Kneading You

by C. S. Poe

  Table of Contents

  Blurb

  Author’s Note

  Text

  More from C.S. Poe

  About the Author

  By C.S. Poe

  Visit Dreamspinner Press

  Copyright

  Kneading You

  By C.S. Poe

  Christopher Hughes is new to the small New England town of Lancaster, New Hampshire. He’s been hired to save an old library from closing, but his obstacles include not only fighting for state funding, but a Selectman who wants to tear the building down in favor of a shopping center.

  Christopher meets Miles Sakasai, a charming tattooed repairman hired to help restore the historical interior. Working in close proximity has both men falling hard for each other, and also provides Christopher an opportunity to learn about Miles’s passion for baking. As it turns out, Miles’s skills in the kitchen may end up being the key to saving the library—but only if his bread can rise to the occasion.

  Author’s Note

  FOR INTERESTED readers, you can check out more love stories featuring the residents of Lancaster, New Hampshire, in Joy and Color of You.

  I RUSHED up the slippery steps of Lancaster’s old library to greet the portly man awaiting me. “I’m sorry I’m late!” I held a hand out. “Christopher Hughes. It’s a pleasure.”

  “Logan Fields,” the man said, shaking with an unnecessarily firm grip. “I’m on the town’s Board of Selectmen. I’m in charge of overseeing our library crisis. Come on inside.” He turned around, used an old skeleton key to unlock the front door, and led the way into the dim interior.

  I had recently moved to the charming town of Lancaster, New Hampshire. No more than ten years ago, they’d outgrown the title of village—everyone was very proud, I was told. I’d spent most of my life in suburbs in the more populated, southern portion of the state. And while it was nice and convenient, I’d always dreamed of living in a small community where folks all knew one another and there was a real sense of closeness.

  I’d certainly found it here.

  But not a job.

  That was a rather elusive beast.

  But such was the way of life in these tiny blips on the map. There were not a lot of job openings on a consistent basis, and so far my options were part-time clerk at the gas station, part-time bagger at the grocery store, or nada. Although I had a college degree, studies in nineteenth-century literature didn’t get you far in a town that required more practical services. I’d been ready to become a bagger too, if it meant paying the rent on time. But then I heard about this.

  The library.

  Lancaster was in a panic after their librarian—a nice old lady who I swear must have been older than the building itself—passed away, and they needed someone to take over.

  Ding, ding, ding! Christopher Hughes, come on down. You’ve won a cozy little position in an antique library! How do you feel?

  I can afford dinner now—I feel great!

  Logan Fields flicked on an old light switch as I shut out the winter day behind us. “Here she is. Pretty old place, isn’t it?”

  It was indeed. The library was small, nothing like I was used to. It was maybe the size of the downstairs of a large house. The woodwork was dark and rich, there were high ceilings, and gorgeous old moldings. I turned, whistling quietly as I took it all in. There was a desk for checkout closer to the wall—with no computer, I noted. An alcove stood just beyond that, completely stuffed with books. To the right of the main area was a closed door, and to the left was the study room—a long table with chairs situated in the middle. Bank lamps with green shades sat positioned on the tabletop, and some old leather-bound books and maps made the space look especially cozy.

  “This is wonderful,” I said.

  Logan nodded. “Our public library has been open for over a hundred and fifty years. It’s been here through thick and thin, and provided for people when they otherwise couldn’t afford to learn.” He turned to look down at me. “You must understand, a lot of folks up here—they don’t have big-paying jobs like in the cities. They live paycheck to paycheck. My kids all came here, growing up.” He looked pained. “This place means a lot to us all.”

  My hands were sweaty in my coat pockets. It felt like I needed to say something, assure him I was capable of the job, if he wanted to hire me, but I kept quiet.

  Logan cleared his throat and patted his belly absently. “Anyway. Our old librarian passed on, as you know, and we need help. The state is looking to pull the funding from this facility.”

