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“Anyway, here’s your cat.”
He tried to hand the little beast to Julia, but once more she clung to him and yowled her protest. “Sorry. Apparently she likes me.”
“Of course she does,” Julia muttered darkly. “She likes you and she hates me. They all hate me.”
He heard a little thread of despondency in her voice that troubled him.
“Who all hates you?” He had to ask.
“The cats. My mother’s cats. Audrey hates me the least, I guess. Empress and Tabitha despise me.”
“I’m sure that’s not true,” he answered, with no other idea of what to say in this circumstance.
“It is true. All they do is turn up their noses like they’re too good to even notice me. It’s not fair. I feed them, I house them, I clean up their... Well, you know. You would think they might show a little gratitude.”
“Cats aren’t exactly known to be overflowing in appreciation for others.”
“I know, right? They act like I should be the grateful one that they’re letting me clean up after them. Seriously. It’s so unfair.”
She glared at him, as if the temperament of the entire feline species was his fault. “Look at her. I should have known Audrey would love you. Everything female does.”
What was he supposed to make of that particular statement? Was he supposed to apologize? He also wasn’t quite sure what he should do about his tipsy landlady. He didn’t feel right about leaving her alone in this condition.
On the other hand, he barely knew the woman. For all he knew, maybe she went on a bender every Monday night.
He didn’t think so, though. Julia Winston struck him as someone who rarely let herself unwind.
While he was trying to figure out his best response, she apparently decided she was done talking with him.
“Come on, Audrey. Let’s go.”
She stepped closer, and he caught the scent of apples and pears and cinnamon, with a heady undertone of white wine. As she reached out again to take the cat from him, her hands brushed his chest. Was it his imagination or did they linger there a little longer than strictly necessary as she tried to scoop up the reluctant animal?
That tentative touch combined with the awareness he had seen in her gaze earlier sent heat curling through him.
Seriously? He was starting to be turned on by his half-drunk, stuffy librarian?
Only because it had been way too long since he’d had a woman’s soft, warm hands anywhere on his body, he told himself.
She didn’t look much like a stuffy librarian now, with that soft hair slipping free and her cheeks pink and her little tongue darting out to lick her bottom lip.
Somehow seeing this unexpectedly unbuttoned side of her was more sensual than if she’d shown up at his door wearing sexy lingerie.
The cat still didn’t seem inclined to leave his arms, but between his efforts and Julia’s, they managed to extricate her. Julia set the cat down, and after a moment, the animal sauntered inside, probably to share her evening adventure with the other two cats.
Julia frowned after her.
“Sorry if she bothered you.”
“She didn’t. I like cats.”
“Of course you do,” she said, that grumpy tone in her voice again. She gave a heavy sigh. “Why do you have to be so gorgeous? It’s not fair.”
The inappropriate attraction he heroically had been trying to suppress slithered back as if someone had set a match to a detonating wire.
“It’s not?” he said stupidly.
She shook her head so vigorously that more hair came loose from her messy bun. “No. Can’t you do something about that? I mean, I wouldn’t want you to have a disfiguring accident or something. That would be horrible. A scar, maybe. Something that would make you not quite so...perfect.”
He wasn’t perfect. Far from it.
“Maybe I could develop adult-onset acne,” he suggested.
The scowl disappeared as her eyes widened with approval. “Yes! That would be great.”
He laughed. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“See? You’re so nice. That’s why all the girls like you so much. The girl people and the girl cats.”
He laughed again, more intrigued than he had been by a woman in a long, long time. Maybe living upstairs from the town librarian wouldn’t be such a hardship, after all.
“Thanks for that. Are you going to be okay? I’m not sure I feel right about leaving you alone in your...condition.”
“What’s my condition?” She narrowed her gaze at him like a confused baby owl.
“Sleepy. The best thing for you right now, trust me, is to get some rest.”
As if his words had planted the seed, she yawned suddenly. “I am tired. I guess you’re right.”
“Good night, Ms. Winston.”
“You can call me Julia. If you want to.”
As she stood with her hand on the door and her hair falling loose, she looked vulnerable and alone and a little lost.
He had the odd thought that the two of them just might be kindred spirits.
The moment the idea entered his brain he pushed it violently away. Kindred spirits? He and an uptight, prickly librarian?
How stupid was that?
“You got it, Julia. And I’m Jamie.”
“I know,” she whispered.
He had to get out of here before he did something stupid.
“Good night.”
He started to close the door behind her, but she stuck her foot it in and stood with her face wedged between the door and the frame. “Wait. If we were on a date, you would kiss me.”
Her lips suddenly seemed eminently kissable, plump and pink and delicious looking. What would she do if he pulled the rest of her wayward hair down, buried his hands in it and pressed her back against that door?
She was impaired, he reminded himself.
“Maybe. If you wanted me to.”
“I would,” she whispered.
She was impaired, plus she was a stodgy librarian and totally not his type, he reminded himself. Still, he couldn’t help wondering what it would be like to taste her.
