What the Librarian Did

by Karina Bliss

  “I didn’t get to eat much, either,” he admitted. “How about we grab a cold lamb sandwich?”

  “Good idea, there’s still plenty of meat on the bone.” She didn’t seem the least disappointed by his withdrawal, dammit, leading the way to the kitchen, hauling out the leftovers, the bread, the chutney. The librarian never reacted how he expected. It was one of the most infuriating and charming things about her.

  “Put the kettle on,” she said. “We’ll have tea.”

  “I’ll make iced. It’s too hot for the Kiwi version.”

  “Trixie left some wine in the…sorry, I forgot. Yes, iced tea would be lovely.” She started building the sandwich-meat, mustard, tomato. “Do you miss alcohol?”

  Devin preferred to have the subject out in the open. “For years I thought alcoholism was a problem I could be cured of, so I could go back to drinking.” He found ice in the freezer, a lemon in the fruit bowl. “But when it finally came down to life or death…well, it clarified my priorities. No, I don’t miss it.”

  “And you’ll always have your music.”

  He concentrated on stirring in the sugar. “I haven’t had an idea in months. I’m beginning to think I can’t write songs sober.”

  “Performance anxiety,” said Rachel. “You’ll get over it.”

  “Oh, will I?” Devin was torn between amusement and irritation. “As the first woman I intend to sleep with-sober-you’d better be more encouraging in bed.”

  She giggled.

  Devin stared at her for maybe two seconds, then strode over and threw her over his shoulder. In the hall he couldn’t find the bedroom, which only made Rachel giggle more. At last he chose the right door. Pushing it wide, he paused on the threshold. It was French provincial, the whitewashed furniture all spindly carved legs and ornate handles.

  The bed was narrow, piled high with pillows and bolsters, the curved headboard stenciled with fat pink roses. Fortunately, the shabby gilt mirrors on the delicate dresser injected a much-needed sinfulness to the fairy-tale theme.

  Dumping the librarian on the bed, he lay on top of her until her giggles subsided and she lay boneless and quiescent under his weight. He became aware of every soft curve and valley of her body. Her eyes darkened with a similar appreciation of their differences.

  She wore some kind of vintage dress of pale green cotton with a simple bodice and a full skirt. Devin hadn’t liked it until now, when he realized he could flip up the skirt and position his lower body between her bare, lightly tanned legs.

  “Your boots are on the bed,” she protested feebly. He laughed deep in his throat, then moved to nestle against the silky fabric of her underwear, applying just enough pressure to show Rachel how denim over an aroused male could work for a woman.

  They were going to do this slowly, but her surprised gasp stirred a need that tipped his lust into possessiveness.

  There was fierce ownership in the way his teeth grazed her nipples through the cotton, then his mouth suckled until she moved restlessly under him. “But my dress…no…don’t stop.”

  His mouth captured her moan as he slid his fingers up her silky thigh and between their bodies. She was wet, hot and ready for him, and they’d barely started.

  He’d come if he didn’t slow this down. Devin started pulling away his hand and it got tangled with hers as she struggled with the clasp of his belt, then the zipper, shoving his jeans down just low enough to…Her hand closed around him.

  “Rachel, wait-”

  It was her turn to cut off his protest with a kiss as hot and wild as what they were doing with their hands. Breathing heavily, he grabbed her wrist.

  She was beautiful, her soft hair tangled, her eyes unguarded. Devin forgot what he was going to say and kissed her back. Their bodies came together and he remembered. “We need a condom.”

  “Yes.”

  She fumbled in the drawer beside her and he noticed her hands were shaking. So were his. Between them they managed to cover him, haul off her panties. They didn’t bother with his jeans. Or his boots. She whimpered as he thrust inside her, and he heard himself answer with a similar helplessness.

  Then everything was Rachel, the feel of her around him, the unfocused expression on her face. Their gazes tangled, fierce and soft at the same time. The antique bed was too narrow and their clothes bunched, stalling their rhythm, but it didn’t matter. Devin felt a wonder, a wonder that built and carried him to uncharted territory.