  “W-what?” I blurted. “Why?”

  “Money. It’s always about money. Why give a dinky little town like ours resources when they can better pump it into cities where they get more bang for their buck?” Logan huffed. “We need this place spruced up. Show them how vital this library is to the community. If we can show them how much use this place gets….”

  “Do you not have that sort of information on file?”

  Logan gave me a sheepish expression. “To be honest, the job doesn’t pay much, and Beatrice held the position for eons. She didn’t know how to use computers. So all that information is written by hand in her ledgers.”

  “Oh. Well….”

  Logan hurried to a nearby shelf, chose a book at random, and brought it back to me. “See, we don’t have any sort of bar code system for checkout.” He opened to the front page, where there was an old-fashioned library card in the pocket glued to the cover, with handwritten names and dates going as far back as 1947.

  “Holy shit,” I whispered.

  Logan snorted. “Right.” He shut the book and stared at me again. “What I’m asking of you might not be possible. I’ve got no budget for new books or supplies, and I’ve nothing to offer you in terms of support. Your job may very well be short-lived… but we need help. Plus, you’ve got that English degree—”

  I waved my hands. “I don’t have a degree in library science. I mean, I had a part-time job at my college library, but my degree is in literature. Oscar Wilde, Edgar Allan Poe, Mary Shelley—”

  “That’s no matter. None of the librarians in neighboring towns have an MLS either. We’re very small. We don’t necessarily need that sort of credential.”

  I looked around. The building was silent but alive. Over a hundred years of people passing through the arched doorway, of learning and studying. I felt a deep force tugging me to the available position, despite the lack of job security. It was strange. And not smart.

  “I’ll do it,” I answered.

  “You will?” Logan asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you,” Logan said, grabbing both my hands in a vise lock and shaking hard. “Look. This room here”—he pointed at the closed door—“Beatrice shut it down after it came into disrepair, and she stuffed all those books into other places or the storeroom upstairs, beside the kitchenette.” He reached into his wallet and fussed about for a moment before drawing out a business card. “This is the number to our local handyman. This guy always gives me a break on cost, and he’ll fix that room up in a jiffy.”

  “Sure. I’ll call him today,” I said, taking the card.

  “You have my number?” Logan asked.

  I nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  “Good.” He handed me the ring of skeleton keys.

  “Wait, Mr. Fields,” I said as he started to turn away. “How much time? Until the state decides whether to pull funding or not?”

  “About a month.”

  “Oh.”

  Logan smiled, looking like a man brought back from the brink of death. “Godspeed to you, Christopher.” He saw himself out.

  I stood in the middle of the library, listening to the nothingness. I unbuttoned my jacket after a moment and tossed it and my scarf over the bac
k of the chair at the checkout desk. If I had so little time to put this place into working order again, and maintain my job as a result, there wasn’t a moment to waste. I didn’t have anywhere else to be, right? I picked up the landline phone and dialed the number on the card.

  It rang a few times before a deep voice answered. “Hello?”

  “Uhm, hi, is this—” I looked at the card. “—Miles Sakasai?”

  “This is,” he confirmed.

  “Good. Ah, my name is Christopher Hughes. Mr. Fields from the Board of Selectmen gave me your number.”

  Silence.

  “So… I’ve been hired to take over the library and was told to call you for repairs.”

  “What do you need done?”

  Excellent question. I moved around the desk, the phone cord stretching as I walked to the closed door. I tried the knob, but it was locked, so I sifted through my newly acquired keys.

  “Mr. Fields said there was a room that was closed off.” I paused to shove the door open with my shoulder once I got it unlocked. The room was dark and smelled of dust and oldness. I coughed loudly and waved a hand. “Shit.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, sorry,” I replied. “I just got the door open. It looks like a lot of the shelves have broken on the bookcases built into the walls.”

