The Rain Sparrow

6

If truth is beauty, how come no one has their hair done in the library?

—Lily Tomlin

The library was always busy after the weekend.

The small one-story building in the middle of Honey Ridge was Carrie’s domain, her vocation and avocation. She loved the tidy rows, loved reading and sharing books and loved that the library sponsored adult literacy classes. In fact, she loved everything about the library, including her sometimes troublesome patrons.

Herman Peabody, bless his heart, couldn’t hear a freight train if it ran over his foot, but he forgot his hearing aids as often as he remembered them. Whenever that happened, his voice never dropped below bullhorn level.

Patrons of the library looked at him with either annoyance or resignation.

Wearing a jaunty tam angled on his semi-bald head and in blue overalls that could use a good scrub, Herman Peabody was one of the afternoon regulars.

“Am I talking too loud again?” he asked.

She leaned close, refusing to insult him by wrinkling her nose at his less-than-pleasant scent. “Did you forget your hearing aids?”

He slapped at his ears. A twinkly smile wrinkled an already-wrinkled cheek. “I guess I did.”

Carrie aimed an eye at his overalls. “Maybe in your pocket?”

He squinted and leaned closer. “What?”

She pointed. “Your pocket.”

Recognition dawned, and he patted the overall bib, coming up with a small pair of flesh-colored hearing aids. He popped them in, winced, made an adjustment and then said, “All better?”

Carrie smiled. Most people didn’t bother to know Mr. Peabody had been a Nashville studio musician back in the day when self-trained artists played by ear and before time took away his ability to do exactly that. Now he had nothing to fall back on and barely eked by on a meager Social Security check. She knew this because she volunteered at Interfaith Partnership, a social charity that collected and distributed food and clothing to the needy.

After Mr. Peabody settled onto one of the couches with a sigh and a groan, grabbing at his left knee, she handed him the Honey Ridge Register. “Do you need some aspirin for that knee?”

“Nah. Just an old man’s stiff joints. I must have sat too long with the good ol’ boys down at the café.”

The café was the coffee klatch of retired men who gathered at the Miniature Golf Café every morning without fail to shoot the breeze and resolve the political and social ills of the universe.

“Did you fellas come up with a solution to world peace?”

“Just about.” He nodded, chuckling. “Just about. Mr. B. says we’ll never get out of this world alive, so what difference does it make?”

Carrie laughed. Mr. B., short for Bastarache, a name few of them could pronounce, was the town undertaker. His fatalistic views were legendary.

“Well, that’s Mr. B. for you,” she said. “You tell me if you need some aspirin for that knee, okay? I have a bottle in my purse.”

He patted her hand. “You’re a good girl, Miss Carrie. Your mama raised you right.”

Carrie’s chest squeezed in affectionate sympathy for the man as she returned to the front desk.

“Why doesn’t he loiter somewhere else?” Tawny Brown, the other media specialist, ran the scanner gun across the bar code on the back of The Cat in the Hat. The computer beeped, and she crammed the book onto a roller cart for reshelving.

Carrie offered a sympathetic glance but said nothing. Tawny got all stirred up about the computer hogs and the regulars who hung out for lack of anything better to do. In Carrie’s opinion, everyone needed time in the safe haven of a library.

The thought of a safe haven brought Brody Thomson to mind, which brought Hayden Winters to mind, as well. The boy concerned her, but she didn’t know what to do about it. The man—well, he was a famous writer and she was a book person.

Beyond his incredible gift of words and the stormy night encounter at Peach Orchard Inn she didn’t know anything about him. He was an enigma even to book lovers.

Out of curiosity, she’d read his website bio, which was primarily about his novels and devoid of personal information. Because of his profession and hers, she also followed him, along with other popular authors, on Facebook and Twitter. Again, no personal information on Hayden Winters. Only book talk. A writer of his stature probably had an assistant handling social media anyway.

She’d had coffee, in her pajamas no less, with Hayden Winters.

Laughing at herself a little, she focused on work. The man had probably put her out of his mind the moment she’d driven away.

At noon, her sister Nikki came flying in, a swirl of energy and beauty. All the Riley siblings had dark hair, but Nikki took hers to a whole other dimension. Sleek as a mink and layer-cut in the latest style, Nikki’s hair gleamed. Today, the fashionista sister wore eggplant heels as high as the biography stacks. Carrie’s back hurt to look at them. No matter how hard she’d tried in high school, she’d never been able to pull off the beauty-queen look.

“What are you doing?” she asked. “Taking me out to lunch or jumping off into the deep to actually read something besides Fashion and Fad magazine?”

Nikki ignored the jab.

“Wasn’t this weekend at Peach Orchard Inn fun?” Her sister leaned an elbow on the circulation desk.

“Except for the tornado.”

