There had been several other shifters in town over the years, but as far as he knew all but the Milhouses had moved on. The others had deserted Mystic Springs, as so many had.
Clint walked past a row of small houses at the edge of town, through an overgrown garden, past a couple of vacant houses and onto the end of the downtown street. Everything he needed was here. There was no reason to ever leave Mystic Springs again. But he would, when he got antsy, when the place began to wear on him, when he craved a break from his reality. When he felt the need to do some in-person research. After a short while away he would return. He always did.
At thirty-four years old, he was a successful author. He had friends; some here in the town where he’d been born and others — authors, editors, an agent — far away. Most of the long-distance friends he’d never met face to face. They communicated through email/cell phone/social media. They were a part of another life, a life he could never fully embrace. Clint was often invited to visit New York, or to stay at a writer friend’s house, or to speak at a conference. He rarely accepted those invitations.
His outsider friends all thought he was terribly introverted. One had accused him, laughingly, of being paranoid. None of them suspected the truth, and they never would.
Eyes on the library, Clint crossed the street. The lack of people out and about was evidence that Mystic Springs was dying. Slowly, one death or departure at a time. When he’d been a boy, the downtown street had been busy all day. People shopped and ate and laughed. They visited and spent money and hung out at the library. He couldn’t count the hours he’d spent in that library; as a child, as a young man, as an adult. It had always been a place of peace, of refuge.
At the moment there were four people on the street. Four. In an hour or so there would be more, as residents went to Eve’s to eat, but still it would be nothing like it had once been.
Luke said the town needed Marnie Somerset. Clint wasn’t sure about that — people weren’t Luke’s specialty, after all — but he had to give her a chance.
She had to give Mystic Springs a chance.
Marnie jumped when the bell over the entrance pinged. Finally! Someone who wanted a book! Her joy faded a moment later, as Clint approached the desk with an obviously forced smile on his face.
“How’s it going?” he asked.
She gathered her stack of books and placed them on a lower shelf, out of sight. The notebook joined them. She didn’t want the local author to think she was a nut job. “Fine!” she said too brightly, and then she sighed. “And I admit, much too slow. This is such a great library. Why don’t more people use it?” She stood and glanced around. “If I’d lived near a library like this one when I was growing up, I never would’ve left it.”
She noticed that he had a hardback book in his hand. As she glanced at it, he lifted the book and handed it to her. “My newest release. I always donate a copy to the library.”
Marnie smiled and took the book from his hands, glancing down at the cover. Wolf’s Curse. A silhouette. A blood moon. Glowing eyes in the darkness, and yes, those were claws. Great.
He read the expression on her face too well. Clint — JC Maxwell — grinned and said, “You don’t have to read it. Horror isn’t for everyone.”
She clasped the book to her chest. “I’m so sorry. I tried to read one of your books yesterday, and not even fifty pages in it scared the bejesus out of me. It gave me nightmares!”
His grin — it was a very nice grin, she conceded — widened. “Good. I did my job.”
“It’s your job to scare people into insomnia and night terrors.”
“Yep.”
She chewed on her lower lip for a moment, then bravely asked, “Why not mysteries, or political thrillers, or romance?”
“Romance?”
“Why not?”
His eyes narrowed, a little. “Why aren’t you an accountant? Or a doctor? Or a professional wrestler?”
“I never wanted anything but…” She smiled, too. “Okay, sorry I asked. We are what we are, I suppose.”
His smile faded, but just a little. “There’s truth in that. Can I buy you lunch?”
Well, that invitation came out of nowhere. She tried not to stammer and failed.
“I’m not asking you on a date,” he clarified. “I’m hungry. You’re here. It’s lunchtime. Let me welcome you to town with a meal.”
“You’ve already fed me once and changed my tire. That’s welcome enough.”
“Let me buy you a pleasant meal, on a better day.”
