Good Girls Do

by Linz, Cathie

  “No.”

  “You can’t be saying you approve of that sort of thing.”

  “What sort of thing?”

  “Well, comic books. He could be selling pornography for all we know.”

  “Oh, we’d know. We send in people to check things out.”

  “People?”

  “The mayor’s brother.”

  Mabel’s carefully plucked and penciled eyebrows rose. “Phil the dentist reads comic books?”

  “He’s posing as a fan to keep an eye on the situation.”

  “Well, that’s a relief.”

  “Don’t you worry about a thing, Mabel.” Edith patted her hand. “Your town council is hard at work for you and has everything under control.”

  “You don’t have Luke Maguire under control.”

  “No. I fear that is an impossible task. But we’re still working on it.”

  “It looks like he has a thing for the librarian.”

  Edith nodded. “I understand he’s been spotted kissing her once or twice.”

  “Twice? I only know about the one time at the Wiener Races.”

  “Yes, that was quite a . . . situation. Nothing Mr. Darcy would have done, making a scene like that.”

  “Who’s Mr. Darcy? Does he work at the funeral home?”

  “No, he’s the hero in Pride and Prejudice.” Edith tapped the video box.

  “Oh. I never saw the movie.”

  “What about reading the book?”

  “They made it into a book, too?”

  “Never mind.”

  “Wait!” Mabel grabbed Edith’s wrist to stop her from leaving. “What about the second kiss you were talking about?”

  “Mrs. Selznick was taking her dog Terminator for a walk and claims she might have seen them on Julia’s front porch.”

  “Them?”

  “Julia and Luke.”

  “What were they doing?”

  “Well, it was getting dark by then so she couldn’t be sure, but it looked like they might have been kissing. Don’t say you heard it from me, however.”

  “I won’t. When did this happen?”

  “A few days ago.” Edith shook her head. “I thought Julia had more sense than that.”

  “Who’s Julia? Is she in Pride and Prejudice, too?”

  “No, Julia is the librarian,” Edith said impatiently.

  “Oh. Right. I knew that. Sometimes it’s hard to keep up, though.”

  “Just remember, you didn’t hear any of this from me.”

  “Got it.”

  Julia loved the holidays. She loved decorating the library with snowflakes and putting up the Christmas tree with book-shaped ornaments made by Friends of the Library.

  And it wasn’t just the festivities at work that warmed her heart. She loved the traditional lighting of the town Christmas tree in the town square and all the thousands of tiny white twinkling lights adorning the bare trees around the park and along Main Street. Serenity Falls was definitely in a festive mood this time of year.

  She couldn’t believe that the past two weeks had gone by so quickly. Now that the llamas were no longer in her backyard, her mom was spending more time on the road going to visit them. Angel and Skye had started their yoga and belly-dancing classes at Julia’s house during the day, and those seemed to be going well.

  Thanksgiving had gone smoothly. Toni hadn’t bitten anyone, and the tofurkey had been . . . interesting.

  Meanwhile, Luke hadn’t contacted her once. He’d kissed her until her kneecaps melted and then disappeared.

  Well, not disappeared. She knew he was at Maguire’s. It wasn’t as if he’d skipped town or anything.

  He just hadn’t seen her. Or kissed her.

  Why not?

  A gutsy woman would go over there and find out, not sit here at the library’s reference desk, pushing around papers.

  It wasn’t as if Julia didn’t have things to do. She did. Three issues of Booklist sat there waiting for her to go through them and make selection choices. And she had to check her e-mail to see if there had been any responses to the post she’d put on the Fiction-L listserv asking for read-alike recommendations for a reader who liked the Mrs. Pollifax mystery series. She also had to check on the status of those READ posters she’d ordered from the American Library Association online store. Plus there was a presentation on holiday quilting tomorrow night that she was supposed to get organized with additional reading material and handouts for those attending. And the holiday cookbook bookcart needed refilling.

  But she couldn’t seem to concentrate on any of that.

  If she wasn’t going to think about work, she should at least be thinking about Christmas lists and things she still had to do. There were holiday cards to address and mail. Cookies to mix and bake. Presents to buy and wrap.

  Yet here she sat, restlessly pushing her rolling chair back and forth, staring out the window and thinking about Luke.

  Her plan to punish herself with carrot sticks and bok choy every time he came to mind had worn thin when she’d gotten so badly in the hole that she had to abandon the idea or risk eating the two dreaded veggies every hour of every day for the next six months. That’s how often she’d thought of him lately.

  The man was clearly a bad influence on her. He distracted her. He tempted her. He got to her. He didn’t like gabby women.

  What was that about?

  Who cared?

  She did . . . and that was a problem.

  Two weeks. Luke hated the fact that he knew exactly how many days it had been since he’d kissed Julia. He hated the fact that he hadn’t kissed her again since then. Or gotten her between the sheets.

  He especially hated that he was getting twinges of something stupid like noble regrets. What ever happened to bedding a woman and then forgetting about her? Getting horizontal, vertical, just doing it again and again . . . What was wrong with the two of them having a good time and then moving on?

