Trouble When You Walked In (Contemporary Romance) by Kieran Kramer Read Free Book Online

And they didn’t know how to dress. Cissie was wearing a drab green sweater and a high ivory collar, like a schoolmarm from the 1800s. If that was fashionable, he’d eat his Tom Landry–style fedora the football players all made fun of.
    “Is there anyone else here?” He strode to her desk and stood in front of it, his arms crossed over his chest.
    Cissie puffed up like a dandelion gone to seed. “No one else has come in yet. But any minute we’ll get someone.”
    Sure, she would. “How many people on average visit each day?”
    “It depends.” Her mouth thinned, and she looked down and away at some papers on her desk.
    He bent his head to stay in her line of sight. “Just give me an eyeball figure.”
    She threw him a scornful look. “At least a dozen, sometimes twice that.” Then looked away again.
    “Huh.” He wasn’t impressed.
    Now she crossed her arms over her delicate little chest and looked right at him. “Why are you here?”
    He had a stupid urge to pull those perky glasses off, yank her up from her chair, and kiss her senseless. “It’s a public library,” he said. “I have every right to be. And I’m here to warn you that if you go through with your plans for tonight, you’ll face arrest.”
    Her cheeks paled. “If you’d actually get Chief Scotty to arrest me for holding a peaceful protest about keeping a sweet old library open, then expect some publicity, which in turn may bring a lot of embarrassment to this town. Is that what you want?”
    Shoot. Who ever knew a librarian could be so conniving? They were supposed to be kind and helpful. “No,” he said, “but I’m sure that’s what you want.”
    “Maybe I do. It’s for a good cause.” Her eyes behind those lenses glinted with something fierce. She reminded him of her grandmother for a flash of a second, the one everyone in Kettle Knob called Nana.
    His pulse was its usual slow, stable rhythm. But his chest tightened with annoyance. “Be careful what you ask for. You just might get it. Think about what it would feel like to have an arrest on your record. And how it would feel to have all of Kettle Knob aggravated at you for bringing the Asheville news trucks to our quiet little town. I can’t promise you that you’ll be able to keep your job.”
    “I’ve already thought about it.” Her starched collar stood in stark contrast to the cool column of her neck. “Good-bye, Mr. Mayor.”
    He turned on his heel. “Have a nice day, Miss Rogers,” he called back without looking at her. “Yours here will end promptly at five o’clock, when the library shuts its doors for the evening.”
    At the door he ran into wiry Sally Morgan and her handsome fifteen-year-old son Hank Davis, who loomed over his tiny mother. He wore a Steelers jersey, jeans, and extra-large sneakers. Sally had on a black sweatshirt that said “BATMAN IS MY BOYFRIEND,” gray sweatpants, white socks, and black rubber shower shoes.
    “Excuse me ,” she said in a big huff, and pushed by Boone, her hand gripping her son’s. A neat row of pink curlers lined her thin brown hair.
    The Morgans were one of the oldest families in the nearby holler. Sally’s clan didn’t favor dentists, and usually quit school after third grade and took up homeschooling, which for their family was more a survival course: learning to shoot squirrels out of trees like nobody’s business, traipsing through the woods and gathering flora and fauna for selling to pharmaceutical companies to make into medicine, and figuring out how to keep fires going in their ramshackle homes through long winters.
    She was also a helluva mom to her special-needs boy. Sally made sure Hank Davis got what he needed from the school system, the family custom of shunning traditional education be damned.
    “Poop,” said Hank Davis, loud, like a foghorn in the night, to no one in particular, and grinned broadly.
    “Hey, Hank Davis.” Boone was glad to get outside, where the stronger-than-usual wind was