Nikki rolled luminous brown eyes. “Don’t be a ninny. I slept right through it.”

“Two glasses of wine will do that to you.”

“Three, but who’s counting.”

“The hammer in my head was counting.” Carrie thanked a patron who dropped a couple of books on the desk and left. “One reason I seldom drink anything stronger than espresso.”

Hayden Winters flashed through her head again. Bold. He liked his coffee bold.

Nikki was nodding, her face repentant. “I don’t think Julia was particularly pleased that I’d brought wine in the first place. After we poured Valery into her bed, I understood why.”

“She did get a little crazy.”

“A little? Carrie, she was smashed. Having a glass of wine is one thing, but Valery didn’t seem to have a cutoff point.”

Carrie bit down on her bottom lip. “You sound as if you think she has a drinking problem.”

Nikki’s shoulders arched. “I’ve heard rumors, but you know how people like to talk in Honey Ridge.”

Yes, Carrie knew. She’d been the object of those rumors at one time, and the experience had made her cautious. The memory pressed in and caused an ache beneath her rib cage.

“If Valery has a problem, gossip won’t help. Nor will friends who come bearing wine. So, to be on the safe side, no more vino at our get-togethers.”

“Which means we have to have more.”

“Wine or get-togethers?” She beeped the wand across a bar code.

“Get-togethers, silly. Pedicures, weird hairdos and that hilarious Reese Witherspoon movie. Did I ever tell you about the time I saw her in Knoxville? We were in the same boutique, and she bought the exact scarf I had my eye on?”

“About a million times,” Carrie said, glad they’d moved away from the rumor mill topic.

She didn’t want Nikki rehashing the incident, which always brought on a painful slew of sympathetic hugs and the false assurance that nobody remembered anymore. She remembered.

“Some things are worth repeating.” Her sister hitched a purse Carrie recognized as a Coach only because it said so right on the front. “So are you in for some more fun?”

Carrie’s hand stilled on the two books she was now checking in. “Shoot! I let Maggie get out without paying her fine again.”

“Are you listening to me?”

“What? Oh, sure. Reese Witherspoon.”

Nikki exhaled in a long, beleaguered sigh. “Fun, Carrie. You know, something besides this musty library.”

Insulted, Carrie drew back. “My library is not musty.”

But that was the way things went with her sisters. Carrie’s choice in clothes, occupation and lifestyle was stodgy and musty. Theirs was perfection.

Most of the time she even agreed with them but not when they criticized her library.

“Bailey and I think we need a break, all three of us,” Nikki was saying. “Chad’s on board and Ricky doesn’t count.”

Ricky was her longtime on-again, off-again boyfriend who pretty much let her do anything she wanted and was always waiting when she returned. That she took advantage of the easygoing man never crossed Nikki’s mind.

Carrie beeped a book and added a worn copy of Laura Ingalls Wilder to the cart. “What are you talking about?”

“Let’s plan a winter getaway to somewhere warm and wet. A Christmas gift to ourselves. What do you think of Hawaii?”

“Christmas is still months from now.” She beeped another book.

“Plans, darling. Plans.” Which in Nikki’s world meant planning her wardrobe.

“Hawaii sounds beautiful,” Carrie said hesitantly. “But it’s a long way from here with water in between.”

“That’s the whole point. Water, beaches, shirtless men, getting a tan in the dead of winter.” Nikki circled a finger in the air. “Water’s not a problem. You can swim.”

“Not hundreds of miles across the ocean.”

“Don’t start with that. Flying is safer than riding in a car.”

“Crashing isn’t.”

“We won’t crash. I promise. So what do you say?”

“You know how I hate flying.” Carrie’s pulse got all rickety at the mere mention of stepping on a plane. She’d flown once. Once. And thrown up twice, an experience she never wanted to repeat. “Besides, I don’t think I can take the time off.”

Nikki snorted so loudly, Carrie had to shush her.

“You probably have a hundred years of vacation time coming.”

Tawny whisked past, pausing long enough to say, “Go, Carrie. I’ll cover.”

“Eavesdropper,” Carrie groused.

Tawny tilted a shoulder and grinned.

Nikki’s lips curved in triumph. “There you go. No excuses. The three of us will have such fun. You might even meet a hunky Hawaiian who’ll teach you to surf.”

“Sharks eat people who surf.”

Nikki pursed her lips and got serious. “What’s the deal, Carrie? You don’t want to hang out with your big sisters for a week of fun in the sun?”

Carrie dropped her head back.

“I love the idea of the three of us doing more things together.” She touched her sister’s hand. “Really, Nik. I just...” Hated the idea of hanging over an ocean for hours in a plane held up only by invisible air. Hated the unknown and unexpected, where men lied and people assumed things that weren’t true and left you with a hole in your heart.

She preferred her predictable world of Dewey decimals and alphabetical order.

