by Fiona West
“Excuse me, sorry,” Ainsley whispered as she passed, and it took all his self-control not to reach out and steady her at her hips. She was always so . . . wobbly. She should really be doing some balance and strength training with her morning runs. She only had until thirty before her bone mass would start depleting.
I must be insane to care about the bone mass of a woman I’m not even dating.
But what if she falls and breaks something? his mind argued back. That’s expensive, not to mention the potential for complications like blood clots, bones not set correctly . . . Teachers don’t make a lot of money.
She flopped into a chair four seats down, and Kyle leaned forward under the auspices of scratching his ankle. Ainsley was wearing a skirt with black and white stripes in wide slashes, shorter at the front than at the back, and a black cardigan over a white T-shirt. It was tight across her chest, and he made himself look away. That was the polite thing to do.
Of course, the really polite thing to do would be to just ask her out instead of following her all over town. He crossed his arms and sat back in his chair. What was so hard about it? He’d gone to medical school at Stanford, for heaven’s sake. It couldn’t be harder than that. Just ask the question, just walk up to her and say, “Ainsley, would you like to get lunch sometime?”
“Dr. Durand?” His father and his brother were both absent; that meant Councilwoman Park was talking to him. Everyone was looking at him.
He sat up. “Yes?”
“Would you be willing to provide care at the emergency medical care station during the Turkey Trot in November?”
He nodded. “Yes, that’d be fine. And I can ask the hospital about donating supplies as well.”
“Great.”
He’d been hoping to run, but this was okay, too. He could run the Bunny Run in the spring or go up to Portland to run the marathon. Plus, maybe Ainsley would get a blister or something, and he’d have to touch her gently and comfort her. This is getting out of hand . . .
“Hey”—he nudged his sister—“you want to work the booth with me?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Aw, come on. It’ll be fun. You can give the lollipops and stickers to the kids who fall down.”
“No, thank you.”
Maggie was only here because their mother had made her come. She had little interest in town life and no interest in medicine. It wasn’t even a fraction, it was a negative integer. In a family that already had three doctors and a physical therapist in it, folks tended to view that as surprising. So far, the only things that interested her were fantasy novels, video games, and cosplay. He imagined she’d have her own Etsy shop before too much longer, selling capes. Kyle frowned; it was hard enough getting to know his sister when she was so much younger than he was. He used to wish they were more alike; now he just wished he understood her better.
“Mags,” he whispered again.
“What?” she asked, exasperated.
“What kind of cookie are you going to get?”
“Kyle. Leave me alone.”
“But I’m a grown-up. I can’t get away with reading at the town meeting.”
“And that’s my problem why?”
His mother elbowed him, and Kyle resigned himself to listening to the meeting.
“The Save Our Bridge campaign kicks off tonight, and all the proceeds go directly to saving the Manfield bridge. The county seems to think that it’s a hazard, but if we can raise the money, they’ll allow us to retrofit it and save this piece of Timber Falls history. We’ve made T-shirts to create awareness, so let us know what size you’d like, and it’s twenty-five dollars apiece.” Councilman Rogers held up the shirt, which had “S.O.B.” printed on it in block letters. No picture of the bridge, no mention of the campaign.
“We’ll take a break now; make sure to sign up when you grab one of Esther Kirschbaum’s peanut butter cookies.”
Kyle edged past his mother, who was talking to Mrs. Price on her other side, toward the center aisle. Ainsley was involved in a conversation with Jennie Wallace, and he took the opportunity to look her up and down, just because he loved looking at her. But his gaze caught on her forearm; that was a nasty scratch. How did she do that? Does she own an animal? He eavesdropped as he tried to figure out which chocolate chip cookie had the most chips.
“What’d you do to your arm?”
Ainsley shrugged. “Build accident.”
“Are you still doing that?” Jennie asked. “Geez, I thought you’d have given that up ages ago.”
“It’s for a good cause. I like spending time with my dad. He likes building. And I’m good at it.”
“Well,” said Jennie, “you’re coming out with us on Saturday.” Ainsley started to shake her head, but Jennie spoke over her nonverbal objection. “Yes, you are. You never do anything. You keep to yourself too much.”
“Just because I’m not with you and the other girls in town doesn’t mean I’m alone.”
“Committees do not count as a social life.”
“And yet, they keep me very busy . . .”
Kyle cleared his throat, which was too full of cookie, and reached for a cup of water. Jennie, attuned as she was to every single male in her vicinity, turned to him.
“Do my eyes deceive me, or is Kyle Durand attending a town function voluntarily?”
