Crime and Periodicals: Green Valley Library Book #2

by Romance, Smartypants

  Wyatt’s wink was irresistible even when he directed it at someone else. The only words going through my brain right now were blargh, guh, and blurg. I needed some real words, and soon.

  He watched the girls run over to the picnic area for a second before he turned that dimple my way and I sighed. Sweet, sweet mercy, this was impossible. I could feel him in my heart, my brain was full of mush, and my stomach was doing freaking flips inside my body.

  Melissa’s little voice snapped me out of my perusal of her father. My eyes shot to the bench where Harry sat with his leaves. “Hi. What’s your name?” she said to him.

  He had two handfuls of colorful leaves and was studying them with the utmost concentration. I fought the instinct to answer for him or to explain how he was. His therapist and teachers said he should have the opportunity to speak for himself. I could admit that it was not always easy for me to let him. Fighting my overprotective tendencies was always a challenge.

  “What’s your name?” he repeated without looking up from the leaves.

  She giggled. “My name is Melissa. What’s your name?”

  “Name,” he repeated softly.

  She giggled harder, then bent forward and put her face in front of his. “You’re funny. I’m Mel. Who are you?”

  Finally, he looked at her. “Harry James Adams,” he said as his eyes wandered over her face and then over her bright, bouncy red curls. His mouth dropped open. “Red,” he whispered reverently, then leaned his face to the side of her head to softly rub his cheek against her hair.

  I stepped toward them to make him stop. Harry always did that to Weston after a fresh haircut when his hair felt spiky and soft. But Weston was his big brother and understood Harry. Mel was just a little girl, and still a stranger to him.

  “It’s okay,” Wyatt said, softly putting a hand on my shoulder to stop me. “He’s fine. See?”

  I watched as Melissa sat down next to him with a bemused expression on her cherubic little face. She shook her head gently against his cheek, making the curls bounce, and Harry sighed. She glanced up at Wyatt with a smile. I watched him smile back at her.

  And no, it did not escape my notice that his hand was on my shoulder. I was about to join Harry on sensory overload thank you very much.

  “Does he have sensory sensitivities?” Makenna asked me.

  I jumped, and a nervous laugh escaped me as she popped out from behind a sweetgum tree with a handful of stacked colorful leaves.

  “A kid in my class is like that. He sits at my table. I’m his buddy during social studies. Except he likes to rub erasers on his face, not people’s hair. I always make sure he gets a clean one,” she explained. She crossed to the bench to sit on the other side of Harry. He glanced up at her then laughed with delight when she leaned her head—with equally beautiful, bouncy red curls to match her little sister—onto his other cheek.

  “Red,” he whispered. “Who are you?”

  “Makenna,” she answered, “Mak.”

  “MakandMel,” Harry said, running the names all together as if they were one word. They continued to sit on either side of Harry and chatted about the leaves with him.

  I gulped back the sob and the laugh that were threatening to come out at the same time. Tears filled my eyes, and I blinked a few times to make them stop. My heart was about to burst wide open.

  Wyatt noticed. He squeezed my shoulder gently and stepped closer to my side.

  Of course, Harry had friends—the same kids he’d been attending school with since kindergarten. They understood each other because most of them shared the same issues. This was different. This whole entire day had been unusual. I would probably freak out about it later, but for now I was okay. I looked up at Wyatt, who was smiling softly down at me. I reminded myself to look him in the eye like a normal person.

  “They’re good girls,” he simply said.

  “Yes. They are wonderful. You must be a good dad to have such sweet daughters.”

  “I try my best. That’s part of why I moved back to Green Valley. It’s quiet here. I can spend more time with them, and less time working.”

  “Riri! Look at me, Riri,” Harry called.

  I looked back in his direction. They were all three side by side, heads pressed together, jeans-clad legs all in a row, sorting the leaves.

  “Red is soft,” he informed me. “Red is nice.”

  “Red is beautiful,” I agreed and smiled at him and the girls.

  Wyatt’s cell rang in his pocket. He frowned. “I have to take this. Could be work.”

