Until I Met You

by Tari Faris

  “Glad to know you were waiting for me,” an unfamiliar deep voice rumbled next to her.

  Libby turned to find a set of shocking green eyes. The guy’s curly red hair conveyed a boy-next-door look, but the smirk on his face erased any question as to whether he knew how cute he was. She’d dealt with this type before—no thanks. “Sorry, I thought you were someone else.”

  “Too bad. I wouldn’t mind a cute thing like you waiting for me. My name is Ted.” He offered his hand and she ignored it, but it didn’t seem to faze him. “You new around here?”

  Ted. Where had she heard that name? Right. “You’re the one taking Olivia fishing.” When his eyebrow lifted, she added, “She’s my roommate.”

  “Great, then you can help me out. Can you tell her we need to reschedule? It beats trying to track her down. I came in hoping she was working today, but no luck.”

  “And you can’t text her because . . . ?”

  “Let’s just say I went fishing yesterday and didn’t catch anything, but the fish caught my phone. I can’t get one until tomorrow and I’m lost without it.”

  “Sure, I’ll tell her. But she’ll be here any minute.”

  “My ride is waiting for me. You’re the best.” Ted winked at her just before he hurried out the door.

  “That guy is a piece of work. Don’t go falling for him.”

  Libby whipped around at Nate’s voice and found him sitting one seat beyond where Ted had just been, coffee already in hand. How had she missed him coming up?

  “Don’t worry. He’s not my type.”

  Nate hesitated for a moment. “Will you do me a favor?”

  “That depends on what it is.” Libby pulled out her phone and sent a text to Olivia.

  Where are you?

  She started typing another.

  Just met Ted. Interesting guy. He has to can—

  “Don’t tell Olivia that Ted had to cancel.”

  Her thumbs paused on the keyboard. “What? Why not? She needs to arrange something else for the article.”

  “I’ll take her.”

  “That’s crazy.” She hadn’t finished the text, but she hadn’t deleted it either. “Why not just tell her that you’re taking her instead?”

  “She’ll just wait and reschedule with him.” He gripped his mug tighter, pleading in his eyes. “Please. I’ve been going insane since she told me she was going to be spending time with that guy. You can’t honestly say that you want to see her with him?”

  “No. I want to see her with you.” She sent him a pointed look.

  “It isn’t that simple.” His face reddened as his eyes dropped to his coffee. “One more thing. Will you . . . find out when he was supposed to pick her up?”

  “Relationships don’t have to be this hard, you know.” Libby’s fingers hovered over the half-finished text.

  The bell chimed over the door again, and Olivia hurried in with her purse in hand. She dropped it in the space next to Libby. “I need to check something on the schedule, then I’ll be out.”

  Nate gave Libby one more pleading look before he headed for the door.

  Libby had just finished deleting the text when Olivia walked up. “What were you and Nate talking about?”

  “Not much.” Libby swallowed. “When are you going fishing?”

  “Thursday at ten. Why?” Olivia picked up a menu and started looking it over.

  Libby’s heart thumped in her chest. “Thought maybe we should plan fish for dinner.”

  “Absolutely not.” Olivia offered a half laugh, but her eyes were still questioning. Great. Olivia could tell she was hiding something, which meant now she thought Libby and Nate had secrets. But if she tried to clarify, Olivia would pull the whole truth out of her.

  Libby hated keeping secrets, and here she was keeping one from one of the few friends she had in town. But it was for Olivia’s own good. Because Nate was right. She didn’t want Olivia spending the day with that Ted guy. Olivia might think she was too smart to fall for his charms, but Libby had thought that about Colin too, and, well . . . she wanted more for Olivia.

  This couldn’t be happening. Libby sprinted through the front door of the schoolhouse and did her best to tug a box of books away from the steady stream of drips. The muscles in her shoulders burned as the moist cardboard scraped against the wet floor. She gave another tug just before the soggy box gave way and sent a pile of books across the floor.

