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 nodded, but she didn’t really believe him. And as she watched him walk out the door, she assured herself that was for the best. Because the last thing she needed was to be crossing paths with a man who made her feel tingles she didn’t want to be feeling.
* * *
His daughter slept until Braden got her to the office. As soon as he tried to lay her down, Saige was wide-awake and wanting his attention. He dumped the toys from her diaper bag into the playpen—squishy blocks and finger puppets and board books—so that she could occupy herself while he worked. She decided to invent a new game: throw things at Daddy. Thankfully, she wasn’t strong enough to fling the books very far, but after several blocks bounced across the surface of his desk, he decided there was no point in hanging around the office when he obviously wasn’t going to get anything accomplished.
There were definite advantages to working in a family business, and since his baby wouldn’t be a baby forever, he decided to take the rest of the day off to spend with her. He took her to the indoor play center, where she could jump and climb and swing and burn off all of the energy she seemed to have in abundance. Then, when she was finally tired of all of that, he took her to “Aunt” Rachel’s shop—Buds & Blooms—to pick out some flowers, then to his parents’ house to see how Ellen had fared at the dentist.
“Ga-ma!” Saige said, flinging herself at her grandmother’s legs.
“I didn’t think I was going to get to see you today,” Ellen said, ruffling her granddaughter’s silky black hair. “And I was missing you.”
“I’m sure she missed you more,” Braden said, handing the bouquet to his mother. “She was not a happy camper at the office today.”
“Offices aren’t fun places for little ones.” Ellen brought the flowers closer to her nose and inhaled their fragrant scent. “These are beautiful—what’s the occasion?”
“No occasion—I just realized that I take for granted how much you do for me and Saige every day and wanted to show our appreciation,” he told her. “But now that I see the swelling of your jaw, I’m thinking they might be ‘get well’ flowers—what did the dentist do to you?”
“He extracted the tooth.”
“I thought it was only a chip.”
“So did I,” she admitted, lowering herself into a chair, which Saige interpreted as an invitation to crawl into her lap. “Apparently the chip caused a crack that went all the way down to the root, so they had to take it out.”
He winced instinctively.
“Now I have to decide whether I want a bridge or an implant.”
“And I’ll bet you’re wishing you had oatmeal instead of granola for breakfast,” he noted, filling a vase with water for her flowers.
“It will definitely be oatmeal tomorrow,” she said. “How was Baby Talk?”
“Fine,” he said, “aside from the fact that I was the only man in a room full of women, apparently all of whom know my life story.”
“They don’t know your whole life story,” his mother denied.
“How much do they know?”
“I might have mentioned that you’re a single father.”
“Might have mentioned?” he echoed suspiciously.
“Well, in a group of much younger women, it was immediately apparent that Saige isn’t my child. Someone—I think it was Annalise—asked if I looked after her while her mother was at work and I said no, that I looked after her while her dad’s at work because Saige doesn’t have a mother.”
“Hmm,” he said. He couldn’t fault his mother for answering the question, but he didn’t like the way she made him sound like some kind of “super dad” just because he was taking care of his daughter—especially when they both knew there was no way he’d be able to manage without Ellen’s help.
“And you’re not the only single parent with a child in the group,” she pointed out. “There are a couple of single moms there, too.”
“I met Heather,” he admitted.
“She’s a pretty girl. And a loving mother.”
“I’m not interested in a woman who’s obviously looking for a man to be a father to her child,” he warned.
“She told you that?”
“She gave me the ‘single parenthood is so much harder than most people realize’ speech.”
“Which you already know,” she pointed out.
He nodded again.
“So maybe you should think about finding a new mother for Saige,” she urged.
“Because the third time’s the charm?” he asked skeptically.
“Because a little girl needs a mother,” she said firmly. “And because you deserve to have someone in your life, too.”
“I have Saige,” he reminded her, as he always did when she started in on this particular topic. But this time the automatic response was followed by a picture of the pretty librarian forming in his mind.
“And no one doubts how much you love her,” Ellen acknowledged. “But if you do your job as a parent right—and I expect you will—she’s going to grow up and go off to live her own life one day, and then who will you have?”
“I think I’ve got a few years before I need to worry about that,” he pointed out. “And maybe by then, I’ll be ready to start dating again.”
His mother’s sigh was filled with resignation.
“By the way,” he said, in a desperate effort to shift the topic of conversation away from his blank social calendar, “Cassie said that she hopes you feel better soon.”
As soon as he mentioned the librarian’s name, a speculative gleam sparked in his mother’s eyes that warned his effort had been for naught.
“She’s such a sweet girl,” Ellen said. “Smart and beautiful, and so ideally suited for her job.”
