by Cat Johnson
I started to wonder if she had health issues. Maybe asthma or that COPD they kept advertising on the TV.
“Something the matter?” I asked.
“I forgot what I came here for.”
I lifted a brow. “Seriously?” Maybe there was more wrong with her than her breathing.
“No, I mean I know I need more milk. But there was something else and I didn’t write it down and now I can’t remember what it was.” She frowned, her brows drawing lower over her eyes.
“Should have put it in your calendar,” I suggested, knowing I was being a smart ass and not caring all that much.
The annoyed cock of her head told me what she thought of my suggestion.
Suddenly, her eyes widened. “Laundry detergent.”
I nodded at her eureka moment and watched as she spun and headed down one of the aisles.
Guessing I’d been dismissed, I headed in the other direction to where I hoped to find the bug spray.
I found what I came for and was standing at the register paying the clerk when she came up behind me, the bag of laundry detergent pods clutched in one hand and her wallet in the other.
“Forgetting something?” I asked with a pointed glance at her lone purchase.
The scatterbrained city girl frowned before realization hit. Her eyes widened and she said, “Milk.”
I enjoyed the view of her butt as she spun for the refrigerated dairy case along the wall behind her.
Either the woman had early onset Alzheimer’s or she was so damn stressed she couldn’t remember something from one minute to the next. At her age, I voted for the stress. She might be cute but no doubt she was crazy.
“City folk,” the clerk mumbled.
“True that,” I agreed and grabbed my purchase off the counter.
The city folk could have their fast paced life and the stress—and apparent brain damage—that came with it.
The biggest thing on my calendar today was getting that field of corn cut for this year’s maze. And that was just the way I liked it.
From the Journal of Rose Van de Berg
MUDVILLE INQUISITOR
1927
Will Rogers delighted a large audience at the theater Saturday night.
NINE
Harper
“I know you’re busy writing but tonight is the monthly library board meeting and I thought you might want to sit in on it.”
Red was right. I’d been writing up a storm since the day we’d found those diaries in the attic but I was very interested in the town’s little local branch of the library.
It was only three doors down from Agnes’s house, right on Main Street. I thought I’d offer to donate some of my paperbacks to be put into circulation. Or maybe see if they wanted me to speak. Like a kind of writing class for anyone interested.
I’d already logged in over five thousand words for the day, which was pretty amazing given I’d been logging in zero daily words before I’d arrived in Mudville. I could go to the meeting without feeling guilty that I should be getting my work done instead.
“I’d love to go. When and where?” I asked.
“Right down the block in the library. Six o’clock.”
I glanced at the time. It was five. That would give me time to eat something and put on some actual clothes. At least clothes that were more appropriate for a board meeting than a yoga class . . . or a day lounging in Agnes’s bed with my laptop writing.
“All right. Will you be there?”
“I’ll lock up the shop at six and head right over.”
“Great. I’ll save you a seat.”
“Perfect. See you then.”
“Yup.” Excited I disconnected the call with my new friend.
This would be fun. My first meeting in town. I was starting to feel like a local.
An hour and a half later the meeting became a whole lot less fun than I’d anticipated.
I introduced myself by name. I even dropped my bestseller status into my introduction and then made my offer of a book donation.
Which was followed by the inevitable question, “What genre do you write?”
I drew in a breath and said, “Romance.”
“Oh, we don’t shelve romance,” one woman on the board said. “But we do take book donations for our annual book sale.”
Oh, fuck no.
I felt my jaw clench. I was not going to order and pay for brand new books for them to be sold for twenty-five cents each at the library’s annual book sale.
But more than that was her other statement. We don’t shelve romance.
“May I ask why you don’t shelve romance?” I asked.
“There is a space issue. This particular branch of the county library system is quite small,” another woman answered.
“Understandable.” I nodded.
Though I was sure space could be found somewhere for at least a small section of romance. I’d come back and find it myself if I had to.
The man next to her let out a snort. “That and the fact we voted against carrying romance five years ago.”
Voted against carrying romance? My brows flew high.
“Why?” I asked. “What’s wrong with romance?”
“We don’t want to carry books filled with sex and immorality. We have children who come in here,” the first woman said with a most judgmental tone.
I wondered if I turned as red as I felt as blood rushed to my face and my cheeks grew hot. I was shocked. I was livid. I couldn’t talk. I could barely think.
All I could do was sit before my shaking legs gave out on me.
I figured I looked as bad as I felt when Red laid one hand on my forearm and whispered, “Are you okay?”
The fact I was speechless and vibrating with anger was indication I was not okay. I lifted my shoulders.
Red shot to her feet and asked, “You don’t think it’s a slippery slope? I do think banning an entire genre is excessive.”
Thank God, someone had said something so I didn’t have to. At least there was one voice of reason in this room. It certainly wasn’t up there among the library board members.