  Libby landed with a thud on her backside. Maybe she needed to get help, but Olivia was working tonight, and Austin had been the one who had told her the roof wasn’t ready. Ugh—she hated it when he was right. But it wasn’t even supposed to rain until the end of the week. Leave it to Michigan’s weather to turn on a dime.

  There was no way around it. She’d made another wrong decision, and she didn’t need an I-told-you-so lecture right now.

  Libby picked up one of the spilled books and thumbed through the soggy pages. They were already beginning to pucker. If too many got damaged, she wouldn’t have enough to make a full library.

  The beating of the rain against the window stole any hope it would end soon. Maybe she could make sure every box was in a dry spot. She glanced around the room as a drop of water splattered on her cheek. Ahh! Was there no safe spot in this building? She eyed the ceiling as water snaked across the rafters, finding new avenues to the floor.

  She shoved to a stand, pulled up her hood, and tightened her coat. Rain prickled her cheeks as she rushed out the front door. Dusk had come early with the thick clouds blocking out the sun.

  Libby circled the building until she located the offending corner and squinted beyond the rain. The wind had pulled free the plastic that had been nailed down in this corner. It seemed like an easy fix. The ladder still rested against the roof, and someone had left a few tools in the corner of the schoolhouse. She raced back inside, dodging a puddle that was forming at the bottom of the stairs.

  The old Libby would never have considered climbing a ladder in the rain, but she was a new, improved Libby. She could do this.

  When she got to the corner of the schoolhouse armed with a hammer and a few nails, the ladder seemed to have grown. This was possibly a very bad idea, but how hard could it be to grab that plastic, pull it down over the corner, and secure it?

  Libby slid the nails into her coat pocket and looked at the hammer. How did people carry a hammer up a ladder? Holding it in her left hand, she used it like a claw as she climbed up.

  One step. Two. Three. Four.

  Maybe she should stop counting. Rung by rung she made her way to the top. She shivered against the howling wind and reached for the plastic. It was well out of reach, and unless she wanted to channel her inner Spider-Man and walk on the wet roof, there was no way she’d get to it.

  “What are you doing?” Austin’s voice boomed over the rain.

  Libby jumped and clung to the ladder. “Why would you scare me like that? I’m on a ladder.”

  “Why are you climbing my ladder? In the rain? Get down.”

  Libby made her way back down until they were eye to eye. “I need to fix the roof. My books are getting wet.”

  Austin lifted her from the ladder and set her back on the ground.

  “Stop that. What are you doing?”

  “What am I doing? I’m trying to keep you from killing yourself.”

  He claimed the hammer and nails, climbed to the top of the ladder, and in record time accomplished what she’d been trying to do. Blast him and his long-arm reach.

  When he dropped back to the ground, he eyed her for a moment, then lifted the ladder away from the building and laid it on its side just before the wind and rain picked up.

  Libby ran for the door of the schoolhouse, but he just followed her in.

  “Are you done trying to kill yourself, or do I need to stay?” He shook some of the wetness from his hair. “I swear, until I met you, I didn’t know someone could cause my life so much chaos.”

  “I wasn’t trying to kill m
yself. I was fine. I could have—”

  Her words died as his head tilted to the side with a disbelieving expression on his face.

  “Okay, maybe I couldn’t have. But I wasn’t trying to kill myself.”

  “Just to be safe, I’ll take this back home.” He waved the hammer in the air.

  “Fine. I was done with it anyway. Now I need to see if I can save any of these books.”

  Austin stepped over to the spilled box and picked up a book. “This one is a lost cause, but I can’t say”—he examined the cover—“Love’s Tender Fury is a great loss.”

  “I don’t know. Any Jennifer Wilde novel was quite popular in the seventies and eighties. That book had forty-one printings in the first five years.”

  “Wow. Does she still write?”

  “He. Jennifer Wilde was Thomas E. Huff along with about five or six other pseudonyms. And no, he’s not still writing. He died in 1990.”

  “How do you know all that? Is he your favorite author?” He grabbed a few other spilled books and set them out to dry.

