by Jill Knowles
A stocky, bland looking man came up behind them. Smiling at him, Maggie said, “I’ll be with you in just a moment.”
He looked startled for a moment, and then said, “I don’t need anything.” He walked away, sitting at a nearby table, his back to them.
Weird. She continued her description. “My friends and I used to camp out in this area.” She tapped a spot right next to the ridge. “We called this the ‘creepy place.’” Dax looked intrigued, so she continued. “The trees are all twisted and stunted there, and you never see any animals in the area. And it’s ... creepy.”
A flash of annoyance passed over his face and was gone so quickly, she was almost convinced she’d imagined it. Pausing, she searched for the right words. “When you stand there, the short hairs on the back of your neck stand up, and it feels like something quick and vicious could jump out at you at any moment.”
A grin spread across his face, transforming it from nice looking to gorgeous. “Ms. Maggie, I think you’ve just given me exactly what I need.”
“If you have the same reaction.” She laughed ruefully. “We might have just scared ourselves.” Still, the memory of standing next to that ridge made her rub goosebumps from her arms. Or maybe it was the raw sensuality Dax exuded.
He looked thoughtful. “Humans generally have good instincts about odd places. I’ll check it out, and let you know what I find.” He cocked his head, studying her. “Will you have dinner with me tonight?”
“I’m sorry, I can’t. We’re shorthanded, so I’m working late.” Luhree had called off again, and Maggie was getting concerned. The older woman was a good worker, and had been with the library longer than Maggie had. “I’m going to be lucky to get lunch.”
“Tomorrow night, then?” He looked up at her through his ridiculously thick lashes.
“Uh ...” Her first instinct was to decline. He was a man, and men weren’t real high on her “favorites” list right now. Though he is the sexiest man I’ve met in way too long.
“I’m not above resorting to puppy-dog eyes,” he said, opening his eyes wide and looking wistful.
Her mother’s words came back to her. Not all men are like my father -- or Billy. Point that anger in the right direction. “I’d like that,” she said slowly, turning the idea over in her mind. He was passing through, and might be just the thing she needed to relieve the tensions that were starting to creep up into the unbearable level. “What did you have in mind?” The sultry smile he flashed her had her belly tightening in anticipation.
“I understand the Shamrock serves a wonderful prime rib,” he said, naming the only real “date” restaurant in town.
“That they do. Their chicken marsala is also excellent.” And if the date sucked, she’d still get a good meal out of the deal.
“What time is good for you?”
“I get off work at five. Give me an hour to freshen up.”
“So, six fifteen?” At her nod, he continued. “Shall I pick you up, or would you feel more comfortable meeting me there?”
“I’ll meet you there.”
He took her hand and raised it to his lips for a kiss that should have seemed silly. “I’ll look forward to it.”
“Me, too,” she said, her skin tingling where his breath had caressed it.
With a last, lingering look, he walked toward the entrance. As he opened the door and stepped outside, the carefully stacked book request forms blew off the front counter in a storm of white. Giving the door a dirty look, Julie bent down and started picking them up.
Legs suddenly weak, Maggie rested her back against the tall table. “Woof,” she murmured. That man is seriously hot.
“Smokin’.” Sean Flynn leaned a hip against the table, facing her. He fanned his face with exaggerated motions. A few years younger than she was, and one of the few openly gay men in town, he was a good friend, as well as a valuable employee.
“Yeah. I’m beginning to realize that.”
“Soooo?” Sean crossed his arms over his chest and settled in for a talk.
She focused on his artfully mussed red hair, rather than meeting that knowing gaze. “So, I’m going out to dinner with him tomorrow night.” She picked up the topography book and carried it to the shelf, putting it back where it belonged. The man who’d interrupted her discussion with Dax was still sitting at the table, a book about local Native American tribes in front of him. Should she go and see if he needed assistance? No, he’d said he didn’t need anything, and annoying a customer was not a valid way to avoid Sean’s questions.
Sean followed her. “And?” he asked, raising one gingery eyebrow.
