“No.” Aiden sulked. “Got my tablet taken away again.”
“How come?”
“Because he hit me!” Emily supplied, indignant.
“Oh, I see. And Mom didn’t like that, huh?”
“No, Dad didn’t. He said I can’t hit girls.” Well, at least Charlie is doing something right. Now if he’d just decide that cheating wasn’t okay, either . . . He was forever nagging Starla to quit her job at the library, and it bugged the heck out of Ainsley. He just wanted her without income, said they didn’t need it (unlikely). Said she didn’t keep the house clean enough (downright dirty lies). Said he missed her too much (gag).
“Well, he’s right. Hitting’s not a good solution to your problems. You’ve gotta learn to talk it out.” She reached out to ruffle Aiden’s hair, but he ducked to the side, protecting it with one hand. They approached the library, and she recognized most of the cars in the parking lot: Starla’s gray Traverse, Mavis Johnson’s Jeep, and Farrah Durand’s Mini Cooper. Each car fit its owner so well, now that she thought about it. Farrah was all about style, Mavis was a practical, four-wheel drive kind of lady, and Starla . . . Starla drove a Traverse because Charlie thought it was good advertising for the dealership. As far as she could tell, Starla did a lot of things simply because she didn’t want to make waves. She was trying so hard to make her marriage work . . . it didn’t seem fair to Ainsley that Charlie couldn’t at least meet her partway. Keeping it in his pants would be a good start. Ainsley caught Aiden’s profile in her peripheral vision; every day, he looked more like Charlie. Charlie was handsome in a classic, 1950s sort of way . . . He’d always looked great in a letterman’s jacket. Dazzling smile that he knew how to use. Muscular. Even now, she couldn’t imagine him gaining that pudge that some men did around the time they hit thirty. He spent a lot of time at the gym. It probably didn’t hurt that his particular gym was in Salem, where no one from town would see him hitting on other women.
Ainsley huffed her dissatisfaction aloud. Enough. She’d told Starla that she’d support her if she wanted to stay married, until she said she wanted to do otherwise. The kids dispersed as soon as they got inside the building, each to their own favorite part of the library. They were clearly at home here: Emily tossed her coat on the floor near a cart full of books to be reshelved, claiming a stool, and Aiden kicked off his shoes as soon as he reached the bank of computers near the big windows that overlooked the parking lot.
“Nice try,” Starla said, not looking up from her computer at the center of the library.
“What?” Aiden said, turning to her warily.
“No screens. Your dad said.”
“What?” Aiden screeched, and Mavis Johnson gave him a quelling look from the reference section. He blushed fiercely before stomping over to Starla’s desk. They proceeded with their argument in hushed, annoyed tones.
“Dad said no tablet, not no screens.”
Starla kept her cool in a way that Ainsley admired. “Would you like to read his text message? He sent it this morning, right after you hit your sister . . .”
“I barely even tapped her, he’s totally overreacting!”
“Aiden.”
“Mom, you weren’t there, he’s not being fair! He only saw what I did, he never punishes her! She was poking me for like twenty minutes before I hit her!”
“What your dad says goes, kiddo. I’m sorry. You can talk to him about it if you’d like to use my phone.” She unlocked the device and held it out to him, but he spun on his heel and stomped back over to where his backpack lay. Slinging it over his shoulder, he made his way to the far corner of the building, where the beanbag chairs were. He whipped out a worn copy of Ember and began to read. If it was possible to read vindictively, Aiden had it down pat: he insisted on rereading the same book over and over, in part because he knew it drove his mother crazy.
Speaking of things that made Starla crazy . . .
“Your book fairy make her drop last night?” Ainsley asked, sitting on the edge of the desk.
“Yes, but I missed her again. She knew I was waiting for her.” Starla pounded one dainty fist into her open hand, a move that might have been threatening coming from someone else. She shook her head, and a little of her straight, shiny brown hair slid out of its ponytail. “I had a sandwich and everything, all set to spend the evening in my car. Then I fell asleep reading. Woke up at eleven thirty and drove home.” Her friend wasn’t as short as she was, but somehow, she just seemed . . . breakable. She was much thinner too, a fact Ainsley didn’t resent; with her glasses and nerdy style, Starla had a girl-next-door cuteness that everyone admired. Basically, she and Charlie could both be movie stars if they ever decided to move to California. Happily for her, Starla was stuck here.
Ainsley chuckled. “You’re really committed to outing this donor. What did she leave this time?”
“The new David Baldacci, some hot new romances, and a stack of kids’ chapter books, all brand new with the labels still on them. Got them at Powell’s.” She grunted angrily. “Why would they do this to me? Who is this person? What is their objective? I hate mysteries. They’re the only thing I don’t read. It’s crazy-making.”
“Do this to you? They’re being nice, Star.” A hulking shadow fell over the info desk, and Ainsley pivoted to see her cousin Sawyer standing next to her. “Hi there!” she greeted, giving him a squeeze around his plaid flannel middle. They were cousins, yes, but he felt more like a brother she just didn’t see as often. Being a single mom, Aunt Rhea had needed more from the Buchanans than some extended relatives, so Sawyer and his sister, Paige, had been over to play often. “You’re looking extra hermit-y today. You need a haircut.”
“Got one scheduled for a little later.” Sawyer usually only came into town once a week, and he seemed to take personal pride in seeing as few people as possible when he did so. He gave her a rare, indulgent smile, then turned his attention to Starla. The two stared at each other for a long moment until Sawyer cleared his throat.
“Got my holds?”
“Oh,” she said. “Right. Yes, just . . . just let me . . . ah.” She pulled out a stack of novels with a rubber band around them from under the desk and handed them over. It seemed to Ainsley that the transfer took longer than it should . . . Was Starla blushing? Sawyer was pretty good-looking: he had that chiseled mountain-man look happening.
“What were y’all talking about?” He’d lived down south until he was six or seven, and he still had a bit of a twang and that unfortunate word in his vocabulary which pegged him immediately as “not from around here.”
“The book fairy.”
He rolled his eyes. “This again.”
“Yes, this again. This forever. This until the mystery is solved and she comes forward to be rewarded. Nice would be letting me thank her and bake her brownies. I hate random acts of kindness. They are the worst.”
“You only hate them because you think you’re the only one who should get to do them,” Sawyer mused.
“No, Ainsley can do them, too. Timber Falls would fall apart without her.” She turned to her, giving Ainsley a look over her glasses. “I know you bought Halley Grant’s winter coat last year.”