  “No. I just love research and I remember most of what I read. Most kids watch superhero shows and wish to be the hero or the one who falls in love with the hero. Me? I always wanted to be the researcher who found out the key that solved the mystery. Like Alfred to Batman—”

  “Or Fitz and Simmons from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.?”

  “Yes! Or Felicity to Green Arrow.” She grabbed the edge of another box and yanked it farther away from a puddle, then dropped a towel on the puddle.

  “You have a Felicity vibe going on there. All you need is glasses to disguise how beautiful you are. Maybe you’re more Pepper Potts to Iron Man.”

  “What?” Her foot slipped on the wet floor, setting her off balance and onto her backside. Ugh.

  A smile tugged at his lips as he held out his hand. “Easy there.”

  She accepted his hand and pulled herself to her feet. “I’m no Gwyneth Paltrow or Emily Bett Rickards. I’m more Alfred. I’m not great at relationships.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  She finished mopping up one puddle and moved to another. “Remember that guy I told you about who robbed my bookstore?”

  “Yes.”

  Libby wrung out the rag in the bucket and went back to wiping the nearly dry spot. “He was my boyfriend. Or I should say, I thought he was my boyfriend. I do think he liked me at first, but not enough to keep him from holding a gun to my head for the right price.”

  When Austin didn’t comment she glanced up. The muscle in his jaw twitched as his hand crushed the book he was holding.

  “Easy, killer.” She reached out and took the book. “It was three years ago, and he was carted to the Tower of London by a bobby.”

  “They still use that?”

  “No. It was a joke to lighten the mood. But he did go to jail, and I’m fine now.”

  His hand landed on her arm as she walked past, pulling her to a stop. His thumb traced a small circle on her arm. “Are you? Fine now?”

  The warmth of his hand seeped through the thin material of her shirt. Her gaze followed his arm up to his shoulder and then to his silver eyes less than twelve inches away. Was she fine after what Colin had done? Most days. Was she fine right now with Austin this close? Exhilarated, elated, even giddy maybe. But fine? Not so much.

  “How did he even know about the books?” His voice was lower now and laced with a rough edge.

  “I fed him all the information he needed. How much they were worth. Where those books were generally bought and sold. My gift of research helped him bring down a little bookstore, and I . . . felt like an idiot.”

  “It wasn’t your fault.” He grabbed a few of the soggy books and fanned them out.

  “I know, but I honestly thought he asked a lot of questions because he was trying to learn about something I was passionate about.” She fanned out another book and laid it out on a rough table made of scrap wood and sawhorses that Nate had thrown together last week.

  Austin added a book to the sawhorse table, then locked eyes with her. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

  When she didn’t answer, he brushed a piece of wet hair that still clung to her face behind her ear. Slow. Lingering. “What happened Friday?”

  Libby blinked a few times but couldn’t seem to make herself look away. “As I told you, I had panic attacks for a while after the holdup. I think Grand Haven was just the perfect storm of me not caring for myself, the books, and the bell. If you hadn’t been there—”

  “But I was there.” His gaze traced her face before he leaned a fraction of an inch closer.

  What was going on? Did she want this? She couldn’t trust the wrong person again.

  She trusted him not to hold her at gunpoint, but did she trust him not to break her heart? Not to mention he’d ignored her for the past three days.

  His breath mingled with hers as he tucked a lock of hair behind her other ear, then traced her chin with his finger as his eyes started to close.

  “Is Shiro pregnant?” Libby’s words came out louder than she intended. Much too loud, since he was only about two inches away.

  He pulled back and dropped his hand. “What?”

  That was a good question. Of all the things she could have said, she had to ask if his dog was pregnant.

  “I was just curious if you knew yet—”

  “No, she’s not.” He took a step back as all emotion disappeared from his face.

  “No puppies. Great. Well, I mean, everyone loves puppies. It’s just a lot of work, and you have a lot of other work right now.”

  Oh my word, Libby, stop talking.