  I nodded and stepped away. “Who wants to swing?” I asked the kids.

  “I do, I do. But, only five times,” Harry answered. “Then I want to slide.”

  Mel giggled. “Harry, you’re so silly.”

  He looked at her. “How many times do you want to swing?” he asked.

  “Until I can feel the sky,” she said and ran for the swings.

  He tilted his head. “I would like to feel the sky.”

  “Y’all are both silly.” Mak rolled her eyes, yet she still followed them to the swings.

  I hobbled through the grass on my toes, then onto the bark chips that filled the playground on the other side of the picket fence. I pushed the kids on their respective swings for a few minutes until Wyatt turned back to us and headed our way.

  “Girls, I have to take you back to Grandma’s house. There was a bad car accident on the highway, and I need to go help.”

  “Okay, Daddy,” Mak said.

  “Did you feel it, Harry?” Mel yelled as she ran the few feet separating us from the fence and took Wyatt’s hand.

  “I felt it!” he shouted back from the top of the slide. “And you can really feel it up here.”

  Mel jumped up and down and waved at Harry and me as she stood next to Wyatt clutching his hand. When she had finished waving, and was seemingly satisfied with our waves back, she twirled around and around, passing under his arm after each twirl, giggling like a demented ballerina.

  Wyatt chuckled at Mel’s antics before turning to me. “Sabrina.” His voice was low and rough. It tickled over my skin like a caress; goose bumps rose in its path.

  I couldn’t have prevented the shiver that moved through my body even if I tried. My name, spoken from those lips. I would do anything to hear it again. He was different from anyone I had ever met. I wanted to know more about him. But I also started to feel like I wanted him to know me and I couldn’t understand why—I never felt that way before. I looked up at him. “Yes?”

  “I’ll see you soon, darlin’—at the library. Don’t forget.” He grinned and gave me the standard hot guy two-fingered salute/wave as he turned, and hand in hand walked with his daughters to his car parked near mine in the lot.

  “Okay,” I whispered to his retreating back. “I won’t forget.” As if I could forget. I would think of nothing but the possibility of him asking me out again until he actually asked me out. Then I would freak the heckerooni out until I had turned into a drooling pile of dead brain cells on the floor.

  “Bye, Miss Sabrina,” Mak called out, arms full of the gathered leaves for their grandmother.

  “Bye, girls,” I called back. I glanced back and forth between Harry and Wyatt’s car until he drove away. Then I stood there, lost in thought once more, and watched Harry go down the slide. He usually only slid fifteen times, but today he did seventeen before he ran over to me. He had forgotten to count. Naomi was right; change is in the air.

  “I like Mak and Mel,” Harry said from the bench where he was gathering his leaves, one of each color he could find.

  “I like them too. Maybe you can go to the next story hour. What do you think?”

  “I would like to try. I wish my other friends could go too.”

  Realization dawned on me. “Is that what upset you today? Did Ms. Allen talk to you about going to Green Valley Grade School?”

  He nodded.

  His teacher believed that he was ready to enter a mainstream class
room, and we had agreed she could broach the subject with him today. Of all the things to forget about. I sighed.

  “It won’t be until January, after Christmas break. You have plenty of time to think about it and decide if you are ready,” I assured him.

  “I will miss them.” His eyes filled with tears and my heart lurched.

  Why couldn’t I protect him from everything?

  “I know, baby. But they will always be your friends. No matter where they are.”

  Oh, how I wished that were true. Life had told me otherwise though. People always drifted away, no matter how hard you tried to hold on to them.

  He smiled up at me. “Okay, Riri.”

  “Time to go get the chicken,” I said and held my hand out to him.

