Love on Loan – J.C. Hannigan #3
My gaze again drifted towards Arwen. “I might consider a library event. I think that’d be more my speed.”
“A library event?” Julie repeated.
“Yeah, the bookstore owners’ daughter invited me to come out for a book club meeting. Apparently, they’ve chosen my book for their Thriller Book Club.”
“Oh! That would be…something,” Julie’s smile seemed a little forced.
I didn’t think she felt a library event would be worth my time. There’d be little to no coverage, and only a select few attendees.
“I know it’s not exactly the speed you want.” I shrugged my shoulder.
“Baby steps.” Julie nodded in agreement. “I’ll talk to her before I leave.”
“Great, I’m going to head out,” I took my banner and let Julie handle the remaining books.
Before I could make it out the door, the old woman who’d called me out during the Q it was great seeing you all. Thank you for reading and supporting me.”
Even though the drive to Springwood wasn’t a long one, I was bone tired.
As soon as I stepped through my front door, I was greeted by the wagging tail and excited whimpering of my five-year-old Weimaraner.
I put my banner down, leaning it against the wall, and set the baked goods and my keys on the table by the door.
Then I crouched to give the dog his required pets.
“Good boy, Gimli. Want to go outside?”
Yeah, I’d named my dog after a LOTR character, which is why I’d grinned like an idiot when Arwen told me her name. It had felt almost kismet.
Gimli barked with excitement, running toward the back of my house.
I grabbed the baked goods and walked through my small craftsman cottage.
The front door opened into a long hallway, with the living room and the dining room to the left, and a hall closet and powder room to the right.
A staircase led up to two small bedrooms and a full-piece bath.
At the very end of the main floor hallway was the kitchen, and a sliding door to the small fenced in backyard. I let Gimli out, watching while he charged off the deck and into the snow like he was on a mission.
Gimli had a lot of energy, and my little slice of a backyard wasn’t enough to burn it.
He required at least two walks a day, and stimulation throughout.
I didn’t mind, though. Without Gimli’s needs to distract me, I wouldn’t leave my house for days.
Before I rescued him, that was how it was.
My family, and the few friends I had, had grown concerned.
Gimli broke up the hours and the days so that I wasn’t locked in my own head. As an introvert, I needed something to pull me outside my comfort zone, to get me outside in the sunlight for a few hours every day.
I poured a glass of whisky, my reward for doing something strenuous or unpleasant—like the engagement at the bookstore—and tossed it back while I waited for Gimli to paw at the sliding door.
It burned going down, chasing away the residual anxiety over the evening’s event, and settled in my stomach heavily.
It didn’t quite chase away the vision of Arwen, to whom my thoughts drifted to as frequently as my gaze had.
Her gravitational pull was no joke, even with a town between us.
I could still feel it. It’d been a while since I’d been intrigued by someone else, enough that the thought of them broke through the haphazard mess of my mind.
I thought about that strange encounter while I absently opened the box of baked goods, picking up one of the delectable brownie bites and popping it in my mouth. Chocolate always paired well with whisky.
The frantic pawing of Gimli at the sliding door broke my reverie, and I crossed over to let him in.
“I spoke to Arwen Love and got the details for the library event she wants you to attend,” Julie said over the phone a few days later. I was sitting at my desk, trying to push out another chapter before taking Gimli on a much-needed walk.
“Oh?”
“Yeah, they meet on the last Tuesday of each month, and they’ll be reading your book in February.”
“So, I’d have to sit around listening to a book club dissect my work?” I didn’t like the sound of that, even if it meant seeing Arwen again.
“Well, no. You’d join for the last twenty minutes of the meeting,” Julie explained.
“Oh. Well. Okay.” I found myself agreeing without much of a fight. I knew that surprised Julie, too—she was used to having to beg and plead with me to do book engagements.
“Great! I’ll tell her you’re in,” Julie said, still sounding a little mystified.
I couldn’t blame her: I was mystified by my reaction, too.
With the phone call over, I stared at my computer screen for another twenty minutes. Gimli whimpered, and I let out a resigned sigh as I stood up. I’d been writing for long enough to recognize when I wouldn’t be able to force a word.
It was minus ten, cold for February. Last weekend, we’d had a dumping of snow that had yet to melt, though the sidewalks were clear and dry.
I geared up to face the cold temperatures outside, then I put Gimli’s snow booties on.
Gimli hated his snow booties, and his snow jacket, but they were necessary.
His fur wasn’t thick enough to withstand Canadian winter temperatures, and the salt irritated the pads of his paws.
He put up with them because it meant a walk was in his immediate future.
Fresh air and exercise would do me good, and perhaps help me get the creative wheels spinning again.
Springwood was a lot like Hartwood Creek, though a little bigger with its box stores, college, and hospital. As we set out on our usual route around the block, I found myself wondering whether Arwen would enjoy going on smalltown walks, and if she even liked dogs.
Arwen
Placing the charcuterie board in the centre of the square coffee table, I stood back and assessed the space.
On the main floor of the Hartwood Creek Public Library, we had two long couches that readers could sink into, and when supplemented with some stackable chairs, it was the perfect meeting spot for our book clubs.
Once a month, members took turns supplying the snacks, except for the youth book club—I provided the snacks for that one. This month for the Thriller Book Club, it was a stylish—and delicious looking—charcuterie board provided by Jolie Loucks.
The meeting was due to start any minute, and my stomach was aflutter with nerves. Atticus hadn’t arrived yet, but I wasn’t expecting him until shortly before the end of the meeting. I was surprised he’d agreed at all. I thought when he’d brushed me off, that’d been the end of it.
The book club members were thrilled; we’d never had an author attend a book club meeting before.
Jolie was so excited, she’d made Atticus an individual charcuterie board to “thank him” for coming out.
I suspected her excitement was more from the fact that she found him undeniably attractive and was hoping to shoot her shot, but I tried not to let that bother me.
It shouldn’t. I had no claim on the man, even if he’d been invading my dreams since our meeting.
The book club members trickled in, copies of Atticus’s book in hand. They made themselves comfortable. Once everyone was accounted for and hellos had been exchanged, we began the meeting.
“So, who wants to go first?” I asked, looking around expectantly.
The Thriller Book Club consisted of thirteen members and me, all of us ranging from late thirties to late sixties.
“I’ll go,” Gloria Wood said, smiling brightly at me. “I found it riveting. The author has a unique way of pulling you into the story.”
The group murmured in agreement.
“Well, I thought it was a little insulting to our history,” Lila Fitzgerald sniffled. “You could tell he was poking fun at the folklore, darkening it—and that didn’t really sit well with me.”
“Nor I,” Luna Fitzgerald chimed in, supporting her sister’s offense.
“Well, creative liberties and all that, right?” Mindy Becker said, grinning at me with a wink. Mindy had started working as the assistant librarian a few years ago. We were both introverted and organized, and we’d become fast friends.
“I found it amusing,” Beatrice Hartley admitted. “I know my mother and aunts did, too.”
“ They read it?” Lila seemed shocked. She and Luna had missed the bookstore event.
“Of course, they read it! They went to his author signing at the bookstore a few weeks ago,” Beatrice said.
“I heard they gave him some special brownies…” Jolie said, her tone calculating. “I wonder if they added the love elixir.”