  She cried out, and the sound took him over the edge. In that timeless moment of release he loved her.

  He remembered that as they lay together afterward, catching their breath and staring at the ceiling, Rachel obviously as shocked as he was by the intensity of the experience.

  He was faintly embarrassed, unwilling to believe it was possible that someone who’d never considered sex as anything other than fun had been temporarily caught in the emotions of a lovesick teenager.

  Rachel rolled toward him with a serious expression and he panicked. If she talked about feelings…

  “I think,” she said carefully, “you might have one vice left.”

  In his relief, Devin laughed.

  SHE SHOULDN’T HAVE SLEPT with him.

  Pretending to be hungry, Rachel took another bite of her roast lamb sandwich, then forced it down with a swig of iced tea. Devin sat beside her on the garden bench in the tiny paved courtyard of her backyard, devouring his second sandwich.

  His long legs were sprawled out in front of him; one arm was slung casually around her shoulders, and in the early summer evening his black T-shirt was a sun trap she wanted to snuggle into. Instead she sat on her side of the bench, nursing her grievance.

  The man had grossly misrepresented himself as a player when he was…well, Rachel didn’t know what he was. But far from feeling light-hearted and rejuvenated, she was disorientated and vulnerable.

  It had taken everything she had to come up with a flippant comment after they’d had sex, when inside she’d felt like a nervy sixteen-year-old wanting reassurance that this meant something to him. She hadn’t expected to care, but he’d made her care and he had no right to.

  His lazy charm and her own prejudices had lulled her into seeing him as emotionally harmless, and then he’d gone and nuked her when she wasn’t looking. Bastard. Giving up on her sandwich, Rachel ripped off pieces and tossed them to the sparrows.

  “You’re not throwing hand grenades, Heartbreaker.”

  She picked up the jug of iced tea. “Another?”

  “Thanks.” He held out his glass. “I never did get around to asking your advice about Mark.”

  The mention of her son was a welcome diversion. “Break it to him gently,” she said, refilling the glass, “but between you and me, he has as much chance of dating Trixie as you do of attending Sunday service.”

  “Maybe God’s already answered my prayers.” There was a meditative quality in Devin’s voice that made her skin prickle. She fumbled and tea and ice cubes skidded across the flagstones.

  “Careful.” Taking the jug from her, Devin put it back on the ground. “Getting his heart broken by an older woman might be good for Mark’s songwriting. Look at what Rod Stewart achieved after meeting Maggie May.”

  “Mark’s too young to start having sex,” said Rachel sharply. “If I thought for one minute Trixie was interested-” She stopped, because she was overreacting and Devin’s eyebrows were raised. “Of course, it’s none of my business.” Though she didn’t want it, she picked up her iced tea and took a sip, grimacing at how sweet it was.

  “You care about teenagers,” he said. “That’s why I want your advice. Anyway, Trixie isn’t the concern.”

  “So if it’s not Trixie…” And Rachel knew from talking to Mark that it wasn’t school. She clutched Devin’s arm. “Oh, God, he’s sick, isn’t he?”

  He laughed. “Did you see how much Anna Pavlova he ate? No, he’s not sick. He recently found out he’s adopted, and he wants to find his birth mother.”

&n
bsp; For a moment Rachel couldn’t breathe, then happiness swept over her, a joy so great she couldn’t speak. She tightened her grip.

  “I want you to talk him out of it,” said Devin.

  “Why?” The word erupted from her. She flung his arm off and stood up. “Don’t you understand how wonderful that is?”

  “He hates her,” said Devin, and her iridescent rainbow-colored bubble burst.

  Rachel walked to a rosebush, where she started pulling at dead flowers. “He hates her,” she repeated slowly.

  “For giving him up,” said Devin. “He’s looking for a confrontation, not reconciliation, and that’s not good for him. Shouldn’t you be wearing gloves to do that?”

  She gazed down at the shriveled rose petals in her hand, the color of dried blood, and the tiny pinlike thorns embedded in the pads of her fingers. “Probably.”

