Embracing Jenna (Texas Heroes: Station 9, #2)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

Jenna

“How many raindrops do you think a cloud can hold?”

Twelve little hands sprang up into the air. I pointed to Oliver, whose hand waved most excitedly. He usually shouted out, so I called on him quickly before the answer broke free of his fragile control.

“Ten million and five!”

“Wow, that’s a lot!”

I called on a few more kids, then knelt next to the table to quietly ask the ones who hadn’t volunteered an answer.

“We have a lot of good ideas. Are you ready to see how many drops your clouds can hold?”

Cheers erupted around the table, making me smile. This is why I loved being a children’s librarian.

“Okay, here come the clouds. Don’t touch them yet.” I topped off each child’s cup of water with shaving cream, then hurried to hand out the cups of blue-dyed water and eye droppers. “And there’s the rain.” After a dramatic pause, I said, “Go ahead, make it rain!”

They dripped the rain onto their clouds, some one drop at a time, others as fast as they could pump the dropper, and I soaked up their enthusiasm as the ribbons of blue swirled into the clear water below.

As their excitement started to wane, I wrapped it up. “Thank you all for coming! Please check the calendar for our upcoming activities, and take a look at our spring books and crafts. Have a fun day!”

I followed the kids and their parents out of the activity room and into the children’s area—our little slice of fairy-tale heaven tucked behind an arched doorway painted like a towering stack of books, a world away from the quiet of the main library.

“That sounded like a success,” Izzy, my friend and co-worker, said as I joined her behind the children’s circulation desk.

“Yep, they loved it.”

“Awesome. I need to go prep before Homework Helpers starts. I need my own crash course in cell structure if I’m going to be any help for their test tomorrow.”

“Good luck!”

Izzy took off for the teen lounge on the other side of the library, her brown braid swishing behind her, and I meandered through the activity areas, grateful as always for Izzy. With my preference for younger kids and hers for the tweens and teens, we made a great team.

“Oliver, what a tall tower!” I said as I passed the blocks and made my way into the craft and kitchen corner.

“Maddy, your flowers are so colorful!” I said to her as she carefully colored in one of the pictures.

“I made this one yellow like the flowers on your skirt.”

I looked down at my maxi skirt and beamed at her. “It’s just like these sunflowers. That was so observant of you to notice.”

Movement drew my attention to a teenage boy in jeans and a hoodie, the hood pulled low over his face, standing near the children’s circulation desk and looking around.

“Enjoy the coloring, Maddy. I can’t wait to see more later,” I said to her, but my eyes were fixed on him.

I tried not to judge other boys based on Brian Belke, the teenage boy from my nightmares, but that didn’t mean I’d let them wander around unsupervised near the kids.

I’d advocated to have the teen lounge all the way across the library for a good reason.

“Hi!” I said cheerfully as I approached him. “Can I help you?”

“Hello, Miss…may I ask your name?” His smooth voice and mature phrasing clashed with my first impression. I’d pegged him as a teenager from afar, but now he seemed much older.

I tried to see his face, but it was shadowed by his hood. The sense of being watched without seeing him made my skin prickle. I smiled, shoving those old feelings down, and glanced around, grateful not to see any of the kids too close. “I’m Jenna. What can I do for you?”

“I hope you can help me, Jenna. I’m looking for a book, From the Shallows.”

“Sure, I’ll check the computer.” Hopefully, it would be in the adult stacks, and I could pass him off to a colleague.

I ignored the intense stare—no, the intense perusal—that I could feel even without seeing his eyes, and kept my gaze glued to the computer screen.

Dang it. It was in the young adult stacks, and Izzy was busy.

I put up a sign directing anyone checking out a book to the main circulation desk, and I urged him to walk ahead of me to the teen lounge.

No way in hell I’d let him walk behind me.

Not with the weird vibes he was giving off.

My body stiffened as I imagined him behind me.

Grabbing me. Pulling me against his body. Trapping me against him. His penis—

No. I wasn’t going there. I forced a smile onto my face and into my voice. “It’s just around that corner.” I was a professional. A normal, healthy, confident adult who didn’t freak out over random men. Or teenage boys. Whoever he was, it was fine.

Most people were good. He was just a person who needed a book from the library.

It was my job to help him and to make him feel welcome.

He hadn’t been anything but polite. But I couldn’t see his shadowed face clearly, and something about him made my stomach tighten and my head dizzy.

I wished I could just hide out in my corner of the library watching over the kids until he was gone instead of following him into the stacks.

“Here we are,” I said professionally. “It’s on the second shelf, alphabetized by the author’s name.

” I beelined to its spot, more than ready to be finished with him.

My heart dropped as I scanned the titles and didn’t see it.

He looked at the books, too, moving closer.

Too close. Thick, suffocating energy swirled between us, sucking all the oxygen out of the air.

Out of my lungs. Forcing myself to focus on the call numbers, I found two books that should’ve been on the bottom shelf.

I squatted down, hoping it was an easy swap, and the correct book would be right there on the bottom.

He leaned in, looking over my head at the books on the middle shelves.

Nothing wrong with what he was doing. But it felt so, so wrong.

I fought the urge to adjust my skirt. I was on and off the floor all the time with the kids, and I knew the long maxi skirt was pooled around me, showing nothing.

But with him standing over me, I felt exposed.

It wasn’t down there either. There was a book from the next section over, though. A chill ran through me. Could he have...?

No. That was ridiculous. I started to stand, scanning the shelves on my way up. He stepped even closer into my space, towering over me, his scuffed, black boots nearly on my skirt, his big hand reaching down for me, and in my half-squat, I was helpless to get away.