Braden had intended to keep his mouth firmly shut, not wanting to be drawn into a discussion about Miss MacKinnon’s many attributes. But the last part of his mother’s statement piqued his curiosity. “She’s a librarian—what kind of qualifications does she need?”
His mother frowned her disapproval. “The janitor who scrubs the floors of a surgery is just as crucial as the doctor who performs the operation,” she reminded him.
“But she’s not a surgeon or a janitor,” he pointed out. “She’s a librarian.” And he didn’t think keeping a collection of books in order required any particular knowledge outside of the twenty-six letters of the alphabet.
“With a master’s degree in library studies.”
“I didn’t know there was such a discipline,” he acknowledged.
“Apparently there are a lot of things you don’t know,” she said pointedly.
He nodded an acknowledgment of the fact. “I guess, when I went into the library, I was expecting to find someone more like Miss Houlahan behind the desk.”
His mother chuckled. “Irene Houlahan’s been retired more than half a dozen years now.”
“I’m relieved to know she’s no longer terrifying young book borrowers.”
“She wasn’t terrifying,” Ellen chided. “You were only afraid of her because you lost a library book.”
“I didn’t lose it,” he denied. “I just couldn’t find it when it was due. And you made me pay th
e late fines out of my allowance.”
“Because you were the one who misplaced it,” she pointed out logically.
“That’s probably why I buy my books now—I’d rather pay for them up front and without guilt.”
Which didn’t begin to explain why he was now carrying a library card in his wallet—or his determination to put it to use in the near future.
Chapter Three
Cassie stood with her back against the counter as she lifted the last forkful of cheesy macaroni to her mouth.
“You might be surprised to hear that I like to cook,” she said to Westley and Buttercup. “I just don’t do it very often because it’s not worth the effort to prepare a whole meal for one person.”
Aside from the crunch of the two cats chowing down on their seafood medley, there was no response.
“Maybe I should get a dog,” she mused. “Dogs at least wag their tails when you talk to them.”
As usual, the two strays she’d rescued from a box in the library parking lot ignored her.
“Unfortunately, a dog would be a lot less tolerant of the occasional ten-hour shift at the library,” she noted.
That was one good thing about Westley and Buttercup—they didn’t really need her except when their food or water bowls were empty. And when she was away for several hours at a time, she didn’t worry because they had one another for company.
But she did worry that she was turning into a cliché—the lonely librarian with only her cats and her books to keep her company. Since Westley and Buttercup were more interested in their dinner than the woman who fed it to them, she put her bowl and spoon in the dishwasher, then went into the living room and turned her attention to the tightly packed shelves.
The books were her reliable companions and steadfast friends. She had other friends, of course—real people that she went to the movies with or met for the occasional cup of coffee. But most of her friends were married now, with husbands and children to care for. It wasn’t that Cassie didn’t want to fall in love, get married and have a family, but she was beginning to wonder if it would ever happen. The few serious relationships she’d had in the past had all ended with her heart—if not broken—at least battered and bruised. When she’d met Joel Langdon three years earlier, she’d thought he was finally the one. Three months after he’d put a ring on her finger, she’d realized that her judgment was obviously faulty.
Thankfully, she was usually content with her own company. And when she wasn’t, she could curl up with Captain Brandon Birmingham or Dean Robillard or Roarke. But tonight, she reached out a hand and plucked a random book from the shelf. A smile curved her lips when she recognized the cover of a beloved Jennifer Crusie novel.
She made herself a cup of tea and settled into her favorite chair by the fireplace, happy to lose herself in the story and fall in love with Cal as Min did. But who wouldn’t love a man who appreciated her shoe collection, fed her doughnuts and didn’t want to change a single thing about her? All of that, and he was great in bed, too.
She sighed and set the book aside to return her empty mug to the kitchen. Of course Cal was perfect—he was fictional. And she wasn’t looking for perfect, anyway—she just wanted to meet a man who would appreciate her for who she was without trying to make her into someone different. He didn’t have to be mouthwateringly gorgeous or Rhodes Scholar smart, but he had to be kind to children and animals and have a good relationship with his family. And it would be a definite plus if she felt flutters in her tummy when he smiled at her.
As she pieced together the ideal qualities in her mind, a picture began to form—a picture that looked very much like Braden Garrett.
* * *
Braden planned to wait a week or so before he tried out his library card to avoid appearing too eager. He figured seven to ten days was a reasonable time frame, and then, if he saw Cassie again and had the same immediate and visceral reaction, he would consider his next move.
He’d been widowed for just over a year and married for six years prior to that, so it had been a long time since he’d made any moves. How much had the dating scene changed in those years? Were any of the moves the same? Was he ready to start dating again and risk jeopardizing the precious relationship he had with his daughter by bringing someone new into their lives?