  “Are you going to be at the library all day?” Miles’s voice was a little rough-sounding. Gritty. I liked it a lot.

  “Yeah, I’ll probably be here day and night, by the looks of the place.”

  “I have no other jobs today. I’ll be over soon.” He hung up without another word.

  I removed the receiver from my ear and stared at it. “Okay, then.” I shut the door so the odor wouldn’t permeate the rest of the downstairs, and walked back to the desk to set the phone down.

  There was a staircase near the study room that was roped off, but I pulled it aside and went up. The stairs creaked and groaned loudly with their age, disrupting the beautiful stillness of the library below. I reached the second-floor landing and flipped a light switch on the wall. To the left was a tiny, open space turned into a break room. It had a minifridge, sink, two cupboards, and an old table with mismatched chairs.

  The next room was the bathroom, where I paused to wash some of the dust from my hands. The mirror was old and tarnished with black spots, but the reflection was that of a happy man in his late twenties. Definitely happy against all odds. Something in my gut told me this was my small-town calling. Plus, to be surrounded by books all day?

  Heaven.

  Pure bliss!

  At least I had a basic understanding of library mechanics to rely on from my work-study job. Hopefully it’d be enough for me to get the ball rolling. And if this turned into a permanent position, maybe I could take some official classes on managing a library!

  But one step at a time.

  I patted down my blond hair, which had been disheveled by the wind, and straightened the knot of my tie. I thought I looked pretty snazzy. I’d dressed professionally to meet Mr. Fields because I’d expected to be attending an actual interview. I hadn’t thought I’d be handed the keys to the castle then and there. I wore dark checkered slacks and a black sweater-vest over a white shirt. New black-framed glasses, which was pretty much what the last of my cash was spent on, gave me the scholarly appearance I’d always wanted.

  I finished in the bathroom, found the storeroom Mr. Fields had mentioned, and the boxes and boxes and boxes of books Beatrice had left in there. After a short time of surveying the mess, I realized there was no system in place for what was packed where. Children’s books were mixed in with romance, mixed in with biographies. I ended up on the floor, sifting through boxes and making piles for at least a half an hour, before I heard the heavy door open and close downstairs.

  “Hello?” someone called, his muffled voice drifting upstairs.

  “Crap.” I hastily got to my feet, my back protesting after being hunched over. “Coming! I’ll be right there!” I called, shutting the door and running to the staircase. I sounded like a stampede of kindergarteners coming down the old steps.

  A man stood in the middle of the front room, looking toward the staircase. He was holding a heavy-looking toolbox in one hand while absently unbuttoning his coat with the other.

  Miles Sakasai, I presumed.

  And then I took him in for an extra second, because even though I hadn’t moved here with the intention of settling down with a handsome country boy—well, not right away, at least—there was no way to deny he was an extremely nice-looking man. Miles was a good head taller than me, and was probably a few years older. He had dark hair that was a little messy, like he’d just removed a winter hat prior to coming inside. He had the strong, wiry build of a man comfortable with and accustomed to manual labor.

  Miles smiled and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Mr. Hughes?” he asked, his tone soft but voice so deep, it seemed to vibrate the very walls.

  “Christopher,” I corrected, reaching a hand out.

  “You can call me Miles,” he said, shaking.

  “It’s nice to meet you. Thank you for being able to come out right away.”

  He nodded, set his tool kit down, slid the backpack from his shoulder, and removed his coat. He had on a black T-shirt that showed off toned arms and a built chest. A number of bold and brightly colored tattoos on Miles’s arms caught my gaze.

  I had to admit, I totally crushed on guys with ink.

  When Miles spoke, he said, “I’m a professional, I promise.”

  My head snapped up. “What? Sorry.”

  “The tattoos.”

  “Oh, I—”

  “They make some folks uncomfortable. Older generation, usually.”

  Good job. You’ve offended the guy.

  I felt heat rise from my neck and up to my cheeks. “N-no, I’m sorry. It’s—they’re fine, really.”