She shouldn’t be hungry, but she had managed to lay off Ivy’s goodies for the past couple of hours. And it would do her good to get to know more of the locals. And dammit, Clint was all man and looking at her like she was all woman, even though she knew she should lose fifteen pounds and she had her father’s nose and…
“Just lunch, Marnie,” he said in a calming voice that managed to cut right through her. “Just lunch.”
It wasn’t like anyone else would arrive any time soon needing an emergency library book, and Susan had told her she could close for lunch.
Two minutes later she replaced the OPEN sign on the door with one that read BACK IN THIRTY MINUTES. She’d always hated those particular signs. They were imprecise. If you didn’t know what time a place had closed, how could you possibly know when half an hour had passed?
She was worrying too much. Just lunch, he said. What did she have to lose?
Chapter 6
Eve’s wasn’t entirely empty, but damn, it wasn’t packed, either. Marnie glanced around, hoping to spot a friendly face or two. Nada. Susan Tisdale was the only friendly face she’d seen since coming to Mystic Springs. Eve seemed friendly, but she was a business owner wooing a customer. Did that count?
She had a reason for hoping Eve’s business was good at the present time. It would be easier to chitchat in a crowd, carrying on one conversation among many in a busy cafe. But no. There was a single old man at the counter, and two women at a table in the corner. That was it.
The customers, all three of them, stared. She had to admit, Clint was definitely stare-worthy. Then again, she was still a stranger in town. Maybe they were staring at her, as others had last night. The old man was definitely looking at her; he gave her the willies, with his narrowed eyes and scowl. The ladies, who both appeared to be in their forties, were probably staring at the man who had invited Marnie to lunch. And why not? He was yummy, and as she had already noted, definitely worthy of an admiring once-over, or two.
Marnie had met plenty of authors in the past. Local romance authors, historians, a couple of YA authors. They’d come into the Birmingham library for talks, readings, and book-signings. She’d liked almost all of them — there had been one exception, and that poor woman might’ve simply been having a bad day — but then it was easy to like another book lover. In all that time, she’d never met an author whose mind was so twisted. Would a normal man be driven to write about the kind of violence that was in Clint’s books? Seriously, what was wrong with him?
Not that she’d read much of the one she’d picked up, but still, what she had read was disturbing.
He ordered “the usual.” Marnie ordered a salad with grilled chicken, dressing on the side. She prepared herself for the kind of casual conversation two strangers might have.
He looked at her, grimaced, and asked, “Why are you here?”
Marnie pursed her lips. Maybe she pouted, a little. Did Clint have some kind of dementia? She answered, in a calm, low voice, “You invited me to lunch.”
That got an almost-grin out of him. “I mean, what are you doing here in Mystic Springs. You told me a bit about it when we met at Harry’s, but you didn’t say much. Why here? Why now?”
“Oh.” That was a relief. He might write nightmare inducing tales of horror, but he wasn’t crazy. At least his memory seemed to be working. “It was just luck that brought me here, I guess.” She didn’t know if it was good luck or bad luck, but it had been a stran
ge series of circumstances. “Like I said before, I lost my job. Not because I did anything wrong, but you know how it is. Things happen. In this case, budget cuts. Soon after I was laid off, I ran across an online ad for a librarian here. Since Mystic Springs is fairly close to Birmingham and I needed the job, I decided to give it a try.” The money was better than she’d expected from a small-town library, but she certainly wasn’t going to complain about that.
Eve herself dropped off their plates. Marnie’s salad looked perfect. Clint’s plate was piled high with steak and fish, with a side of fat yeast rolls. Four of them.
She was distracted, for a moment. “You don’t eat vegetables?” At all?
“I get plenty of greens, but not when I eat at Eve’s.”