The more moderate of the two women who bracketed the pinch faced man in the center said, “Every book is different. So perhaps we need to decide on criteria for specific books. For instance, what constitutes immorality in a romance novel?”
Immorality. What the fuck? I sat up straighter and slid to the front edge of my folding chair.
“If we agree to let any books of that genre onto our shelves, I agree it would need to be on a book-by-book basis.” The man nodded.
“Yes. So for instance, is it just the act of premarital intercourse that is immoral? Or does a high level of, let’s say, kissing count too?” The woman who’d I’d made the mistake of thinking was reasonable had just proven me wrong.
Red leaned close and asked in a whisper, “What the heck? They do see you sitting here, right?”
“Unless we've traveled to another dimension, yeah, they should see me sitting here,” I grit back between clenched teeth.
"They suck, but that other dimension thing would be cool,” she whispered, still maintaining her sense of humor.
Mine had fled right about the time my books—along with my livelihood, my life—were all deemed immoral.
“But seriously, how can they not think you might be offended by what they’re saying?” Red continued.
“Because I’m a romance author. People offend me all the time and think nothing of it. I should be used to it by now.” I wasn’t, but I should be.
A woman sitting in the row in front of us twisted in her chair to shoot us a glare for talking as the inane debate about levels of immorality continued among the board members.
I swear my fist clenched of its own volition. I got an up close look at a violent side I didn’t know I had. I glared back at her and she turned around.
Smart move. Tonight was not the night to mess with me.
Hell, didn’t she know I wrote characters wh
o had—gasp—sex in my books? Since we were discussing slippery slopes and all, what was to stop an immoral person like me from committing murder next?
Meanwhile, up at the front of the room the library brain trust continued to debate the evils of romance novels.
“The books would have to be pre-read and checked for unacceptable content,” the man said.
“Would that be a paid employee? Because if so, that’s a budget issue and there’s no money in the budget for that,” the more prudish of the two women said.
“It could be a volunteer,” the other woman suggested.
“They would have to be made aware in advance of what kind of books we were asking them to read,” said the man. “This is obviously a subject that is going to require careful thought. I move we table this discussion until next month’s meeting when we’ve had more time to consider it.”
“Agreed,” said prude number one.
“I agree as well,” chimed in prude number two.
“If there’s no more new business . . .” The man glanced around the room, skipping quickly over me and the death glare I had aimed directly at him. “Meeting adjourned.”
I was out of my seat and stomping toward the door before the old biddies even had their purses off their laps.
The door of the library made a satisfying crash as it hit the wall after I flung it open.
I stormed down the stairs of the building.
Red must have been right behind me for my dramatic exit. She was at my side by the time I reached the sidewalk and was striding toward Agnes’s house.
“Immoral, my sweet ass,” she hissed. “And why didn’t anyone else speak up? Any normal human should have been offended by that discussion in there. I can’t believe that entire library board is full of anti-romance bigots.”
“Red, it’s fine. I’m used to it.” I was pissed as hell and I would probably blow up the machine at the CVS three towns over if I took my blood pressure right now, but it was nothing new.
I should have known better. I got the same reaction so often, why did I bother even trying? For some reason I always thought that maybe this time would be different.
Boy, had I been spectacularly wrong.
We’d reached Agnes’s house and Red paused at the end of the driveway. “Are you going to be all right? I don’t want to leave you alone.”
“I’ll be fine,” I said, not for the first time. Definitely not for the last.
She looked at me as if she didn’t believe that. “You sure? You wanna come over—”
“Thanks, but no. I’ve got something I need to do.”
“What are you going to do?” she asked, looking a little scared, as if she feared that something might be blowing up the library.
The best part was I knew that if I actually did it, Red would be the first one there with bail money. That’s the kind of person she was. But she didn’t have to worry.
My plans were a lot less illegal and a lot more satisfying.
“I’m going to build my own library.” And I was going to fill it with the sexiest romance novels I could find, just to spite them all.
Luckily I never traveled anywhere without at least a few of my own books to give away. Those would be the start of my little library collection. And I could solicit the contacts I had in the romance author world. My fellow authors would send me books to put in my little library. I knew they would.
Ha! That would show these romance-hating, stick up their asses idiots not to mess with Romancelandia.
Humph.
Red’s raised brows told me she might have some doubts about my plan, but even so, she said, “Okay. Let me know if you need anything.”
“I’m not sure yet, but I’ll let you know. I might need that chainsaw of yours.”
Her brows ratcheted up another notch. “Okay.”
“Thanks. See you tomorrow.” I turned for the house but didn’t go inside. I headed directly for the carriage house.
Time to see what Agnes’s clutter yielded by way of tools and building materials.
I’d work all night if I had to but I was going to have that little library built and up on Main Street with books inside by tomorrow morning.