  “Let me see.” Mechanically, she went to him, holding out her hand like a child. “For God’s sake, Rachel, it’s full of thorns.” He started pulling them out with long, skillful fingers.

  She swallowed hard. “What if she had a good reason for giving him up?”

  “We don’t know that-we don’t even know if she’s willing to see him.” Pinpricks of blood welled where he’d removed the tiny thorns, shiny beads of bright red. “He’s doing it behind his adoptive parents’ backs, following his own crazy trail like some vigilante, seeing his mother in every woman’s face. He’s even got me jumpy.”

  Pulling the last prickles out of her thumb, he shifted his attention to the few still in her palm. “You want to hear something funny? For a few minutes today I even thought you might be a candidate.”

  Her insides lurched. “That is funny,” she managed to say.

  Devin lifted her hand higher and examined it closely. “I think that’s all of them.”

  A teardrop splashed onto her open palm, then another. Rachel couldn’t hold them back. For long seconds, they watched the tears trickle along the heart line, then Devin lifted his head, his expression one of shock.

  “Or not funny,” she said.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “MY PARENTS WANTED ME to keep the baby.”

  Devin watched as Rachel’s hands fluttered like wounded birds before she linked them in a viselike grip. Holding herself together.

  “Everyone said how wonderful Mom and Dad were through the whole pregnancy, that it was so like them to turn the other cheek.” Her voice was slightly winded, as though she needed more oxygen than her lungs could produce. “I became a pariah when I insisted on adoption.”

  “Rachel,” he said helplessly. She was in agony and he didn’t know how to help her. And after her first crying jag, when she’d let him hold her, she’d pulled away. He’d already made such a mess of this he didn’t want to force the issue.

  It had grown dark in the intervening hour. They’d moved inside and he’d made her hot tea, piling in the sugar. Now they were in the family room, Devin on the couch and Rachel standing in front of the mantel. Her tea sat untouched.

  “What about the father…did the boy deny paternity?”

  “Oh, no.” She gave him a tight little smile. “He and his parents offered to pay for the abortion. And made it clear that keeping the baby made it solely my responsibility.”

  Devin said softly, “But your parents were supportive?”

  “We ended up parting ways over it.”

  At seventeen? And he’d assumed her upbringing was sheltered. “Did you have anybody on your side?”

  “A good social worker.” Restlessly, Rachel moved things around on the mantel-two gilded candlesticks, an antique clock, a small bowl of potpourri. “So, don’t you want to ask me why I gave up my baby?”

  There was a brittle quality in her voice.

  “No.” Devin waited until she looked at him. “I already know your reason was a good one.”

  Her shoulders sagged. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  From the couch, Devin held out a hand. “Come here.”

  She shook her head, returned to straightening the mantel ornaments. “I’m okay.”

  “I’m sure when Mark finds out-”

  Her head jerked up. “Promise me you won’t say anything.”

  “Rachel, you have to tell him,” Devin said gently.

  “I will, only…” She swallowed. “And this will sound silly, but I want him to like me first.”

  Not silly, heartrending. For a moment Devin couldn’t speak. “Of course he likes you.”

  “As your friend or Trixie’s.” She stirred the potpourri with her index finger, round and round, completely unaware of what she was doing. Faintly, Devin smelled orange peel and cloves. “If I spend a little more time with him, build a rapport, he’ll be more inclined to listen to my reasons for giving him up.”

  “You’re scared,” Devin said. “That’s understandable. But waiting isn’t going to make it easier.

  She pounced on him. “So you do expect fallout.”

  “I don’t know how Mark will react,” he said honestly. “But I do think he’s more likely to read some conspiracy into a delay.”

  Stubbornly, Rachel shook her head. “It’s my decision to make, Devin.”

  “Not if you’re asking me to be monkey in the middle. I have a friendship to protect here, too, remember?”

  “Obviously not ours.”

  His own temper flared. “It’s because I care about you that I’m trying to get you to see sense, you obstinate woman!”

  Rachel snapped on a lamp. Light flooded the room and illuminated the angry color in her cheeks, but her voice was level. “I don’t need you to care about me. I need you to butt out of what’s none of your damn business.”