“I’m saving for a house. A trip to Hawaii is not in my budget.”

“Oh.” Nikki looked deflated. For once, the whirlwind sister had no argument. “I didn’t know you were planning to buy a house.”

That’s because she’d only this moment decided to start saving. Maybe it was time to move forward and stop looking back and dreaming of something that was never going to happen. She was a career woman now. She had a stable, steady income. She certainly wasn’t going anywhere else. Not even Hawaii.

To ease the disappointment on her sister’s face, she said gently, “You and Bailey go. I’ll help Chad with their kids while you’re gone.”

Nikki pouted pink lips. “The whole sister bond thing. Come on, Carrie. Nearly four years have passed since—”

Carrie pointed a finger, expression stern. “Do not go there, Nikki.”

“Then get over it. No one even remembers anymore.”

“You do.”

Nikki huffed. “I wouldn’t if you’d move on and get a life.”

“I am over it. I have moved on. That’s why I’m saving for a house.”

Hers wasn’t Nikki’s or Bailey’s idea of a life, but Carrie had learned to be content. She’d accepted the fact, thanks in large part to “the incident,” that she was as ordinary and uninteresting as a slice of plain white bread. And she was okay with that. Most of the time.

“Go to Hawaii,” she said. “Get a great tan, see a real volcano and a rain forest.” All the reasons Carrie would love to visit Hawaii. “You can Skype me from Waikiki Beach with a hunky Hawaiian on your arm and say, ‘I told you so.’”

Nikki’s eyes squinted in suspicion. “You’re a coward, Carrie Leanne. You’re scared to death to get out of this town and do something. You’re terrified of making the same mistake—”

Carrie quickly interrupted. “Remember when we went to Graceland? That was fun.”

“Out of Tennessee, Carrie.” Nikki rolled her well-mascaraed eyes. “You’re going to spend the rest of your life stuck in this library if you don’t branch out a little. Really, Carrie, don’t you want to meet people?”

“I meet people every day.”

“I meant people as in the single male variety, not the shut-ins and bookworms and computer geeks you meet through the library.”

“Hey!”

“Sorry. But did you see those shoes Maggie had on?”

“No, I didn’t. And you shouldn’t be so shallow as to judge a woman by her shoes.” Carrie fought the urge to glance at her own discount store flats. “Don’t you have a boutique to run?”

Nikki flipped a nonchalant hand. “Bailey’s in the shop today. She can handle the customers.”

Carrie’s two older sisters co-owned the Sassy Sisters Boutique. Nikki coordinated the fashion end while Bailey managed the business details and kept spendthrift Nikki firmly in check. Theirs was the perfect partnership and one they’d tried to interest Carrie in, another case of the oddball sister who couldn’t quite fit.

The week had barely begun and already she’d had too many reminders of how drab and pathetic she was. Like a sharp knife in the throat, she’d never forget the moment she’d accepted the truth. No one needed to remind her ever again.

Yet she knew they would.

“Then you’ll excuse me,” Carrie said. “I have work, even if you don’t.”

“You’re overwhelmed with customers.” Nikki’s index finger bobbed up and down as she counted. “Seven.”

Though she loved them, her sisters had the power to drain her.

“Patrons. And computer three needs to move on so the next patron can take over.” Happy for an excuse to escape, Carrie went to the computer section and quietly reminded the bearded man that his time was up.

He scowled, thick eyebrows coming together. “I’m not done.”

“You’re playing a game, sir.” “Zombie Zap,” for pity’s sake. “Other patrons are waiting for the computer. So please, log out.”

With a growl, the man logged out, shoved back his chair and stalked out of the library. If he’d been a real zombie, she’d be toast right now.

Carrie tooled through the library, shelving a book here and there, stopping to point out the biography section to a woman in shorts and flip-flops before returning to the front.

She was sliding a weathered copy of Wuthering Heights into its exact spot—823.8—when her sister rounded the end of the stack.

“I thought you left,” Carrie said.

“Isn’t it cool having a famous novelist staying in Honey Ridge? At Julia’s inn, no less.”

A little jitter danced in Carrie’s stomach. “He’s researching a book.”

“Really? Then I guess that explains why he just walked in the door.”

“Here? In the library?” From her spot behind several rows of books she couldn’t see the front, but she craned her head in that direction anyway.

“He’s not a rock star, Carrie. I didn’t even recognize him.”

He was a star in the literary world, though Nikki wouldn’t know that.

“Most people wouldn’t recognize John Grisham or Nicholas Sparks if they met them on the street, either. Authors’ names and books, yes, but their faces? Not so much.”

“I guess that’s true.”

“Have you ever read one of his novels?”

Nikki looked shocked at the very idea. “All that violence? Not on your life. Valery had to tell me who he was. She thinks he’s hot.”

