an emergency appointment at the dentist.”
“Well, please tell her that I hope she’s feeling better and I’m looking forward to seeing her on Thursday.”
“Is that your way of saying that you don’t want to see me on Thursday?” he teased.
“This is a public library, Mr. Garrett,” she pointed out. “You’re welcome any time the doors are open.”
“And will I find you here if I come back?” he wondered.
“Most days,” she confirmed.
“So this is your real job—you don’t work anywhere else?”
Her brows lifted at that. “Yes, this is my real job,” she said, her tone cooler now by several degrees.
And despite having turned down Heather’s offer of coffee only a few minutes earlier, he found the prospect of enjoying a hot beverage with this woman an incredibly appealing one. “Can you sneak away for a cup of coffee?”
She seemed surprised by the invitation—and maybe a little tempted—but after a brief hesitation, she shook her head. “No, I can’t. I’m working, Mr. Garrett.”
“I know,” he said, and offered her what he’d been told was a charming smile. “But the class is finished and I’m sure that whatever else you have to do can wait for half an hour or so while we go across the street to the café.”
“Obviously you think that ‘whatever else’ I have to do is pretty insignificant,” she noted, her tone downright frosty now.
“I didn’t mean to offend you, Miss MacKinnon,” he said, because it was obvious that he’d done so.
“I may not be the CEO of a national corporation, but the work I do matters to the people who come here.” She moved toward the door where she hit a switch on the wall to turn off the overhead lights—a clear sign that it was time for him to leave.
He stepped out of the room, and she closed and locked the door. “Have a good day, Mr. Garrett.”
“I will,” he said. “But I need one more thing before I go.”
“What’s that?” she asked warily.
“A library card.”
* * *
Cassie stared at him for a moment, trying to decide if he was joking. “You want a library card?”
“I assume I need one to borrow books,” Braden said matter-of-factly.
“You do,” she confirmed, still wondering about his angle—because she was certain that he had one.
“So where do I get a card?” he prompted, sounding sincere in his request.
But how could she know for sure? If her recent experience with the male species had taught her nothing else, she’d at least learned that she wasn’t a good judge of their intentions or motivations.
“Follow me,” she said.
He did, and with each step, she was conscious of him beside her—not just his presence but his masculinity. The library wasn’t a female domain. A lot of males came through the doors every day—mostly boys, a few teens and some older men. Rarely did she cross paths with a male in the twenty-five to forty-four age bracket. Never had she crossed paths with anyone like Braden Garrett.
He was the type of man who made heads turn and hearts flutter and made women think all kinds of naughty thoughts. And his nearness now made her skin feel hot and tight, tingly in a way that made her uneasy. Cassie didn’t want to feel tingly, she didn’t want to think about how long it had been since she’d been attracted, on a purely physical level, to a man, and she definitely didn’t want to be attracted to this man now.
Aside from the fact that he was a Garrett and, therefore, way out of her league, she had no intention of wasting a single minute of her time with a man who didn’t value who she was. Not again. Thankfully, his disparaging remark about her job was an effective antidote to his good looks and easy charm.
Taking a seat at the computer, she logged in to create a new account. He took his driver’s license out of his wallet so that she could input the necessary data. She noted that his middle name was Michael, his thirty-ninth birthday was coming up and he lived in one of the most exclusive parts of town.
“What kind of books do you like to read?” she inquired, as she would of any other newcomer to the library.
“Mostly historical fiction and nonfiction, some action-thriller type stories.”
“Like Bernard Cornwell, Tom Clancy and Clive Cussler?”
He nodded. “And John Jakes and Diana Gabaldon.”
She looked up from the computer screen. “You read Diana Gabaldon?”
“Sure,” he said, not the least bit self-conscious about the admission. “My cousin, Tristyn, left a copy of Outlander at my place on Ocracoke and I got hooked.”
For a moment while they’d been chatting about favorite authors, she’d almost let herself believe he was a normal person—just a handsome single dad hanging out at the library with his daughter. But the revelation that he not only lived in Forrest Hill but had another house on an island in the Outer Banks immediately dispelled that notion.
“My brothers tease me about reading romance,” he continued, oblivious to her thought process, “but there’s a lot more to her books than that.”
“There’s a lot more to most romance novels than many people believe,” she told him.
“What do you like to read?” he asked her.
“Anything and everything,” she said. “I have favorite authors, of course, but I try to read across the whole spectrum in order to be able to make recommendations to our patrons.” She set his newly printed library card on the counter along with a pen for him to sign it.
He did, then tucked the new card and his identification back into his wallet. By this time, Saige had lost the battle to keep her eyes open, and the image of that sweet little girl sleeping in his arms tugged at something inside of her.
“Congratulations,” she said, ignoring the unwelcome tug. “You are now an official card-carrying member of the Charisma Public Library.”
“Thank you.” He picked up one of the flyers advertising the Book & Bake Sale along with a monthly schedule of classes and activities, then slid both into the side pocket of Saige’s diaper bag. “I guess that means I’ll be seeing you around.”
She