Except that Cassie was already in Saige’s life—or at least on the periphery of it. And by all accounts, his little girl was enamored of the librarian. After only one brief meeting, he’d found himself aware of her appeal. Which was just one reason he’d decided to take a step back and give his suddenly reawakened hormones a chance to cool down.
But when he picked up his daughter’s clothes to dump them into the laundry basket, he found the red engine that she’d been reluctant to let go of at the train table earlier that day. He had a clear memory of prying the toy from her clenched fist and setting it back on the track, but apparently—maybe when he turned his back to retrieve her diaper bag—his daughter had picked it up again.
Wednesday morning he dropped Saige off at his parents’ house, then headed toward his office as usual. But, conscious of the little red engine in his pocket, he detoured toward the library on his way. He’d considered leaving the train with his mother so that she could return it, but the “borrowed” toy was the perfect excuse for him to see the pretty librarian again and he was going to take advantage of it.
For the first six months after Dana’s death, his mother hadn’t pushed him outside of his comfort zone. Ellen understood that he was grieving for his wife and adjusting to his role as a new—and now single—dad. But since Christmas, she’d started to hint that it was time for him to move on with his life and urged him to get out and meet new people. More recently, she’d made it clear that when she said “people” she meant “women.”
He knew she was motivated by concern—that she didn’t want him to be alone. But whenever he dared to remind her that he wasn’t alone because he had his daughter, she pointed out that Saige needed a mother. Saige deserved a mother. And that was a truth Braden could not dispute.
A real home with two parents.
He shook off the echo of those words and the guilt that weighed on his heart. He wasn’t interested in getting involved with anyone right now. He had neither the time nor the energy to invest in a romantic relationship.
Getting some action between the sheets, on the other hand, held some definite appeal. But he knew that if he was just looking for sex, he should not be looking at the local librarian. Especially not when the woman was obviously adored by both his mother and his daughter.
But if he took the train back to the library, well, that was simply the right thing to do. And if he happened to see Cassie MacKinnon while he was there, that would just be a lucky coincidence.
* * *
Cassie didn’t expect to ever see Braden again.
Despite his request for a library card, she didn’t think he would actually use it. Men like Braden Garrett didn’t borrow anything—if he wanted something he didn’t have, he would buy it. And considering how busy the CEO and single father must be, she didn’t imagine that he had much free time to read anything aside from business reports.
All of which made perfect, logical sense. What didn’t make any sense at all was that she found herself thinking about him anyway, and wishing he would walk through the front doors in contradiction of her logic.
She tried to push these thoughts from her mind, annoyed by her inexplicable preoccupation with a man she was undeniably attracted to but wasn’t sure she liked very much. A man who wasn’t so very different from any other member of the male species who came through the library.
Okay, that was a lie. The truth was, she’d never met anyone else quite like Braden Garrett. But there were a lot of other guys in the world—good-looking, intelligent and charming guys. Some of them even came into the
library and flirted with her and didn’t regard her job as inconsequential. Rarely did she ever think about any of them after they were gone; never did she dream about any of them.
Until last night.
What was wrong with her? Why was she so captivated by a guy she’d met only once? A man who wasn’t only gorgeous and rich but a single father undoubtedly still grieving for the wife he’d lost only a year earlier.
Because even if he was interested in her, and even if it turned out that he wasn’t as shallow and judgmental as her initial impressions indicated him to be, she had no intention of getting involved with a man who was still in love with another woman. No way. She’d been there, done that already, and she still had the bruises on her heart to prove it.
So it was a good thing she would probably never see Braden Garrett again. A very good thing.
Or so she thought until she glanced up to offer assistance to the patron who had stopped at her desk—and found herself looking at the subject of her preoccupation.
Her heart skipped a beat and then raced to catch up. She managed a smile, determined not to let him know how he affected her. “Good morning, Mr. Garrett. Are you looking for some reading material today?”
He shook his head. “Returning some smuggled merchandise.” He set a red engine on top of her desk. “Apparently Saige loves the trains more than I realized.”
It wasn’t the first toy to go missing from the playroom, and she knew it wouldn’t be the last. Thankfully, the “borrowed” items were usually returned by the embarrassed parents of the pint-size pickpockets when they were found.
“Universal toddler rules,” she acknowledged. “If it’s in my hand, it’s mine.”
“Sounds like the kind of wisdom that comes from experience,” he noted, his gaze shifting to her left hand. “Do you have kids?”
She shook her head and ignored the emptiness she felt inside whenever she thought about the family she might have had by now if she’d married Joel instead of giving him back his ring. “No,” she said lightly. “But I’ve spent enough time in the children’s section to have learned a lot.”
Baby Talk & Wedding Bells Page 3