Because she looked so lonely and because he tried to be that nice guy to girl people and girl cats alike, he leaned in and kissed her forehead.
“Good night, Julia. Sleep well.”
She gave a wistful-sounding sigh and closed the door.
Heart pounding far more than it should be, Jamie headed for the stairs.
Julia Winston was trouble.
Who would have guessed? His tight-laced, no-nonsense landlady had a core of passion and heat inside of her. The man who could unleash that would be very lucky, indeed.
He wasn’t that man. He could never be—no matter how hard he might wish otherwise.
CHAPTER FOUR (#u87ed92cc-3926-5cf6-af7f-a8b2ba8b44a8)
“HOW ARE YOU holding up, my dear?”
Julia managed a half smile for Barbara Serrano as she scanned her pile of library books into the system.
“I’m here and I’m breathing. That’s something, right?”
Barbara laughed. “That sangria was lethal. Trust Roxy to get us all hammered, right before Thanksgiving. I haven’t had a hangover since my sorority days.”
The very dignified restaurant owner still didn’t appear to have a hair out of place. Lucky.
“I’m doing okay so far. Over the last few hours, my headache has slipped down to this sucks level, which is a big improvement from this morning’s, when I thought I was going to have to borrow a power drill to relieve the pressure in my skull.”
Barbara chuckled. “It was a fun night, though, wasn’t it? I hope we weren’t too loud for your new neighbor.”
At the reminder of Jamie, the vague, unsettling feeling that had been haunting her all day returned with a vengeance.
She couldn’t seem to shake the feeling that something...untoward had happened with him the night before.
She had these odd snippets of memory, and she wasn’t sure if they were real or some fantasy-fueled dream. She could picture him, clear as day, standing on her stairs in his bare feet, holding a cat.
Would she have conjured that up out of her imagination? Possibly. But what about the masculine scent of him, bergamot and cedar with a little hint of cloves? Why did that seem so clear in her memory bank?
Worse than that, somehow the words Jamie and kiss had become intertwined in her mind. That was ridiculous, of course. Wasn’t it?
She hadn’t seen the man the night before. She was almost positive of it. But then, she only had loose recollections of the evening from about her fourth sangria on.
She hoped with all her heart that she was imagining those little flickers of memory. It would have been beyond humiliating if Jamie had seen her in that condition.
“How are your tatted snowflakes coming for the booth at the Lights on the Lake festival?” Barbara asked.
“Fine,” she lied.
The truth was, while she had loved the craft she learned from Mariah—the delicate knots and rings with thread to make lace—lately she had struggled to summon any enthusiasm. Sitting in her huge Victorian with her cats and her tatting made her feel so old and spinsterish.
“Can you believe it’s Thanksgiving in two days and then all the holiday craziness is upon us?” Barbara’s eyes gleamed with an anticipation that made Julia tired.
“Where did the year go?” she asked rhetorically. She knew too well. It went to working, dealing with the house, fixing the furnace, visiting her mother, then arranging her mother’s estate after her death.
“Are you sure you won’t come over for dinner?” Barbara asked when Julia finished checking out her books. “We’ll have a full house and would love one more.”
“Thank you again for the kind offer but I’ll be fine. I’m already signed up to help out at the nursing home. I’m taking Muriel Randall.”
“Oh, that will be good for her.”
The place in Shelter Springs where her mother had spent her last few months had several patrons without families. Julia didn’t love it there but also couldn’t bear the thought that anyone might feel alone.
“Well, I’d better run,” Barbara said after they chatted a bit more. “I would love to finish a few chapters of that new Nora Roberts book before some of our houseguests show up in the morning.”
“Enjoy,” she said.
Julia was busy most of the afternoon with patron questions and checkouts. She answered three phone calls to the reference desk, asking how to thaw a turkey. There would be more the next day, she suspected.
By early evening, her headache had abated, leaving just an echo of throbbing.
She made the rounds to the few groups of teenagers at the study tables to make sure they knew the library would be closing soon. When she rounded a corner of the stacks, she found Davy and Clinton, the boys from the day before, quietly playing a card game at a table.
She hadn’t seen them come in. Perhaps they had entered the library when she had been taking a break.
Both boys looked up with wary expressions when she headed in their direction.
“Hi, Davy. Hi, Clinton. How are you boys this evening?”
Davy gave a dramatic sigh. “I’m hungry, but Clint says he’ll make me another peanut butter sandwich when we have to go home.”
That particular statement disturbed her on several levels. Julia tried to conceal her reaction. Where were their parents? From what she had seen firsthand and from what she had inferred from Davy’s comments, it seemed Clint was doing more parenting than an eight-year-old boy should.
Something was going on here, but she had no idea how to figure out what or how to fix it. She did know Davy was hungry, and she had the means to remedy that.
“You know,” she said casually, “I happen to have a sandwich in the back. It’s turkey instead of peanut butter, but I think you’ll find it quite tasty.”
“Really?” The little boy’s eyes lit up. “I thought we weren’t s’posed to eat in the library.”