  Chapter Five

  Sabrina

  I pulled into Genie’s parking lot with a deep breath and a scowl. It was my turn to get the chicken for our weekly family dinner tonight. A few months ago, my father added me to the family rotation for dinner pickups. He thought it would be good for me to “Get out of the house,” “Go into town and have some fun,” “Meet people your own age,” and my favorite—"Quit hiding your sunshine, sweet pea.” I had no sunshine and I enjoyed hiding. My favorite hiding spot was on my bed with a good book. Or the pasture behind our house at the ranch, with a good book. My father had been saying stuff like that to me for years, and I’d managed to avoid doing any of it. When my therapist started to parrot the same stuff my father had been telling me, I knew I was in trouble. I also knew—way deep down—that they were right, and I had to make a change. But knowing I had to do it and doing it were not the same. I was a shy hermit prone to fits of anxiety. I was a hot mess of insecurity and doubt, wrapped up in a cozy blanket of fear.

  What all that digressive, meandering brain dump meant was that it was my turn to go inside, order, and wait for the food. That’s it. No big deal, right?

  I didn’t have much to worry about from a realistic standpoint. Genie was a nice lady. She knew my father—everyone in town knew my father, and everybody loved him. No one would dare be mean to Dr. Roy Logan’s daughter. But from the standpoint of my brain, AKA Crazytown, I would go in there and be struck with some kind of humiliating disaster, and possibly die from embarrassment. It could happen.

  All I needed to do was ask for “number two,” the fried chicken dinner. I took a deep, shaky breath.

  Number two, number two. What would Sienna Diaz do?

  Not have a panic attack over fried chicken like a dummy, that’s for sure.

  “Are you okay, Riri?” Harry asked.

  His voice startled me out of my thoughts, and I jumped in my seat. “What? Yes. Are you ready?” This was good for both of us. Harry and I—we shared some issues. I got nervous around people and Harry got overstimulated by the noise.

  Lucky for us, four o’clock in the afternoon on a weekday was not a busy time at Genie’s. In fact, it was dead right now—only one other car in the lot. Saturday night was the time folks liked to come see and be seen at Genie’s. I would never come here on a Saturday night. I shuddered at the mere thought of it.

  Genie’s was a country western bar. Genie just happened to serve the best fried chicken in the world, and my family was addicted to it. Almost as much as we were addicted to our Daisy’s Nut House doughnut Saturday mornings. Lucky for me I hadn’t been penciled in to the rotation for Daisy’s pick-ups—not yet anyway. Everyone in town knew that the Winston brothers were regulars at Daisy’s Nut House, and they were all just too fine for words. Especially Roscoe. He used to push me on the swings in kindergarten. He was sweet. But after my mother died, my father put me in private school starting in the first grade, and that was the end of that. My father told me Roscoe was with Miss Daisy’s daughter now. I used to play with Simone too. I wonder if they’d remember me.

  Enough dillydallying. I grabbed my purse and got out of my Jeep. I leaned against the side for a second to gather what remained of my wits. I spun around to let Harry out and had to laugh at his little face pressed up against the glass smiling at me. His hazel eyes, just like mine and his momma’s, twinkled with laughter.

  “Let’s go, let’s go,” he said. I remembered his goal to eat half a bite of chicken tonight and opened the door. If Harry wanted to eat half a bite of chicken, then by Godric Gryffindor I could dang well order it for him.

  Number two, fried chicken dinner, number two.

  “Let’s do this,” I said and took his hand. We walked up the mound of gravel that led up to the front door. Both of us froze in our tracks right in front of it. My heart started pounding hard. I glanced down at Harry; he looked nervous too. I had to be the grown up, I had to pretend to be okay. “Come on, it’s fine. It doesn’t sound too loud in there. I can’t even hear any music this time.”

  He nodded and clutched my hand.

  My father was right. This was good for us. It was. “The more you do, the easier it will be to do more, sweet pea.” He always said that to me. Reluctantly, I had to admit he was right.

  I smiled down at Harry and pushed the door open. We stepped into the old-timey wood paneled entryway with coat hooks along the sides. There were no coats on the hooks, which should mean few people inside the bar. I took a deep breath and looked around for Genie. I had talked to her before, I could do it again. I tried to swallow, but my mouth had gone dry.

  “It’s not loud,” Harry said, pleased. His grip eased up on my hand.

