If You Want It by Kathryn Lively

Author:Kathryn Lively [Lively, Kathryn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Decadent Publishing
Published: 2017-03-10T00:00:00+00:00

***

“Weird.”

Cory stared at the response in his messenger app, unable to decide the tone of Winnie’s refusal to meet up with him. She’d planned to take Marcy out for a beer but gave no suggestion that he should join them, or come by later, or even acknowledge her existence.

No talk soon, no take a rain check. Something was up, and now his paranoia had planted a quickly-blooming seed of doubt. Had he ticked her off in some way? She knew he was coming to the library this morning and therefore wouldn’t make the market. She seemed okay with it.

“Everything okay, Cory?”

He looked up from where he sat in the nearly-empty reference area and greeted Dean Oleson, head librarian and Aaron’s older brother. He’d been a few years ahead of them in school, and Cory rarely saw him during play dates at the Oleson house. He knew from Aaron that Dean had recently taken the position here after a short tenure at the University of Virginia Library. The career moved intrigued Cory—who would leave a high profile college for a place in a small town, especially somebody barely in his forties?

Whatever the reason, Cory suspected Dean knew what he was doing. At the moment, the man with a bit of chub to his cheeks and wire-rimmed glasses protecting his gray eyes sat down with a monthly planner.

“I’m good. Sorry for the interruption.” Cory held up his phone before stuffing it in his back pocket. “I thought I had somewhere to be after this, but my afternoon may have cleared up.”

Hopefully not his night.

“Well, this won’t take long.” Dean turned to a page marked with different colored inks in almost all of the date squares. “We’re thrilled you’d like to volunteer your time at a library event. I know the kids would love to hear about your experiences in the NFL. With school back in session, we get a fair amount of traffic, too.”

The statement seemed to contradict what his mother intimated last night, but Cory figured Dean wouldn’t paint a grim picture. He looked around while the librarian talked, trying to remember the last time he’d come here. Used to be, he only went to a library, school or otherwise, when a homework assignment necessitated it. Beyond that, he hadn’t read for leisure during his school years, or since.

Winnie, though, kept books all over her place. Shelves lined her living room, and he’d found a stack by her couch. She must have devoured them like reaching into a bag for potato chips. Yeah, his mother suggested making the trip here, but Winnie’d had a hand in inspiring his desire to get involved in literacy issues. He wasn’t an avid reader, but a football pro had to be literate to win games.

“We have events scheduled for Halloween, and just before Thanksgiving there’s a regional sci-fi group holding a mini convention in the meeting rooms.” Dean flipped back and forth between the October and November pages. “Every Tuesday, the knitting and crochet club meets, and we have family movie nights on Fridays.

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