Clint took a bite, then another, while Marnie ended up thinking about the series of events that had brought her here. His question had brought those circumstances to the surface again. She’d gone back to the job-search website after she’d sent in her resume for another look at the want ad. She’d searched for a while, following link after link after link, but she hadn’t been able to find it, even though the ad had popped out at her so clearly the first time around. She dribbled a small amount of dressing over her salad. Was that suspicious? Not really, though it was odd. She’d had more than her fair share of odd, lately.
She took a bite of her salad and instantly dismissed her misgivings. Holy cow, this was the best salad she’d ever eaten. Everything was so fresh, and the seasonings were perfect. Normally a salad was her “I’ve eaten badly so now I need to be good” meal, but this one was a real treat.
Marnie knew what she’d be eating for a while. Eve’s salads and Ivy’s goodies. A balanced diet! Maybe one day she’d actually get a cupcake like the one painted on Ivy’s window.
There was no conversation while they ate. At least, not for a while. If Clint’s meal was as good as hers, it was no wonder they enjoyed a shared and easy silence.
Finally, Marnie set her fork aside and leaned back, completely satisfied. “Eve should open a place in Birmingham. She could make a small fortune. If she’d share her recipes, she could start a chain of restaurants.”
Clint shook his head. “It’ll never happen. She’s a Springer, through and through.”
“A Springer?”
“A native of Mystic Springs. She was born here, and she’ll never leave.”
That was odd. People, especially those of Eve’s age, were usually eager to escape small town living. Marnie certainly had been, and so had all her high school friends.
“Never?”
Clint caught and held her gaze, and a shiver walked up Marnie’s spine. Oh, those blue eyes! They were electric. Mesmerizing. Sexy as hell. He shook his head.
“What about you?”
He shrugged his shoulders and returned his attention to what was left on his plate. “I travel now and then, but I always come back home.”
“Where have you traveled?”
He thought a moment, then said, “Florida, a couple of times. A little town north of Dallas. North Georgia. The South Carolina coast.”
Marnie smiled. “You never leave the South?”
He shrugged. “The cold doesn’t agree with me.”
She could empathize. “After I graduated from college I worked in Minneapolis for a while,” she said. “One winter was enough for me.”
“Where’s home?”
“Tennessee, west of Nashville.” In what she’d once believed to be a small town, until she’d come here.
Clint looked like he was about to ask another question, probably wanting more specifics which she would not be eager to share, when something drew his attention. His gaze shifted, settling on something behind her. Curious, Marnie turned a bit and twisted her head to look out the front window.
A dark-haired man in khaki shorts and a matching shirt ran down the middle of the street, chasing what looked to be a pack of wild dogs while he waved a long stick in the air. He shouted something unintelligible before he, and the dogs, disappeared from view.
Clint returned to his meal, what little was left of it. Marnie just stared at him for a moment, until he lifted his gaze to her and said, “That’s Silas, the dogcatcher.”
“The dogcatcher.”
“He prefers Animal Control Specialist, but yeah. Dogcatcher.” Clint seemed to bristle, a little. “Silas is also a Veterinarian, but since the town is too small to need both, he does double duty. Most just call him the critter guy.”
“That’s kind of rude.”
He looked at her as if he were judging her, for some reason. “I suppose it is. He’s pretty good with most critters, but not with that bunch.” Clint smiled a little.
A few more customers had come in for lunch, so Marnie didn’t feel quite as much on display as she had when they’d first arrived. Everyone was busy with their own meals, their own conversations. She took a casual glance around. The people here appeared normal enough, for the most part, though that one woman’s hat was decidedly eye-catching, it was so wide and bright. It looked as if a peacock had perched upon her head.
It wasn’t long before she heard the same noise that had distracted her a couple of minutes earlier and saw Silas, the critter guy, retracing his steps. Somehow the dogs – there were six of them, she noted this time, a mix in color and size -- had gotten around him and he was herding them back the way they’d come.
Silas glanced toward Eve’s, slowed his step a bit, smiled, and waved. Marnie couldn’t tell exactly who he was waving at; if that raised hand was meant for a specific person or if it was a general gesture because he knew people had to be watching.