His hand, cold and clammy, grabbed my arm. I yanked back, scrambling, practically falling, and finally clambered to my feet. “Don’t touch me.”

He held his hands up. “I was just helping.”

“I don’t need help.”

“I see that. Pardon me.”

“It’s okay,” I said, but my gut clenched as his words pulled at a fuzzy memory.

A couple of weeks ago, while walking Thor in Atteren park, a man had blocked my path, then he’d brushed against my side as he passed. I’d felt uneasy, and his murmured Pardon me had somehow made it feel more ominous. Thor had even growled at him.

I couldn’t pull up a mental image of the man from the park, although he’d seemed older than this guy. Then again, I had no idea how old this guy was. Nothing about the way he looked, spoke, or moved was congruent.

Pull it together, Jenna. I might be a scaredy cat, but I had to be a professional scaredy cat.

“Pardon me” wasn’t a commonly used phrase, but it wasn’t that unusual either.

Besides, even if it was the same person, unlikely as that was, it wouldn’t be the first time I’d seen a library patron out in the community.

“My apologies, I didn’t mean to overreact.”

He nodded and looked at my feet, his hood covering even more of his face. It hit me again how much I hated that I could barely see his face. I hurried to the next section over and, thank goodness, found the book there. “Here it is.” I handed him the book and stepped back.

“Thank you, Jenna. I truly appreciate your help.” He lifted his head, and for the first time, I got a slight look at his face. Small, dark, cold eyes. A thin, tight smile. Seeing his face did not make me feel any better.

“My pleasure. You can bring it over to the main circulation desk to check out. Have a great day.” I backed away, smiling as I kept him in my sights to mitigate the offensiveness of not turning around and walking like a normal person.

Every inch of my body shook as I made my way back to the children’s section. I slid behind the desk and busied myself on the computer. I would’ve loved a minute of privacy in the bathroom or the empty activity room, but it was safer out here. If he followed me into an empty room…

“Jenna?”

I jumped before realizing it was just Izzy.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

She raised an eyebrow, disbelief in her dark brown eyes.

“Really, I was just caught up in this. Look what I found for Mother’s Day.” I turned the monitor to face her, glad the picture I’d been staring at for way too long was still there. “Handprint flowers, because you know I love kids’ handprints.”

“That’s adorable. And it’ll be easy to change the wording to be grandma or mom or anything else.”

Thank goodness the distraction worked. “Yep. All we’ll need is paper, paint, paintbrushes, and markers.”

“Love it! But I’m glad you’ll be the one dealing with the kids and their paint-covered hands. Now, tell me what’s really—”

“Jenna! Isabella!” Robert, the library director, shouted out as he barreled into the children’s section.

Izzy and I shared a look and hurried over to meet him.

“Is everything okay?” I asked.

“It’s wonderful! Remember that grant you won for the sensory room? The board just awarded SJZ Construction the bid and accepted their final plans. They’re moving forward with the construction next week.”

Izzy cocked her head. “Do we remember the grant that we spent months planning and proposing, then celebrating when we won, before being told they weren’t sure if we could actually do the work they said we could do?”

Robert had the decency to look chagrined. “Sorry, maybe not the best wording. But that aside, this is great news.”

“It’s fantastic. Thank you for helping to move it forward,” I said.

Robert looked pleased again, even as Izzy gave me a side-eye for kissing his butt. “I’ll keep you posted as I get more information. This will be a nice addition to our library.”

We agreed and said our goodbyes, and as soon as he left, Izzy and I let loose with squeals of excitement.

“Sorry it’s so late, especially on a softball night,” I said as Izzy and I hurried to re-shelve the last few books. We’d spent every second that we weren’t with patrons brainstorming plans for the sensory room, and we were far behind schedule.

“It’s alright, I would’ve missed her game anyway. There’s no chance when they’re on our late nights.”

“Did she win?”

“Yep! And she hit the winning run!”

“That’s amazing! Tell Sophia I said congratulations! Let’s look at the schedule tomorrow, and we’ll do our best to get you there for most of her games.”

“I’m not going to leave you on your own for that many nights, but thank you for the offer. You’re the sweetest.”

“I don’t mind. I’m sure she loves having her mom there cheering for her. Let me know when she’s playing.”

“I may take you up on that when we get to the playoffs. Thank you!”

We finished quickly, and at eight thirty, a half hour past closing time, we were finally ready to go. We left, still spitting out ideas as we said goodbye to the two nighttime janitors, the only other people left in the library.

“Goodnight, Iz, see you tomorrow.” I peered around the lot as Izzy got into her car and I continued to mine.

“Have a good night!” she called back.

The echo of her door closing in the quiet night sent the fear from earlier slamming back into me.

I speed-walked the remaining few feet to my car, fighting the urge to run.

I wasn’t going to look scared. Wasn’t going to be scared.

But out there in the darkness, I couldn’t deny I was.

I jumped into my CR-V and pulled out in record time, relaxing a drop when Izzy pulled up behind me as I stopped at the light to make a left out of the lot.

I debated between peanut butter and jelly or grilled cheese as I waited, trying to focus on the night ahead, but the sound of a car starting jolted my attention to the shadows at the back of the lot.

Who else was leaving now, a half hour after the library closed?

I hadn’t seen anyone in the library or the parking lot.

The light changed and I made my turn, glancing back in the mirror to see a dark-colored SUV turn right.

It wasn’t following me. It was a coincidence. Everything was fine.

Why were there so many dark SUVs on the road, though? Was there any chance he could have turned around and caught up to me? Why did I keep seeing small, cold, black eyes peering out at me from every SUV?

Stop it, Jenna. Everything’s fine.