“And nothing, leprechaun boy.”
Grinning at her, he said, “Insults are the last refuge of the desperate.”
Maggie stuck her tongue out at him.
“Okay, I was wrong. Raspberries are the last refuge, insults are second to last.”
“Don’t you have books to shelve ...” She paused for a beat. “... brat?” When he snorted, she smirked at him and walked away.
“All done.” He trailed her all the way into her office, closing the door behind them.
“What’s up?” She sat behind her desk and waved him into the chair opposite her. It felt good to be here in her office, surrounded by the things she treasured, rather than out in the library, where she had to keep up a brave face.
“Julie.” Sean’s normally cheerful face was serious.
Maggie resisted the urge to put her head down on her desk. It looked so inviting. The polished cherry wood was smooth and cool, her gift to herself when she’d completed her Master’s degree in library sciences. She struggled to keep her voice level. “What about Julie?”
He tilted his head to one side, giving her a look. “She’s a mess. And I’ve noticed a wee bit of tension between the two of you.” He held his hands about three feet apart.
“I don’t know that it’s any of your business,” Maggie said, voice sharp.
Sean’s expression shuttered, then went bland. “Of course. Sorry to bother you.” He stood.
“Oh, hell, I’m sorry. Don’t go, please.” She waited until he was seated, then added, “I can’t talk about it. Not yet.” Though she was beginning to accept the fact that she would have to, and fairly soon. Otherwise it would eat her up.
“Bad?”
“Yeah.” Her voice broke on the word. She pressed her lips together tightly and barely kept a sob from escaping. How could you, Julie? How could you?
He nodded, resting his hands on the desktop as he spoke. “Junior says that as things get worse in town, as money gets tighter for everyone, people who’ve never broken the law are making ‘unfortunate’ choices. Incidents of domestic violence and assault between folks who used to be friends have gone through the roof.”
“Bad choices.” Maggie gave a harsh bark of laughter. “Yeah, I guess you could say that.” Catching the look of pained resignation on Sean’s face, she shifted gears. “You and Junior are okay, right? The stress hasn’t ...” She couldn’t think of a way to ask if things had gotten bad between the two men.
“Yeah,” he said, smiling slightly. “We’re good.” The smile didn’t reach his eyes.
“But?”
He shrugged. “As Mom and Dad’s ranch loses more and more money, they lose more and more tolerance for their gay son.”
“Ah.” Maggie knew how hard Sean had fought for acceptance from his family and the townspeople he’d grown up with. His staunch Catholic relatives hadn’t taken kindly to the idea that one of their own was homosexual. His relationship with Junior Davis hadn’t helped. Though, oddly enough, Junior was one of the most respected and trusted police officers in town. Sean said it was because Junior was viewed as the “man” in the relationship, while he was viewed as the “woman.” Maggie squashed the images that conjured in her mind before they could fully form. She was here to be supportive of her friend, not get hot and bothered imagining him and his lover together. “Is there anything I can do?”
“Oh,” she said, feeling silly.
“Now, let me be a friend to you.”
“You are.” Impulsively, she reached across the desk and rested her hand on his. “When I can talk about this, I will. I may even need to drench your shoulder. It’s just ...” She swallowed against the lump in her throat. “... too raw, you know.”
“I know.” He turned his hand over and squeezed hers. “My shoulders are yours, any time, day or night.”
“Won’t Junior mind?” she said, forcing levity into her tone.
“Junior,” he purred his lover’s name, “does exactly what I tell him to do.”
Oh, my. She could feel a flush that wasn’t embarrassment creep up her cheeks.
“Now,” he said, blue eyes twinkling with mischief. “Tell me all about Mr. Short-and-gorgeous.”
Chapter Five
A soft knock on her door pulled Maggie from the depths of the utilities budget. She glanced up, doing a double-take when she saw her visitor.
“I promise I’m not some sort of crazy stalker-dude,” Dax said. He held up two white paper bags. “And I brought food.”
