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

blowing everything clean, including his head. The library was stuffy—he felt all weird in there, especially because of that fascinating owl-like creature behind the desk who disapproved of him.
    Sally held the door open and stared out at him. “Don’t you talk to me, Boone Braddock. Don’t you say a word .” She pointed at him with her stubby little finger capped with a neon yellow nail. “You got the devil in you bad.”
    Boone stuck his hands in his front pockets, thumbs out. “If you’d like to hold a reasonable discussion about the library—”
    “Pooooooop,” said Hank Davis.
    “Is that so, Hank Davis?” Sally said. “Are you saying Boone is a piece of poop? He don’t listen real good. Maybe you better say it again.”
    “I heard him,” Boone said.
    “Humph,” said Sally. And slammed the library door in his face.
    Boone sighed. Being mayor of Kettle Knob was manageable most of the time. But suddenly, it wasn’t.
    He headed to Starla’s diner. A sign that said “Boone Braddock for Mayor” hung in the front window.
    When he walked in, the whole place went silent for a minute. And then he saw the flyer that had arrived at his inbox at school and on his desk at town hall on every booth and table and a few on the counter. Across the top of the paper were big, bold, black capital letters, like the world was about to come to an end or something.
    He picked one up, stared at it, his jaw clenched, and tossed it back onto the counter.
    Cissie Rogers had a lot of nerve.
    “A sit-in at the library tonight?” Starla said when she brought over his usual: a bacon pimiento cheese sandwich with a pickle and a cup of fruit. “Really?”
    “I got it under control,” he said. “Did you have to let her leave these here?”
    “I believe in free speech,” Starla said, “especially when it’s someone as shy as Cissie Rogers doing the talking. This might be interesting.”
    Boone dumped three creamers into his coffee mug and swirled it around with a spoon too hard. “We don’t need interesting, Starla. You know that. We like it simple around here.”
    The diner owner put her hand on her hip. “I’ll withhold judgment till I learn more about it.”
    “You’re not going?” He speared a strawberry with a dented fork.
    “Nope.” She waved a hand at a passing pedestrian. “But I’m bringing them some pies. It’s an event. A town event.”
    “Not a town event. It’s a protest, that’s what it is.”
    “They’ll need food.” Starla was adamant.
    But before she moved on with her coffeepot, she winked. Only three guys in town got the wink, and Boone was one of them. The other two were Hank Davis and Chief Scotty.
    He needed that damned wink. Something was about to go down. But hell if he was gonna yell timber.

 
    CHAPTER SIX
    Two hours to go to the sit-in. Cissie wasn’t sure who would show, but all afternoon, food had been coming in from her regulars and some not-so-frequent patrons. So that was promising, wasn’t it? None of them had given her a solid answer about whether or not they were attending the actual event, but she was hopeful—and pleasantly full. A too-tempting slice of Starla’s famous rhubarb-raspberry pie had seen to that.
    “A sit-in is a form of civil disobedience, which is when you stand up to your government,” Cissie explained to a pair of sweet, soft-spoken teenage girls who’d brought in a dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts and a plate of chicken salad sandwiches from their mamas. The girls loved the library’s dystopian near-future young-adult fiction collection (Cissie still couldn’t say that in one breath).
    “Oh. My. God,” said one of the teens. “Civil disobedience is what happens in Fracture the Universe . So this sit-in should be cool!”
    “Maybe sabers will be involved,” said the second one.
    “Or hoes.” The first one’s eyes gleamed. “I just wish we had viscous radiometric gel to help out. Too bad it hasn’t been invented yet. An ounce of it can take