  Don’t creep on him!

  Not until after the bookshelves are fixed.

  Miles relaxed, if only slightly. “Okay.”

  Before I could avoid not listening to my own advice, I bolted to the closed door and opened it for him. “So here’s what the room looks like.”

  Miles cocked his head to glance through the doorway before walking to the checkout desk first. He set his coat and backpack neatly on top and took his tool kit to the room with him. He waved a hand in front of his face.

  “I can open a window, if you don’t mind being a bit cold,” I offered.

  “Please.”

  I sidestepped some collapsed shelving and went across the decent-sized room. I unlocked a big window, pushed and shoved, but the window didn’t budge. “The hell? Is this nailed shut?”

  “These old buildings,” Miles said as he put his tool kit down and joined me. “Some have windows that have never been updated.” He pointed to the thick rope that slid the window up and down. “See? You just need to give it an extra nudge.” Miles shoved the window hard, and with a protesting groan, it went up.

  “Ah-ha.” I nodded, glancing up at him. “Thanks.”

  Miles offered a small, somewhat shy smile. “I’ll try not to make too much noise.”

  “Don’t worry about it. The library isn’t open to the public right now.” The dust still hung heavy in the air, and I coughed.

  Miles put a hand on my upper back and turned me firmly toward the doorway. “You don’t want to stay in here.”

  “Is there anything I can get you?” I asked while exiting.

  “No.”

  “Sure?”

  “Yes.”

  No small talk, got it.

  I turned and offered Miles one last look. He stood patiently in the middle of the room, waiting for me to leave. “Well—uh, if you need me, I’m around.”

  MY STOMACH growled and interrupted my destruction of the upstairs storeroom. I checked my watch and realized it was past one in the afternoon. I’d been upstairs for hours and was hungry as hell. Leaving my mess—I mean, the
sorted piles—I went downstairs. The door to the side room was closed. I could hear Miles hammering away through the heavy wooden barrier.

  I sat down at the checkout desk and found a folder with a handful of take-out menus stored inside. I sifted through them, my options mostly limited to pizza or Chinese, both of which I really didn’t want. I needed to keep working after this, not take a food-induced coma nap. I was hemming and hawing over ordering a cheap sandwich from some place called Eatery when there was a knock at the front door. Before I could stand, it was opened, and a handsome man in a suit with an open coat walked in.

  “You must be Christopher Hughes,” he said with a wide grin and booming voice.

  “Ah, yes, that’s right.” I stood and moved to shake the stranger’s hand.

  “Sam Bloom. I’m on the Board of Selectmen.”

  “Oh! It’s a pleasure to meet you,” I said, perking up.

  “I see that Logan is already working you like a horse.”

  “It’s not so bad.” I laughed. “I’m enjoying it so far, and I’ve already got repairs underway.”

  “Uh-huh.” Sam looked briefly toward the closed door. “So! If you have some time to spare, Christopher, I’d like to speak with you in private.” He flashed me another smile, and I had to admit, I wasn’t usually attracted to silver foxes, but Sam was smokin’. “Let’s get some lunch—what do you say?”

  I was pretty committed to that five-dollar sandwich, plus I wanted to keep working, but at the same time, I didn’t want to upset the Board, who were essentially my new bosses. I hadn’t gotten much further than “Er—well—” before Miles stepped out of the side room.

  As soon as he and Sam made eye contact with each other, I swear the temperature in the building dropped to frigid. Miles pulled the bandana tied around his mouth down to his neck and wiped his dirty hands on his work jeans. Sam cleared his throat and straightened his posture.

  “I see you’re still working for peanuts, Miles,” Sam said.

  Miles didn’t seem particularly agitated by the comment. “You set the budget,” he replied calmly. He shut the door and walked to the stairs. “I’ll be back in a moment,” he said, his voice partially drowned out by the creaking steps.