“Really?” What a sweetheart. She waved him in. “Come in, sit down.” Her stomach took that opportunity to give a loud, rumbling, gurgling growl.
“Sounds like I got here just in time.” He entered and sat in the chair across from her. “You mentioned being shorthanded, so I took a chance that you would have time for lunch.” He placed both bags on the desk and opened one, pulling out a wrapped sandwich with a green fuzzy toothpick stuck in it. “Oops, that’s mine.” He set it aside and pulled out a second package, this one with a red-topped toothpick. “According to the nice lady down at the Keily Café, turkey, ham, and provolone on whole wheat is your favorite.”
“She was telling the truth.” Holding her hand out imperiously, she said, “Now, hand over the sandwich and no one will get hurt.” Her stomach rumbled again, and she looked down at it, dismayed. “Let’s hope food will appease the dragon that’s taken up residence in my belly. Sheesh.”
Dax grinned at her and gave her the package, then delved back into the bag. “I also have coleslaw.” He pulled out two plastic containers, passing one to her and keeping one for himself. “Homemade chocolate chip cookies.” He placed a cylindrical, paper-wrapped bundle between them on the desk. “And finally ...” He picked up the second bag, pulling out two large waxed cups. “Fresh-squeezed pink lemonade.”
Maggie pushed the hard copies of the budget away and opened the packet holding her sandwich. The container of yogurt and the apple that she’d brought for lunch would keep until tomorrow.
“Oh, here.” Dax passed a handful of napkins and a plastic fork across to her.
She took them gratefully, and immediately opened one and tucked it into the neck of her teal silk blouse. “Cat-shelf protection,” she said, guessing at the reason for his inquiring look.
His gaze lingered on her breasts, almost like a caress. She was glad the napkin and her shirt hid her suddenly hard nipples.
Blinking, he broke the spell. “You have cats?”
“Yeah. Two.” She picked up one half of the sandwich and bit in. In addition to the generous amounts of meat and cheese, the bread was slathered with mayo and mustard, and had shreds of raw spinach and slices of homegrown tomatoes. Heaven between bread.
Dax finished his first bite of sandwich. “What kind?”
Maggie swallowed a sip of lemonade. “Pound kitties, both female. Rusty is a marmalade tabby, and Crank is a tortoiseshell.”
“I like cats. One of my few regrets about spending most of my time traveling is the fact that I can’t have a cat. We always had several around when I was growing up.”
“Me, too.”
“This beef is excellent,” he said, eyes rolling up in pleasure.
“It’s all locally grown on the Alves Ranch, with no chemicals or mega-doses of antibiotics.” Eating beef when she was traveling was always a huge disappointment. Factory-raised beef just couldn’t compare to range bred. It was a local point of pride that Keily had some of the best beef in the state, and residents took every opportunity to brag. She grinned at him. “And we like to tell people about it, whether or not they ask.”
He winked at her and wiped a smear of mustard from the corner of his mouth. “One should always brag about the quality of good meat.”
Conversation lagged until the sandwiches and coleslaw had been consumed. Maggie looked at the cookies with regret. Evie Stevens made the best cookies in town, and Maggie was much too full to manage even one.
“Cookies?” Dax asked, tucking the detritus from the meal into the paper bag.
“Too full, darn it.”
“I hear that.” He took a drink of his lemonade. “That was an amazing sandwich.”
“Yep.” Remembering her manners, she added, “Thank you, that was wonderful.” She glanced at the digital clock on her computer. Twelve twenty-eight. She had another half hour before she absolutely had to start work again.
“Tell me about the town,” Dax said, resting back in his chair. “Did you grow up here?”
“Born and raised.” Maggie was surprised at how easy it was to talk to him. Partially, that ease was created by the sparkle in his eyes and the way he seemed to totally focus on her when he was listening, but there was also a sense of rightness to being with him. It’s a good thing he’s only going to be in town for a short time. This man could be dangerous to her ordered existence.
He cocked his head to one side, inviting her to continue.