  “You’ve been cleaning that same glass for ten minutes now,” Adele noted wryly.

  “It was really dirty.”

  “Apparently.”

  He frowned at her. “Don’t you have something important to do in the kitchen?”

  “More important than harassing you? Not at the moment, no.”

  “And that’s another thing. I thought you said a new menu was going to increase business.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Then why is the place empty?”

  “Maybe because it’s only eleven in the morning and we don’t open until noon.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  “That’s okay.” She patted his arm as if he were Billy’s age. “I know you’ve got a lot on your mind.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because you’ve been cleaning a lot of glasses and spending a lot of time doing it. Isn’t that right, Tyler?”

  “Leave me out of this,” Tyler said from the other side of the room where he was eating a meal Adele had prepared for him. “Have you figured out what you want to do about that mural idea I suggested for the side wall in the back room?”

  “Go ahead with it,” Luke said absently, his gaze on the front window where he watched the people walking by. No sign of a belly-dancing librarian though.

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, why not?”

  “Because it’s gonna cost you more money.”

  “How much?”

  Tyler named a figure that made Luke choke.

  “Just seeing if you were still paying attention,” Tyler noted with a rare smile that was there and gone.

  “Very funny,” Luke growled. “I’m surrounded by a pair of comedians today.”

  “Not just today, but every day. Lucky you.” Adele actually pinched his cheek before heading back to the kitchen.

  “Yeah, lucky you,” Tyler said.

  Luke glared at him. “You pinch my cheek and you’re a dead man.”

  “Same here,” Tyler returned dryly. “So what did you want on
this mural of yours?”

  “A naked woman would be fine by me,” he mockingly replied.

  “Okay. Speaking of women . . .”

  “Don’t even bring up the librarian’s name,” Luke warned him.

  “I wasn’t going to. I was going to ask you about her mom, but never mind.”

  “No, go ahead. I don’t mind handing out advice to other guys on how to please the ladies.”

  “Like you’re an expert,” Tyler scoffed.

  “Well, I don’t like to brag but . . .”

  “You’re having regrets.”

  “What?” Luke almost choked again. Did the guy have ESP or something?

  “Me, too.”

  “You? What have you got to have regrets about?”

  “Tons. How about you?”

  “Ditto.”

  “Well, then.”

  “Yeah.” Luke looked away. “Well then . . .”

  “She’s better off without me,” Tyler abruptly stated.

  “Who is?”

  “Julia’s mother.”

  “Why? She doesn’t seem the type who’d be upset by your career choices or uh . . . unusual lifestyle. I mean it’s not as if she’s Suzie Homemaker herself.”

  “She’s an angel.”

  “That’s her name, yeah.”

  “No, I mean she’s an angel. She sees the good in everyone. People like us, you and me, we don’t. We know better.”

  “Yeah, we do,” Luke said slowly, wondering what was going on with Tyler. What had gone on in his past?

  “Glad you agree with me.”

  “You married?” Luke asked.

  “Not anymore.”

  “You got a last name?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Mind telling me what it is?”

  “Yeah.”

  Tyler had insisted on being paid in cash, and Luke had had no problem with that. He knew cash left no paper trails. And he’d suspected that’s why Tyler had wanted things that way.

  But for the first time he wondered if there was something darker going on with the insomniac Rollerblader/handyman.

  Which is why after Tyler left, Luke took the glass of water Tyler had used and wrapped it in a sheet of newspaper until he could get his hands on a fingerprinting kit. It wouldn’t hurt to run Tyler’s prints though the system and see what came up.

  “If you tell me you’ve finished all your Christmas shopping already, I’m going to have to kill you,” Julia warned Pam as the two of them met outside the library after work.

  “There are still one or two things I have to get.”

  “I hate you, you know that, right?”

  “Absolutely.” Pam grinned. “That’s why we’re such good friends.”

  “How have your December weddings been going?”

  “So far, so good. We have two down and two yet to go.”

  Julia looked up at the feathery flakes of snow starting to fall. “Have you heard a weather report?”

  “We’re under a winter storm watch. Five to six inches of snow possible by morning.”

  “Which means we might have a white Christmas.” So far they’d only been teased with a light dusting of snow earlier in the month which had long since melted.

  Julia liked her Christmases to be white. Growing up on the West Coast, she hadn’t had many snowy postcard holidays. Nothing traditional. Her mother often celebrated Winter Solstice with small handmade gifts and told her that Santa was taking advantage of the elves by not paying them decent wages or benefits.

  They would usually attend a midnight Christmas Eve service, going to a different church and denomination each year—Baptist, Catholic, Lutheran, Episcopalian. At other times in the year they’d visited Buddhist temples and Jewish synagogues. Angel was an equal-opportunity believer.

  “We better get going before the snow really piles up,” Pam said.

  Julia had already done some shopping online—ordering books, music, and a few educational toys from Amazon .com, and specialty yarn for her mom from an online knitting store.

  She had no idea what to get for her sister Skye. Or for Pam.

  “How are things going between you and Luke?” Pam asked.