  Incredulous, he stared at her. “We just slept together. I’m a mentor to your son. Of course it’s my damn business.”

  “Exactly. We just slept together.” She waved a finger at him, an intensely annoying gesture. “Now you’re trying to muscle in on my life. I should sue you for misrepresentation.”

  “Oh, I get it.” Devin stood up. “I’m okay to fool around with, but God forbid we achieve any real connection.”

  Rachel snorted. “Says the guy with two ex-wives.”

  “At least I got that far.” He pointed his own finger to see how she liked it. “You balk before you get to the altar. And you think you don’t need advice on relationships?”

  They glared at each other. “I know you’ve destroyed a lot of brain cells,” said Rachel, “so I’ll say this slowly and clearly. If you tell Mark, I’ll never speak to you again.”

  “Here’s a better idea.” Devin flicked his gaze over her, as cutting as rawhide. “Never speak to me again and I won’t tell Mark.”

  She didn’t even hesitate. “Deal!”

  “Deal.” This time he was the one who slammed the door.

  Devin took the 8:00 p.m. car ferry back to Waiheke in a blistering rage.

  As he found a seat inside the lounge he decided he was glad Rachel had clarified where they stood before he made a fool of himself. To think that this afternoon he’d understood the allure of a relationship with a normal woman. He snorted. Rachel normal? “Ha!”

  The old guy sitting opposite glanced cautiously over his newspaper, then got up and found another booth. Devin barely noticed. The librarian had more baggage than Paris Hilton.

  When the boat moored he was first off, opening the throttle on the Harley as soon as he hit the island’s back-roads. He still couldn’t get his head around the fact that she was Mark’s mother. What had driven her to give him up? It had to be something bad.

  Devin shook off the thought as irritably as a dog with fleas. It wasn’t his problem. The librarian had spelled that out loud and clear. Like he’d welcome this kind of complication in his life, anyway, when he’d just got things back on an even keel.

  In his vast empty house, Devin turned on all the lights, then stripped to his boxers and pummeled the punching bag in the gym until his arms ached. Mixed with his sweat was Rach
el’s perfume.

  He took a shower and scrubbed himself with vicious thoroughness. It didn’t help. Hauling on clean clothes, he settled down to a class assignment, but shoved it aside within minutes and opened the final report from his forensic accountant. Devin read it and his mood grew even blacker.

  Checking his watch, he saw it was four in the morning in L.A. Too bad. Devin dialed Zander’s cell and was again routed straight through to Message.

  “Hey, brother,” he said pleasantly. “Just reminding you it’s Mom’s birthday next weekend and it would be nice if you called her. Oh, and I’ve had the results back on an independent audit of the band. Seems you owe me about five million bucks in royalties on four of our early hits.”

  He opened the sliding door and walked out onto the deck, bracing himself against the buffeting wind. “My lawyers suggest I sue, but I figure there’s a rational explanation.” Far below the glass balustrade, white water boiled and broke over the jagged rocks. Gripping the rail with his free hand, Devin looked down until he’d conquered his vertigo. “I mean, only a lowlife would screw over his baby brother, right, Zand?”

  Devin dropped the amiability from his tone. “You’ve got five days to make contact before I release the hounds.”

  RACHEL WATCHED DEVIN walk down the path toward the fountain, his head down, brow furrowed. Nervously she stood up, smoothing her skirt against the gusty wind. From the swirling, slate-gray clouds overhead, it looked as if they were in for rain.

  She’d barely slept with worrying. This was too important to hope for the best. And Devin had mentioned he had an early tutorial this morning.

  Steeling herself, she waited for him to notice her. He walked right past.

  Rachel blinked and called after him. “Devin!”

  He glanced back, recognized her, and his frown deepened.

  Now that she had been expecting. “Can we talk? Please?”

  “No.” He kept walking.

  Rachel forgot her diplomatic approach. Chasing after him, she caught him by the arm. “Look, I’ve got everything to lose in this. So quit sulking because I decided against following your advice.”