“Thanks.” He flashed her a smile. “Maybe when my errands are done here, we could meet for dinner one evening?”
Her mouth fell open. He’d just asked her out. And it had been so smooth, not teasing or corny like she usually heard from some of the older men who flirted like it was the only thing keeping them alive.
Before she could respond, he said, “You don’t need to say anything now. I should be done in a few days with my work, and I’ll come back here, see if I can find you and ask again. Sound good?”
“Um. Yeah. Okay.”
Wow, really articulate, Dew, she thought. But the guy didn’t laugh at her, just nodded and made his way to the circulation desk, where Jillian currently sat. While the guy examined the map, Jillian caught Dew’s eye and mouthed, “Holy hotness!”
Dew couldn’t wait to tell her that the guy had asked her out.
He wasn’t S, though.
Quickly, Dew finished copying down the new and improved version of her letter to S. Her mind wasn’t quite as focused as it would normally be, because her heart was pitter-pattering over the excitement of the stranger asking her for a date.
And yet, she doubted the stranger could captivate her mind and heart in the same way S had. If she did end up going out with this guy, he’d have a high bar of excellence to match. She almost felt bad for him.
Her break was over, so she went to the Books to Deliver box and found the tome that said only S for the name and had an address for Pedrick Road. It was a copy of The Ten Thousand Doors of January, a historical fantasy by Alix E. Harrow. Dew had pulled it out and opened it to tuck in her letter when the library phone rang.
“Can you grab that?” Jillian asked, hurrying by. “I’m having a hot flash, have to run outside. I think Mr. Hottie in the tight pants caused this. I’d like to check him out of the library.”
Nodding and laughing—not at Jillian’s hot flash, but at her explanation and one of their favorite library puns, Dew hurried to the front desk and picked up the phone. And from there, the rest of the morning and early afternoon passed in the comfortable haze and busyness of keeping a small-town library functioning.
Three o’clock arrived, and with it, Garrett, who had a near-religious fervor when it came to punctuality. Dew appreciated timeliness as much as the next person, but Garrett took it to new extremes—never early, never late. Even as he was walking through the library doors, he was checking his fancy watch for the time.
He exchanged brief hellos with Dew and Jillian and then, movements swift, collected the box of BTDs. His skinny arms strained with the weight of it, but Dew was impressed because she would never in a million years be able to lift that many books at once.
And then he was gone, and Dew’s stomach did another flip of hopeful glee because S would be receiving her letter today. What would he think? Would he notice the change in her closing today? Instead of Yours, she’d written With love, and she’d felt that love as she wrote the word. Love. For a man whose name she didn’t know.
Yep, if she went on that date with the guy she’d talked to this morning, the poor guy would have stiff competition for Dew’s affections. In fact, she couldn’t say yes to a date with him. It was unfair to him. She’d tell him she was already attached to someone.
She had all but told S about her attachment in that letter.
Floating on an uncertain, tenuous happiness, she walked into the office to take a breath. A book lay on the table. Dew did a double-take.
The Ten Thousand Doors of January.
S’s book.
The one with her letter.
She’d been distracted with Jillian’s hot flash and the phone call, and she hadn’t put the book back into the box. And Garrett had just left.
Maybe there was still a chance. Dew strained her ears, heard the sound of an engine start up. He was still here. There was time.
Grabbing S’s book from the counter, Dew launched herself through the doors and into the parking lot. The frigid winter air was a balm to her flushed cheeks but immediately called forth goosebumps. Garrett’s blue van was pulling out of the parking lot, exhaust visible from the tailpipe.
“Garrett!” Dew yelled, waving S’s book. “Wait! Garrett!”
But Garrett’s windows were up and she could hear the pounding bass of his stereo from this far away. No way would he be able to hear her shouting for him. And even if he could, with his obsessive need for punctuality, would he wait for her to run to the van? Or would it throw him off his precious schedule?
“Darn it, Garrett!” She knew she looked like she’d lost her mind, running after the van and flailing her arms, but she didn’t care.
But Garrett was off, motoring out of sight, and Dew was left with The Ten Thousand Doors of January and her letter.
Dew stared at it, at the little blue envelope she’d tucked inside. Just a couple of millimeters of blue was visible against the white pages of the book. She was such a fool. In wanting everything to be perfect, she’d made it so S wouldn’t get his requested book until next week.
She had to do something. She couldn’t let him not get his book just because she’d been distracted.
The little white print-out with his address waved before her eyes, flapping like a limp bookmark. 5844 Pedrick Road. It was a sign—she’d just been talking about the old dump out that way, and now it turned out S lived on the same road.
She’d take the book to S’s house. It was only fair, because her mistake meant he wouldn’t get it otherwise for another week. She wouldn’t invade his privacy, she wouldn’t look in his windows or act like a creeper in any way, shape or form. She’d find the mailbox, drop off the book, and scurry away.
Fast. Easy. Professional. It’s what any librarian worth her salt would do, right?
Rather than tell Jillian what she was up to as they closed up the library, Dew kept S’s book in her handbag. She felt like a thief, smuggling a book out of the library that was not hers.
No. She wasn’t a thief; she was like Garrett. She would be delivering a book to the rightful patron who had borrowed it. Nothing like a thief.
Except she felt guilty as heck. Not only for hiding her plans from Jillian, but for breaking that unspoken agreement between her and S, the one that said they would never meet in person.
“You look tired,” Jillian said as she set the alarm and the two of them went out the library door, locking it behind them.
“I’m okay,” Dew said, although she was anything but okay. Anxious. Heart thumping. Loops of excitement swirled in her gut.
“Remember what I said about taking some vacation,” Jillian said. “You could even start taking time off tomorrow—I wouldn’t mind.”
“Yeah, I don’t think so,” Dew said. She just wanted to get through the next hour. Deliver the book, try not to gawk at S’s house, and then rush back home to her own place where she could obsess about whether or not she’d done the right thing.
Jillian grinned. “In fact, it would delight me to no end if you were to call in the morning and say you were off having an adventure somewhere.”
Adventure? Dew wanted to laugh. Was this what adventure felt like? Sweaty? About-to-vomit-nervous?
She and Jillian walked to their separate cars and drove their separate ways. Dew pulled over after a moment to plug S’s address into her phone’s directions app. The signal was weaker outside of town and going into the hills, but it might have enough strength for tonight’s errand. Pedrick Road was a straight shot out of town, so she wasn’t worried about that aspect. But driving to an unfamiliar place in the dark? It would be nice to have a little warning when she approached S’s house.