  Julia shrugged. “I haven’t heard from him lately. We’ve both been busy with holiday preparations.”

  “What’s he doing for Christmas?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Ah, ladies.” Walt walked up to them. “Good to see you both. Julia, I meant to tell you that after further consideration, the town council has decided to temporarily shelf the idea of the llamas as prognosticators.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Otherwise, we’re still on track with the preparations for the Best Small Town judges.”

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you if they show up incognito or what?”

  “They have a scheduled visit coming up in April, and they also have an unannounced visit before that. Of course, we already know that Serenity Falls is a great place to live and raise a family. Smart Americans are leaving the crowded metropolitan areas and moving to quiet, peaceful communities such as ours.”

  Since the mishap at the Wiener Races, things had been relatively quiet around town. That made Julia wonder when chaos was going to return—and which one of her family members would be the cause of it.

  Luke looked up from his distributor’s alcohol re-order form to find Skye sauntering into Maguire’s. It was cold enough outside that she should be wearing a coat. Instead, she had what looked like a Peruvian blanket wrapped around her and a weird hat with flaps over her ears.

  “We don’t open for another ten minutes,” he told her.

  “Then you shouldn’t leave the front door unlocked.”

  “You’re right.”

  “But as I’m in here . . .” She paused and deftly settled onto a bar stool. “Angel wants you to come to Christmas dinner.”

  “Angel does? What about your sister?”

  “What about her?”

  “Never mind. Tell your mom thanks but no thanks.”

  “You don’t understand. Saying ‘no’ is not an option.”

  “Why not? Is your mom some kind of New Age mob kingpin or something?”

  “She’s really looking forward to you and Tyler and Algee coming to dinner. You don’t have other plans, do you?”

  “No, but . . .”

  “Good.”

  He glared at her. “Look, I don’t do family dinners.”

  Skye shrugged. “Hey, we’re not your usual family.”

  “Yeah, I noticed that.”

  “You’ve noticed my sister a lot, too. So just look on this as another chance to get in her good graces. Or get her in your bed.”

  “Yeah, you’re definitely not your average family.” He didn’t know many sisters who’d try to get their sibling into bed with a guy.

  “So you are coming to dinner?” Skye asked.

  “No.”

  “How about this? How about we play a hand of poker for it?” She reached for a deck of cards someone had left at the end of the bar. “I win, you come and you get your buddies Tyler and Algee to come, too. You win, and I’ll drop this.”

  Luke paused.

  “Come on. You strike me as a gambling man.”

  Oh, he’d gambled plenty. Right down to his last dime and then some. That’s why he was stuck here in Podunkville. Because he was broke.

  That hadn’t always been the case. He couldn’t pinpoint the exact date when things had gone bad. He’d spent day after day mired in violence and tragedy in a job where one mistake would get you or others killed, losing himself bit by bit, blurring the lines that had once been so clear to him.

  That’s when he’d started gambling, not just with his life but with his money as well. By the time he realized how out of control he was, it was too late. He was broke, in debt up to his eyeballs.

  He’d gotten help and walked away.

  Luke stared down at the cards. They beckoned to him. Tempted him. Like that belly-dan
cing librarian sister of Skye’s. “Just one hand?” he heard himself say.

  Skye slipped off her silly hat and nodded. She looked like a radioactive porcupine with her brilliant neon-red hair spiked up. How much could she know about cards? This was a simple way to make her invitation go away—beat her at cards and get on with it.

  “Okay, you’re on.”

  Five minutes later he stared down at the four of a kind she had laid out on the bar in front of him.

  “Great,” Skye said cheerfully. “We’ll see you at two on Christmas Day.”

  Watching her walk away, Luke had the unmistakable feeling he’d just been played by a pro.

  Chapter Eleven

  “You want me to do what?!” Tyler growled.

  “Come on, don’t make it sound like I’m asking you to strip naked in the middle of town or something,” Luke replied.

  “You might as well.”

  “It’s just a meal. What’s the big deal?”

  “It’s Christmas dinner.”

  Luke nodded. “Yeah, so?”

  “So it’s a big deal.”

  “Look, we have to go.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Skye won the bet between us.”

  “Important word there. The bet was between you and Skye. Nothing to do with me.”

  “Yes, it is. You were included in the invitation.”

  “Why?”

  “How should I know? Because Angel wants you there, I guess.”

  “She said that?”

  “I haven’t talked to Angel.”

  “What about Julia the librarian?”

  “What about her?”

  “Have you talked to her?”

  “Not about this, no.”

  “Why not?”

  “You’re just full of questions, aren’t you?” This time Luke was the one who growled. “Look, do you want to break Angel’s heart by refusing her invitation?”

  The look on Tyler’s face answered that.

  “Right, so I’ll see you there at two on Christmas.” Luke watched Tyler stomp out of Maguire’s. One guest down, one left to go.

  Algee’s only concession to the holiday was a vintage aluminum tree with superhero ornaments hanging from it; superhero action figures placed around it, and red, white, and blue lights surrounding the window.