“What do you mean you forgot what your date looks like?”
Monica’s voice startled Jackson worse than a thunderclap two inches behind his head. Spinning on the library’s thin carpet, he roped an arm around his sister’s neck and dragged her behind a bookcase crammed with biographies. “Lower your voice. Are you trying to get me killed?”
“Are you trying to get me killed?” Monica wheezed as she tugged his elbow away from her neck.
“Yeah, if you don’t stop squirming,” he whispered as he peeked around the corner. Shoot. Just as he feared. Nobody had moved.
Pretty Brunette One remained in an oversized chair on the left, reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, while Pretty Brunette Two thumbed through a Charles Dickens novel on the right. And at the circulation desk, smack dab in the middle, holding her rubber stamp like a gavel, roosted the scary white-haired beast known as Ms. Haughn.
Oh, this was bad.
Monica’s elbow jabbed his gut. “You’re suffocating me.”
Jackson slapped a palm over her mouth. “Stop being dramatic.” How was Ms. Haughn not retired? Or dead?
“Seriously . . .” Her muffled voice heated his palm. “Can’t breathe.”
“Shh.” Where was his sister’s library etiquette? He shoved her further down the aisle away from Ms. Haughn’s impeccable hearing. The woman might be ancient, but he’d wager she could still hear a papercut from the periodicals section three floors away. “She can’t know I’m here.”
Monica yanked his hand away, gasping for air. “Who? Your date?”
“Ms. Haughn.” He tried covering Monica’s mouth again. “Stop laughing. The woman’s a viper.”
Monica batted him away with another giggle. “A viper who sews lap blankets for nursing home residents and keeps the food pantry stocked all winter long.”
“Those are the types you have to watch out for.”
“Oh for pete’s sake, what did that sweet woman ever do to you?”
Nothing. The problem was what Jackson had done to her. Or rather, her library. “Remember that prank? The one where somebody hung all those Pride and Prejudice drawings on the walls?”
The humor drained from Monica’s face. “Don’t tell me that was you. Proud and Flatulant? Eliza-burp Bennet and Mr. Fartsy? Seriously, Jackson? That was downright sacrilegious.”
“Cut me some slack. I was thirteen and suffering from PTSD. That was the summer I broke my leg.”
“Oh big whoop. You were fine.”
“Hardly. I was stuck on the couch in a cast. And you know what Mom did while you were off frolicking at summer camp? Forced me to watch all fifty million hours of that PBS version of Pride and Prejudice. To this day, anything to do with that story makes me want to scratch my leg off with a wire hanger. Can you blame me for going a little crazy?”
“Yes, actually, I can. Because as I recall, there was a broken window involved in that library incident. I can’t believe Mom didn’t ground you. Or make you watch Sense and Sensibility on repeat.”
“Mom didn’t know. Nobody did.” Or at least that’s what he thought up until the night of his high school graduation party.
Jackson shuddered, recalling the look in Ms. Haughn’s eyes as she patted a napkin against her red lips and complimented his mother on the cake. A look that transitioned from sweet to lethal the moment his mother stepped away and her gaze settled on Jackson.
She knew.
Jackson hadn’t stepped foot near his hometown library ever since. Not until today.
“I’m a dead man,” he whispered.
“You’re a drama queen. Now can we forget about Ms. Haughn and get back to the fact you don’t remember what your date looks like tonight?”
“It’s not that I don’t remember her,” he said, grabbing a book off the botanical bookshelf and opening it to the middle so it looked as if they were both consumed with How to Love Your Cactus. “I just can’t tell which of the two brunettes sitting out there is her. We only met once, and she was all dolled up. Women look different when they’re all dolled up.”
“Not that different.”
“No? Then why did we call the cops, thinking Aunt Trudy was an intruder the first time we saw her without any makeup?”
“Because Aunt Trudy wears enough makeup to make a clown jealous.”
“Fine, but the woman I met at the gala had her hair pulled up and was wearing a sparkly dress. Both women out there are dressed in jeans with their hair down. It could be either one. And I can’t get a closer look. Not without The Beast devouring me first.”
“Did it ever cross your mind that maybe you should be less concerned about recognizing your date and more concerned about finding a good therapist?” Monica took the book from his hands and slid it back on the shelf. “Just look her up on social media.”
“Great idea . . . if I remembered her name.” He hunched his shoulders as Monica immediately yanked the book back off the shelf and began smacking him as if she were attacking a spider.
“I’m pretty sure she said Lindsay. Or Lizzie. Possibly Brenda.” He braced against several more pummels. “There was a lot of background music. I didn’t catch everything she said.”
Monica gave him one final smack, this time in the stomach, before returning the book to the shelf. “Well, you’re not going to catch it standing here either. Just go out there with a smile that says both ‘Great to see you again, Lindsay, Lizzie, possibly Brenda’ as well as ‘Don’t read into this friendly smile, strange woman, because I’m not interested in you,’ and pray the right one approaches you first.”
“I can’t risk it. Not with Ms. Haughn standing guard. Who knows what she’ll do? I don’t want to make a bad first date impression. I like this girl, whoever she is. You’ve got to help me.”
“How?”
“Smell them and report back to me.”
“You’ve lost your mind.” Monica started to brush past him, but Jackson spun her back.
“I’m serious.”
“And that’s what scares me.”