  I looked down and answered his smile with a small one of my own. “We’re okay,” I whispered. I closed my eyes briefly, trying to convince myself. I inhaled a huge breath. My heart felt like it was in my throat. I exhaled slowly through my mouth.

  Fried chicken dinner, number two. Easy.

  We stepped around a table next to the empty dance floor, so we could cross to the bar on the right. I didn’t see Genie behind the bar. I might have to talk to someone new. I stopped and took a glance at the booths that lined the perimeter; maybe she was over there.

  Mistake!

  Oh my God!

  There were Winstons at the table in the corner, two of them. Plus Drew Runous, Ashley Winston’s husband. Drew looked like a Viking, straight off the cover of a romance novel. I used to have a tiny (massive) crush on him. Sometimes he attended poetry night at the library. If I was at work during the readings, I would lurk in the horror section and listen (watch him like a creeper).

  Don’t look at Drew—concentrate. Fried chicken dinner, number two.

  Harry pointed to their table. “He has red hair,” he stated.

  “Shh, I know. It’s okay,” I shushed gently.

  Cletus Winston and one of the redheaded Winston twins were over there. The redhead had to be Beau; Duane was hardly ever in town anymore. Beau always did the tune-ups on my Jeep. I’d spoken to him a few times. He was very nice, and not at all scary. He had a friendly smile. Cletus was nice too. He made lots of requests for books at the library—always about weird and varied subjects—if I weren’t such a big scaredy-cat I’d ask him just what in the Sam Hill tarnation he needed with all those strange books. But I just wrote them down and ordered them. I suspected he requested the books from me because he knew I wouldn’t say anything about it and gosh darn it, if didn’t that make me even more curious.

  Bottom line—I did not need more hot guy attention today. Wyatt had already done my head in. I was operating on brain fumes. I needed to get home so I could lie down. I needed to ponder and ruminate. I needed to figure out how I had talked to Wyatt at the park so I could do it again if he came into the library to ask me out for a date.

  I tugged gently on Harry’s hand and turned to step in the direction of the bar, but instead I stepped right into Roscoe Winston. Gah! Where had he come from? The bathroom? I stumbled back and he held my arms so I wouldn’t fall.

  Great bearded Hagrid, what was going on? What kind of twisted, messed up luck was putting so many people in my path today?

  “Sabrina Logan!” he said. He remember
ed me. Aw, how nice.

  “Number two,” I blurted.

  Number two…that’s poop.

  I immediately shut my eyes.

  As if that could really make you disappear, dummy.

  I opened one eye, just to peek.

  I opened my mouth and my trademark nothing came out. I bit my lip. I just knew my face had turned as red as Beau Winston’s hair.

  “Wow, you’re just the same,” he said with a huge smile.

  “Hi,” Harry said.

  “Hey there.” Roscoe smiled down at him.

  “Sabrina! Sugar, your daddy called. I have your order ready and it’s all paid for,” Genie called to me from behind the bar. I spun in her direction to see her waving and smiling.

  “Bye,” I said to Roscoe and started walking to the bar.

  “Bye, Sabrina.” He smiled and laughed. Not mean. He wasn’t being mean, I knew that. But he laughed. At me. Because I was funny. I was weird.

  I made it to the bar to get my order. I think I said thank you. I took the food. One bag full of fried chicken and one low-sided box holding the mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, and a paper bag full of biscuits and honey butter. One foot in front of the other. I could do this. I just needed to get the heck out of here so I could go home and lie down.

  I whirled around. “Come on, Harry,” I said and glanced down at him.

  He nodded and started to follow me toward the door.

  But I was not watching where I was going. Just as I thought I would be able to make it to the exit without further embarrassment, I crashed right into a hard chest attached to a tall body and the box went flying. Biscuits rolled across the floor and the potatoes and gravy landed with a splat and a sploosh. I gasped in horror. This was a nightmare. This was terrible. This was like all my greatest fears just took a number freaking two right on top of my head.

  “Oh, Riri,” Harry said and looked at the floor. “Oh, no. It is a big mess. No, I mean it is a super huge mess.” He got on his hands and knees and started crawling after the biscuits.