From the Journal of Rose Van de Berg
MUDVILLE INQUISITOR
1932
The Stewart Ice Co. has opened at 45 Valley View Street. It is the first artificial ice company in the area; formed by refrigeration machinery rather than cut from area ponds.
TEN
Stone
The dead last thing I expected to see at six in the morning as I drove to the gas station to get a cup of coffee because we’d run out at the house was Harper, outside, doing something with a wooden box and a hammer.
I pulled my truck along the curb and got out, strolling over to the woman. She bent to reach inside the box with one hand while she hammered it onto the side of the mailbox post with the other.
“So, uh, whatcha got going on here?” I asked.
She straightened and spun to face me.
I was glad I’d chosen to approach her slow and easy. Like I would a wild animal, which is kind of what she looked like at the moment.
Not physically. She still managed to look hot as hell even as she looked crazed.
It was her eyes that were wild. As if she’d downed a gallon of coffee, which she might have done for all I knew.
She looked even more agitated and distracted than the last time I’d seen her at the store, which was hard to beat.
“The library won’t carry romance novels because the puritans in this town have declared them immoral so I built my own library and I’m going to stuff it full of books filled with all sorts of sex.”
“All righty.” I nodded, absorbing all that information that had been delivered in a rapid-fire staccato.
It looked like she’d taken an old wooden crate and glued slats of wood from another box over the gaps of the first one. It wasn’t a bad job. Whether it would be weatherproof was another story.
I wasn’t a huge reader, but I figured books and water don’t mix.
“So these sexy books are going inside there?” I tipped my chin to the box mounted sideways on the post so the opening faced the sidewalk.
“Yes. As soon as I put in another couple of nails to make sure it doesn’t fall from the weight of the books. I found these really big long nails in an old coffee tin on a shelf in the carriage house. They’re working perfectly.”
She held one big nail up as proof.
“Mm, hm. Perfect,” I agreed.
There was no way I was going to disagree. She was armed with a hammer and really long nails and had already proven she could use both.
“My other idea to mount it was to borrow Red’s chainsaw, cut down that tree over there and set the library on top of the stump. But I didn’t want to do that without Agnes’s permission. And I’ve never used a chain saw before.”
“Yeah, that was probably a good decision.” Her other plan could have ended badly in so many ways.
Hands on her hips, she surveyed her handiwork. “It’s not as good as the Little Free Libraries they sell online, but it’ll do for now.”
“Yup, I daresay it will,” I agreed, but my mind wouldn’t rest.
My damn brain had already begun planning other designs. One with a slanted shingled roof so the rain would run off and a door so wind wouldn’t blow the snow inside onto the books.
Was I really going to build this woman, who I barely knew and wasn’t even sure I liked, a library?
I had a bad feeling I was. And I was going to do it today.
“Uh. So I gotta go.” I hooked a thumb toward my truck. “But have fun filling your box.”
She smiled, broad and beautiful. Genuinely gleeful about the prospect of her scrap wood box becoming a library. “Oh, I will have fun. Believe me.”
I did believe her.
Worse, her happiness at putting the screws to the library board and their puritan ways was a little bit infectious.
/> I grabbed my coffee from the gas station, fueled up while I was there, and then headed directly to the lumberyard. I was going to need to pick up a few things.
I’d remembered Harper mentioning Little Free Libraries for sale online so I searched and found some plans. I used them as a basis for my own design.
There were some kick ass libraries on the official site. A hollowed out tree with a glass door and books and lights inside. Even a phone booth converted into a library. But I had a specific concept for mine. I wanted it to match Agnes’s carriage house in style so it would fit, visually, in front of the house.
By lunch the structure was built and I was waiting for the primer to dry. I might actually get away with this whole folly without having to explain what I was doing and why to anyone. And so far my brothers hadn’t even been around to bother me.
“What the fuck is that?”
I turned at Boone’s voice behind me in the workshop and sighed. This answer was going to earn me all sorts of razzing but I couldn’t figure out a way around it. “It’s a library.”
“For like dolls?” he asked, peering at the box.
“No.” I sighed again hating that I knew the answer to this because I’d actually researched it on the internet. “You fill it with books and put it in front of your house and people can come and take a book out or leave books they don’t want anymore inside.”
Boone’s frown would have had me laughing if I wasn’t braced for battle with him.
“Did Mom get you to build this for the farm stand?” he asked.
No. But dammit that would be a great lie to tell. It might mean that I’d have to build another one and actually put it up at the farm market, but it might be worth it.
“Um . . .” I was about to say yes. This was a surprise for Mom, when Cashel walked in.
A wide grin spread across his face the moment his gaze hit upon the library.
“Ah. I see somebody is trying to get under a certain author’s covers.” Cash waggled his eyebrows.
“What? Who?” Boone asked, glancing between us.