“Valery thinks anyone with testosterone is hot.” So what if Carrie had thought the same thing the other night in Julia’s kitchen. She had an excuse. The storm had rattled her nerves and he’d been kind, not only to her but to Brody. He’d given up his bed and his rest for the pitiful little boy. In Carrie’s book, a man who showed kindness was hot with a capital H.

Nikki, still standing at the end of the stack, gaped toward the entrance. “Oh, my goodness.”

“What?”

“Ferragamo!”

“Who?”

Nikki tossed her head and made a disgusted noise. “I swear, sometimes I wonder if we share any DNA at all. The man is wearing Ferragamo loafers.”

“What man?”

“Hayden Winters! The man we’re discussing.” Nikki let out a long sigh. “Ferragamo. Such fabulous taste. His hotness rating has officially sailed off the meter.”

“He’s more than a pair of shoes, Nikki. He’s a nice, ordinary guy who likes strong coffee and Oreo cookies and isn’t afraid of storms.”

Nikki eyed her sister with speculation. A perfectly groomed pair of black eyebrows rose in a higher arch.

Carrie could never get her eyebrows to look that good.

“I thought you were busy rescuing the drenched boy.”

“Before that. The storm scared me. Don’t roll your eyes. I can’t help it. I came downstairs to watch the weather on TV.”

“And your hottie writer pal was already there?”

“He was trying to find the coffeepot. I showed him. We made coffee.”

“You must have nearly fainted when you learned who he is. I mean, you being a bookworm and all. Valery’s right. He’s not hard to look at, even if he’s older by a few years.”

Late thirties. Maybe even forty. When a guy looked that good, age didn’t matter.

“It was storming, Nikki,” Carrie said in exasperation. “You know how I feel about storms. I would have hung out with anyone wearing skin. I didn’t care if the guy was a writer or a skid-row bum.”

She might be stretching the truth a little, but she had been deeply relieved at finding a living, breathing, unterrified human in the kitchen. The fact that he was Hayden Winters was icing on the cake.

“Are you ever going to stop being a ninny about a little thunder and lightning?”

“One can only hope.” But how could she, when she lived with memories of that one particular stormy day, of the helpless dread and shattering humiliation that came with every thunderclap? All her life, she’d known something terrible would eventually happen during a storm. She’d been right.

Her sister glanced at her cell phone. “Aren’t you going up there? See what he wants?”

“Tawny’s got the front desk. She can assist him.”

Nikki made a hissing noise and shook her head in dismay. “You are the most hopeless female in Honey Ridge.”

Carrie laughed. “Bye, Nikki. See you.”

Her sister rolled her eyes for the tenth time, tossed her sleek hair and departed, eggplant stilettos tip-tapping on the indoor-outdoor carpet.

As Nikki disappeared from sight, Tawny whipped around the end of the stacks. “Someone wants to see you at the desk.”

Carrie suffered a little swell of energy, quickly tamped down.

He might be Hayden Winters, the most celebrated name in killer thrillers, but to Carrie, he was the guy who liked bold coffee and books and kept the tornadoes away. A pleasant and passing acquaintance.

Keep telling yourself that, and maybe you’ll believe it.

“Be right there.”

7

Libraries raised me.

—Ray Bradbury

Hayden scanned the library, taking in the small computer bay, the cozy sections of brown vinyl couches and chairs, the study tables, and the rows and rows of books tidily divided into sections. Along the east wall, a rack of current magazines overlooked round tables littered with various newspapers.

With each breath, he drew in the redemptive smell of books. Places like this had saved his life.

At the circulation desk Hayden asked for Carrie. A tiny blonde librarian, after giving him a puzzled stare as if she couldn’t quite place him but knew she should, took off toward the rows of books. Apparently, Carrie hadn’t mentioned his presence at Peach Orchard Inn, and he couldn’t decide if he was grateful or wounded.

He liked his midnight barista. Had been intrigued by her. Had found an excuse to see her again.

While he waited, Hayden perused the new releases shelf, flipping through Mary Higgins Clark’s latest as he kept half an eye out for Carrie.

When she came into view, a quick kick deep in his gut caught him off guard. His glance drifted to her ankle, noting the bracelet she’d worn a few nights ago was there again above simple black flats. Even in his sleeplessness, he hadn’t imagined Carrie Riley’s fresh appeal. Dressed in black skinny slacks and a white button-down, she’d tucked her short dark hair behind pearl-studded ears.

She was like the library, neat and orderly.

“You looking for a cup of coffee?” Her mouth curved.

“Might be. You have a few minutes?”

“Not for coffee. Sorry.”

So was he.

“Another time, then.” He slid a hand into the pocket of his chinos. “I wondered about Brody. Did you get him home all right?”

A crease appeared between Carrie’s eyes. She motioned toward a round table nearby, and they sat down across from each other.