“Just a quick whiff. The woman I met at the gala smelled really good.”
“How do you know she’s wearing the same fragrance?”
“Because it wasn’t fancy smelling. It smelled like an everyday smell. Like she probably doesn’t even smell it because she’s gotten so used to it and it’s just a part of her.”
“And what exactly does that smell like?”
“Soap?”
“I’m done with you.” Monica detached his grip from her arm, then poked him in the chest. “And I am so telling Mom about what you did.”
He should have known better than to call Monica. Sisters. What good were they?
He glanced at his phone. Shoot. Seven o’clock. He and his date had agreed to meet around quarter to seven. Looking back it would have been nice if they’d agreed to give each other their phone numbers.
He scratched his thigh absentmindedly. It had all seemed so perfect at the time. A pretty woman at a boring gala says hi. He makes a corny joke. She laughs. They quickly bond over books. Oh, a library in Westshire is having a special reading in two weeks? Sure. He’d love to go. Meet at the library? Six forty-five?
Perfect.
Jackson peeked around the corner.
Disaster.
“All right. Enough.” He straightened his shoulders. “Time to be a man.” He took three steps, saw Ms. Haughn, then hustled three steps back behind the bookcase. It’d be so much easier to be a man if Ms. Haughn weren’t around.
A voice carried from the circulation desk. Monica?
“Ms. Haughn, I’m having trouble finding the book I need up on the second floor. It’s about coping with mentally unstable siblings. Do you mind helping me look?”
“I think I know the one,” Ms. Haughn’s warbled voice responded. “But can we take the elevator, dear? These knees don’t handle the stairs like they used to.”
Monica led Ms. Haughn to the elevator, shooting Jackson a look over her shoulder that said he owed her his life. He winked back. Sisters were the best, weren’t they?
Once the doors closed, Jackson stepped out from hiding. All right. This was his chance. Inhaling a deep breath, he looked from one woman to the other.
It had to be Charles Dickens girl. They were here for a reading from The Count of Monte Cristo. It only made sense his date would be the girl reading the classic.
He stepped forward, then paused.
But the night of the gala, they’d talked about lots of books. The Lord of the Rings. The Hunger Games. So maybe it wasn’t Charles Dickens girl. Maybe it was Harry Potter girl.
He glanced behind him to the elevator doors. He didn’t have much time.
Marching toward Charles Dickens girl, he zigged to the left three steps before zagging to the right, swerving left again at the circulation desk because his gut told him it was Harry Potter girl. Unless it was Charles Dickens girl.
Before he made it to either one, a breathless voice spoke from behind him. “Jackson?”
He froze, his feet rooted to the carpet. Slowly he turned. And there she was. The woman he met two weeks ago at the gala. His date. A beautiful brunette he’d recognize anywhere.
“Sorry I’m late,” she said, adjusting her purse strap. “An emergency came up at the end of my shift. I would have texted you, but we never gave each other our numbers. That was silly, wasn’t it?”
Jackson laughed, shooting a quick glance to the woman reading Charles Dickens. Her hair wasn’t even that brown. Dark blonde, really. And when Harry Potter girl stood and walked past, she barely reached his shoulder. So not his date.
He laughed again. “Super silly—” His gaze landed on a name badge clipped to his date’s top. “Lindy.”
“Right. Forgot that was on.” She unclipped the badge and dropped it into her purse. “And sorry about the scrubs. I didn’t have time to go home and change.”
“You look great.” As great as she did in the sparkly dress. He couldn’t stop smiling. “Ready to go to the reading?”
“Do you mind if we say a quick hello to someone first?”
The elevator doors pinged open. Oh no.
“Oh good.” Lindy rushed over to Ms. Haughn and wrapped her in a hug before escorting her to Jackson.
Behind them, Monica mouthed You’re on your own before disappearing out the exit. Sisters were seriously the worst.
“This is my great-aunt, one of the dearest women on the planet to me,” Lindy said, beaming. “And you would not believe how excited she was when I told her you were my date for the reading tonight. Isn’t that right?” She squeezed Ms. Haughn in a side hug.
“That’s right, dear. Except for one thing.” Ms. Haughn’s gaze landed on Jackson, an alligator smile creeping up her wrinkled cheeks as she continued speaking to Lindy. “Our reader had to cancel at the last minute. Thankfully Jackson volunteered to fill in.”
He did?
“And what’s more, he’ll be reading from your favorite novel dressed in full period costume attire.”
Lindy gasped, her eyes dancing with adoration. Boy, she was pretty. “You’re reading from Pride and Prejudice dressed like Mr. Darcy?”
Not that pretty. He clawed at the fire ants crawling all over his leg. “I think there’s been a—”
Lindy stopped his words with a sweet kiss to his cheek. “Best first date ever. Thank you.”
Shoot. She was pretty. And man, she smelled good. If this was what atonement looked like, Jackson supposed he could bear it—so long as the outfit included a sturdy wire hanger.
As Lindy rushed up the stairs to secure a front row seat, Ms. Haughn stopped Jackson with a gentle squeeze to his hand. “So nice seeing you again, Jackson. You stayed away for so long, I was afraid you may have forgotten me.”
Jackson met her gaze, caught the twinkle in it, and squeezed back. “Come now, Ms. Haughn. Do I seem like the type of guy who could ever forget a special lady?”
THE END