“Keily is in trouble now, and it has been for a while, but it was a wonderful place to be a kid.” She’d been very lucky to grow up in such a safe area. At least, we thought it was safe. “We’re so small and isolated that there was very little crime. I had much more freedom as a child than most.” Maybe too much freedom. “When I was little, a large group of us kids would get together to play after school and during the summertime, and our parents never worried about us.” The memory of some of their exploits made her smile. “If they had any idea just what we were up to, they probably would have worried.”
“Oh?” He raised one eyebrow, a talent she envied. “Do tell.”
Which one of their exploits should she share? I know. “Let’s just say that we learned the hard way that a raft made from old railroad ties will only float long enough to get you into the middle of the pond.”
“Oops.” His chuckle was deep and rich, like expensive, bittersweet chocolate. Maggie wished she could lick it. “Why am I getting the impression that the raft was your idea?”
With a haughty sniff, she said, “The fact that I read Huckleberry Finn right before the incident is in no way relevant, and should be discounted completely.” Most of the scrapes they’d gotten into had been her fault. She’d been wild and reckless as a child. The experience with Billy Wenzel had cured her of that trait.
“Any casualties?”
Just my innocence. She forced her mind back to the conversation. “My favorite purple shirt and Julie’s new sandals.” And neither set of parents had ever been told exactly how the damage had occurred.
“Julie’s the blonde? You’ve been friends for a long time.”
Is she still my friend? “Since kindergarten.” Maggie took a drink of lemonade to wash the lump from her throat.
“And now you’re both librarians. That’s pretty cool.” He leaned forward, his hands clasped together on the desktop.
Strong, long-fingered hands. I wonder if the stories about hand size and penis size are true? She shifted slightly in her chair as arousal made her pussy tingle. Maggie dragged her mind out of the gutter. “Well, technically, Julie’s not a librarian. Her degree is in art history. But there just aren’t many jobs in Keily for an art historian.”
Nobody had even blinked when Maggie had hired her best friend as her assistant. In a town this small, nepotism was a fact of
life. Besides which, Julie had been the only applicant. Why am I telling him all this? “She does a fabulous job, though.” And it’s time to change the subject. “What sort of things do you write?”
“Mostly stuff related to the environment and our place within it. Lately, I’ve done a number of articles for a hiking magazine called Wild Walks.” He held his hands up, showing her the backs. “And I can prove it.”
Numerous scratches marked the backs of his hands, disappearing underneath his long sleeves. The trophies of a diehard hiker.
“I’m in town to spend some time hiking the area, looking for undiscovered, interesting sites that might tempt and challenge the jaded hiker who’s done every famous trail and wants something new to get excited about.” Dax’s expression was intent, and Maggie could see how much joy his work brought him.
There was a crisp rat-a-tat on the door, and then it opened.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Sean said. “But we’ve got a problem.”
Dax stood, picking up his lemonade. “I should go and let you get back to work.”
“Thanks for lunch, Dax.” Maggie stood, holding a hand out to him. “I’ve really enjoyed talking with you.”
“You’re most welcome.” He squeezed her hand, brushing his thumb across the pulse point in her wrist. “I’ll see you tomorrow night.” He nodded to Sean as the redhead stood aside so he could exit.
Shivering, Maggie stood as well, trying to keep her eyes from lingering on Dax’s ass. I wish he wore his jeans a bit tighter. “What’s up?” she asked Sean.
“Mr. Broadbent wants to know why we are still carrying dangerous books that will corrupt the youth and cause the downfall of society as we know it.” He pointed to the shelves holding the library’s small science fiction/fantasy section.
“Here we go again,” Maggie said.
* * * * *
Dax pushed his shopping cart down the produce aisle, musing on his lunch with Maggie Monroe. He wasn’t sure exactly what had inspired him to take her lunch. She’d already agreed to go out with him tomorrow night, and the arousal he’d smelled as they parted this morning had hinted strongly that she was as interested in him as he was in her. His cock had been half-hard for several hours now in anticipation.
