Chapter 2 #2
I arched a brow, intrigued now as much as angry that she was this bold in broad daylight.
“This is my business. The library is closed. Locked. Off-limits. As its next-door guardian, I would appreciate not finding strangers trying to pry into the windows,” I said firmly.
I took the task of guarding the library very seriously, the whole town, in fact.
Vampires were often solitary creatures, and that was no different for me, but like a cat, I still needed a family, and this town was mine. Warts, empty houses, and all.
She took a step closer, chin lifting in challenge. “Well, as its soon-to-be restorer, I need to know what I’m getting into.” She pointed her hand back at the boarded-up window, indicating what she’d been looking at as if this weren’t evidence of her crime but proof of her innocence.
Restorer? My irritation paused, recalibrated, re-sharpened.
I would know if something like that was happening, wouldn’t I?
“Your name?” I asked, clipped, polite, dangerous.
If she was who she said she was, the information had to be out there.
Belfry probably knew, he was the king of gossip after all.
Where he got it, I never knew, as I was the only one he could talk to.
He probably sneakily hung in the rafters of other peoples homes to pick things up with his oversized ears.
She hesitated, just a flicker, but I caught it.
“Jade Whitaker.” Her last name pricked at some half-formed memory, but her refusal to elaborate annoyed me enough to override my curiosity.
Something was hinky—yes, I thought it—hinky.
After the visitors for Gwen and Bianca had caused all sorts of mayhem last winter, I was not about to let another one walk into town, no matter who sanctioned it.
If they even had; this could just be a well-rehearsed excuse.
“Why did no one inform me that the Mayor intended to hire someone for the library?” I asked out loud.
That prickle of a memory was growing stronger, and, with a sense of doom, I realized that someone very well might have informed me.
I vaguely recalled a conversation with Grandma Liz just as Gwen opened the B it would not take much to get her to leave, surely.
She needed to leave, not only because she posed a threat to the town and the library books, but because the town was dangerous to her.
Her eyes widened, not in fear but in oh-great-another-eccentric-local exasperation.
“I was going to say overbearing storekeeper, but sure—you can add that to the list.” She crossed her arms stubbornly over her chest, and I was struck by the very juvenile urge to let my eyes drop to the way her blouse clung to the soft swell of her breasts.
Damn it, I was above these urges, wasn’t I?
I pinched the bridge of my nose and pinned my gaze, laser-focused, on hers.
“Ms. Whitaker, I simply need you to vacate the premises. The ground is unstable, the structure worse, and I would prefer not to scrape you off the paving stones.” I did not think the library would collapse at any minute, but surely a little embellishment of the danger couldn’t hurt.
It was all true, the ground was dry and cracked here, and nobody had bothered to inspect the building’s foundations in ages.
We also did not have anything resembling a firehouse, so if a calamity struck, rescue would have to come from me or one of the other stick-to-themselves inhabitants of town.
“You don’t have to be rude,” she said, and there was almost a pout on her full bottom lip.
It made something coil inside my belly that I did not want to investigate.
She was bold and elegant at the same time, petite but fierce.
She stepped closer until she was in the shade cast by the overgrown hedge with me, her scent trapped between us: sweetness combined with dusty old paper and electrifying heat.
“I am being exceptionally polite,” I assured her. “You have not seen me be rude.” We stood locked in a ridiculous standoff—her bristling like a wet cat, me trying very hard not to bare fangs in broad daylight—when footsteps crunched at the gate.
“Jade! Luther!” The library yard’s gate swung open in the distance with softly creaking hinges, and in bustled Mayor Lizzie Hightower, her warm smile carrying the force of a diplomatic avalanche.
All her gray curls haloed her still-unlined face, while multicolored bangles dangled around her wrists, clattering together in time with her footsteps.
The scent of patchouli and fresh hay preceded her.
I could see her approach from the corner of my eye, but Jade had not yet noticed her.
Saved from coming to blows by the one woman in town capable of bossing around both wolves and vampires. Wonderful. Belfry should have kept his big ears to himself and his always-moving mouth shut… While I had the chance, though, I needed to make sure this woman knew I meant business.