  Austin stared at her before he backed up another step, nodded once, and turned toward the door. “I should go.”

  No. “Sure. Okay.”

  She didn’t want to push him away; she just wanted him to pick a lane.

  He grabbed his coat and disappeared out the door. He’d even left his hammer.

  She didn’t want him to leave. She just needed to be sure. But could she ever be sure? It didn’t matter. The way he looked when he headed out that door, he wasn’t coming back anytime soon.

  If she were more Pepper Potts, she would have interrogated him until she knew he could be trusted. Then again, if she were Pepper Potts, she might have kissed him senseless first and then started the interrogation. But no, she was Alfred all the way.

  Libby walked over to the window. The sky seemed to open up as the rain pelted down harder and faster. But what if she didn’t want to be Alfred? She’d set out this summer determined to redefine herself to move forward. This wasn’t moving forward.

  Maybe it was time to choose to be less Alfred and more Pepper.

  Before she could question the sanity of this plan, Libby scooped up the hammer and ran through the pouring rain toward Austin’s.

  How could he have left that ladder up against the schoolhouse?

  Austin stacked an empty pot on a shelf and dusted the dirt off his worktable as the rain pelting the plastic roof of his greenhouse grew louder. His heart had nearly stopped when he’d spotted Libby at the very top. Talk about a rookie construction mistake. Some kid could have killed himself. Libby could have killed herself. He’d been way too distracted lately, and he couldn’t afford a mistake like that again.

  A few feet away, the plastic door was pushed aside as Libby charged in. Wet curls clung to the sides of her face as she wrapped one arm across her body and held up his hammer in the other. “I have your hammer.”

  His hammer? Of all the things he thought she might say, that wasn’t it.

  Her knees began to shake, and she hugged herself a bit closer.

  “Libby, you’re freezing.” He took the hammer from her hand. “I could have gotten it later. Go home and get warm.”

  “N-no. I have something to s-say.”

  “Fine, but you’re soaking wet.” Austin grabbed a sweatshirt he’d tossed aside the other day and threw it at her. “Put this on, then
yell at me.”

  Libby eyed him, shed her wet coat, and hung it on a planter hook by the door. By the time the sweatshirt descended on her shoulders, the fight seemed to have left her. “Why do we have such a hard time being friends?”

  Friends? The problem was that somewhere between their fights and disasters, his feelings for Libby had moved out of the friend zone into unfamiliar waters. And when he’d tried to act on those feelings a few minutes ago, she’d backpedaled about twenty feet.

  But he couldn’t say all that. Instead, he offered a shrug and pulled one of his roses that he needed to repot to the table. “Nate and I can’t seem to get along either. Maybe I’m not very good at friendships.”

  Of course, his issues with Nate weren’t at all the same.

  “Maybe you just need someone to teach you how to be a friend.” A half smile tugged at her lips, and he looked away.

  Friend. Think friend.

  “What are these plants? They’re beautiful but look almost wild.” She leaned over the heirloom roses he’d potted and smelled one of the blossoms. She lifted her eyebrows and held up a finger. “Friendship lesson number one. This is where you explain the plant, why you’re growing it, and why you spend so much time here in your greenhouse.”

  He couldn’t stop the slight chuckle that rumbled in his chest. “Is that so?”

  “Yes.” Libby didn’t hold his gaze but instead bit her lip as she returned to examining the plant. Maybe she wasn’t as confident as she wanted him to think.

  He stepped around the table to where she was standing. “That’s a Rebecca Louise, an heirloom rose.”

  “Heirloom rose?”

  “Heirloom roses refer to roses that existed before 1867. That was when they first started creating hybrids. The roses you see in stores are all hybrids grown for color, stem strength and straightness, and smell. I guess in a way, you’re right, it’s more wild than those.”

  “Where did you get the plants?”

  “You can order them online. I thought these might look perfect around the schoolhouse. More authentic. Although I’ll order the ones I’ll use for the square. I can’t grow that many in here in time.”