He gave her a polite nod. “I heard there were cookies and inappropriate T-shirts, and I couldn’t miss that.” He glanced at Ainsley’s left hand: no ring. Maybe it was getting sized. No tan line, either, though. But if it was very new, there wouldn’t be. Or she could be allergic to certain metals.
She smirked at him, but Jennie cocked her head.
“T-shirts? What?”
Kyle glanced at Ainsley; he sometimes struggled with nonverbals, but the obvious twinkle in her eye told him she’d gotten the joke.
“Never mind.” Councilman Rogers was coming back up to the front. “You ladies have a good evening.”
“Wait, Kyle.” Jennie touched his arm. He didn’t care for casual touching, and he knew his face was probably broadcasting that. “Ainsley and I are going to go get a drink tomorrow night at Annie’s. Why don’t you come out with us?”
Usually, work was a convenient excuse not to get dragged to social activities. This time, he was available, but he had zero interest in going to a loud, smelly bar, especially when he saw Ainsley shift her weight and look away uncomfortably. Why is she uncomfortable? Probably afraid that she’d be a third wheel while Jennie flirts with me all night. Not an unlikely scenario.
“I can’t. Sorry.” Councilman Park was clearing his throat up front. Kyle hurried back to his seat, and his mother patted his knee approvingly. “What was that for?”
“You’re talking to young women.”
“So?”
“So I want more grandkids. That’s step one.”
“More? You’ve still got Mags in the house. Just cool your jets, lady.”
“Ugh. No one says that,” Maggie said, shifting away from him so that their shoulders weren’t touching, as if disgusted by being associated with him in any way.
“Radical, Mags. Neato.”
“You’re the worst.” But she was smiling, and Kyle grinned back at her. His mother passed him a clipboard.
“What’s this?”
“Sign-ups for the events you’ve been ignoring.”
Councilman Park was still talking. “There is a single clipboard coming around with several different sign-up sheets, for those interested. There’s one for the Turkey Trot, one for the Habitat for Humanity build that’s happening in Stayton—that’s an ongoing project—and one for the bridge committee. All participants on the committee get a free T-shirt.” Is that how Ainsley got that nasty scratch? It fit with the rest of the discussion he’d overhead between her and Jennie. Building. A good cause. He looked it over. Yeah, it was kind of a long drive, but it was only half a day, and he had Saturdays off this month. He unhooked the pen from the top of the clipbo
ard and signed up for the build.
It was only once he’d passed the clipboard that he remembered that he knew less than nothing about construction, and he’d failed to put down his contact info for the Turkey Trot.
CHAPTER FIVE
AFTER SCHOOL, AS WAS her habit, Ainsley walked Aiden and Emily to the Rachel Rutherford Memorial Library in the center of town. Starla hadn’t asked her to, but she knew it made her friend feel better to have an adult with them, and besides, they were sweet kids.
“Big plans tonight, guys?”
“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.”
Ainsley shifted uncomfortably. “You know Mr. Grant has depression; he’s been out of work a long time. It’s not her fault. And a purple coat in her size with a fox on it—her favorite animal—just fell into my cart while I was at Walmart. Can I help that, Starla? Huh? Can I?”
>
Starla just laughed quietly, shaking her head again. “You’re the next Hattie, you know.” At the mention of the town’s unofficial mayor, Ainsley cackled.
“I don’t have the clout to be the next Hattie.”
“Why do you think it’s a her?” Sawyer’s deep voice startled Ainsley. Then again, her cousin was kind of that way: he was too used to being alone.
“Why do I think who’s a her? Hattie?”
“No, your book fairy. How did you gender her?”
Starla shrugged one shoulder. “It’s mostly romance. Hardly any thrillers in the mix. Sometimes we get some women’s fiction, I guess I just assumed . . .”
He nodded sagely. “I see. So you made broad assumptions based on stereotypes.”
She steepled her fingers, leaning forward. “Who do you think the book fairy is?”
“Don’t know, don’t care.” He set down his stack of books. “And neither should you.”
“Doesn’t it bother you?” Starla hissed, pulling the stack toward her indignantly. “Not knowing?”
Sawyer crossed his arms. “Nope. I like a good mystery. Knowing the end isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.” That statement made Ainsley’s heart hurt more than a little. Sawyer’s life wasn’t turning out quite the way he’d planned it lately, and she felt terrible for him. Her mom and Aunt Rhea were always saying how he was doing fine considering, but she knew from their whispered kitchen conversations that stopped abruptly when she entered the room that they were worried about him.
Starla rolled her eyes. “Of course you do. You practically live to defy convention. You are a mystery.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” He grinned, reclaiming his stack. “See you next Thursday.”
“With shorter hair, hopefully,” Starla said, nudging her tortoiseshell glasses back up her nose with a smile.