And then he was out of sight, and all the diners returned to their meals as if nothing had happened. As if it was normal to see the town vet/dogcatcher chasing a pack of dogs down the middle of Main Street.
She picked at what was left of her salad. “Tell me about the previous librarian. I hear she was elderly and that she passed away a few weeks ago, but that’s all I know.” She also knew that the woman had not died in the library. For some reason, that eased her mind. Not that she believed in ghosts, or anything, but she was kind of a believer in energy, and if anything could bring bad energy to a place it was an unpleasant death. And was any death pleasant?
Clint made a low noise that was just short of a grunt. “Alice Daniels was librarian here for as long as I can remember. She was tough and demanded silence in her library from everyone at all times, and I swear she knew exactly where every book in that place was located.”
“You liked her, I can tell.”
“I did.”
That was a point in his favor, that he’d had tender feelings for the elderly librarian. Of course, he had to love books, too, given his chosen profession. “Susan said she died at home. That’s so sad. Had she been sick or was her death sudden?”
Clint frowned at her. His eyes narrowed. A muscle in his jaw ticked. “Susan didn’t tell you?”
Marnie’s heart sank. She didn’t like the sound of this! “Didn’t tell me what?”
He didn’t answer immediately, but did his best to stare right through her with those electric-blue eyes of his. Marnie’s heart tried to climb into her throat, but she managed to choke it back. Suddenly, she didn’t want to hear what he had to say.
And then he said it. “Alice Daniels was murdered.”
Clint watched as the blood drained from Marnie’s face. Maybe he should’ve beat around the bush a while, shared the news gently.
Gentle was not his style.
He shouldn’t have said anything at all. The town council and the police chief had gone to great lengths to hide the truth from everyone outside Mystic Springs, as well as most residents. They didn’t need investigators from the county or the state coming in to poke around. Any investigation would have to be entirely local. Two months in, and they had nothing. He should have kept his mouth shut.
“I have to be getting back,” Marnie said, tossing her napkin to the table and sliding ac
ross her seat so she could escape. “Thanks for lunch.”
She was going to run. She was going to flee from this strange place as soon as she possibly could. Murdered librarians. Unfriendly locals. Critter man on the loose. Bigfoot.
Some Springers would be glad to see her go, but Clint decided then and there that he would not be one of those people.
He liked her.
Luke said the town needed her.
Maybe he did, too.
Shit. He barely knew her, and he’d been sitting here watching her every move as casually as he possibly could. She was pretty, very pretty, but her appeal went beyond that. Marnie was bright and feminine and curious. There were moments when he could swear she actually glowed. Her shape was fantastic, with generous curves in all the right places. Even the dark rimmed eyeglasses suited her.
Maybe he seriously needed to get laid. It had been a while.
“It was a tragedy,” he said, “but they caught the man who killed Alice.” He shared the story they’d told to all those who didn’t know the truth of what had happened to the old librarian. They would’ve told everyone she’d died of natural causes, if she hadn’t so obviously died violently, and if Mike Benedict’s wife Cindy hadn’t been the one to find the body. Cindy had a lot of good qualities. Keeping her mouth shut wasn’t one of them. “The killer was a drugged-up drifter who was obviously after her cash and jewelry, even though she didn’t have much of either. I guess he thought an old woman who lived alone would be an easy target. He was wrong. Alice fought back and the drifter ran, but she bled to death before she could get to a phone to call for help. Her attacker was found in the woods less than a mile away, dead from the knife wound she managed to inflict.”
Marnie was still pale, perched on the edge of her seat poised to run, likely wondering what she was doing in this place. “How could an old woman possibly fight back against someone like that?”
She was a witch wouldn’t go over well, so he fudged a little. “Alice was a fighter. She was tough as nails.” And she looked pretty good for 127 years old.
Bigfoot and the Librarian Page 6
