Beauty's Kiss(12)

Troy drove to the hotel bemused.

The little mouse had just rejected him.

She didn’t want to go to the Ball, and she definitely didn’t want to go with him.

Troy wasn’t sure how to react. He was so used to women chasing him, pursuing him, wanting him, that it was a bit... surprising... and intriguing... to meet a woman who didn’t seem to want him.





The next morning an exhausted Taylor drank two cups of coffee with a piece of toast before bundling up and setting off to walk to work, hoping the frigid morning and exercise would help her clear her head.

She hadn’t slept well. And when she did sleep, she dreamed she was wearing this fancy pink prom gown with sparkly bits and little puffed sleeves and she was at the Graff Hotel for the Valentine Ball, only it wasn’t really the Graff Hotel’s 1914 ballroom, but an 1814 ballroom in London. Taylor was there with her brother and Jane and feeling very uncomfortable, very much a wallflower, and Jane kept whispering to Taylor about Lord Sheenan, and how handsome he was. Then suddenly somehow Lord Sheenan was asking Taylor to dance and they were twirling and waltzing around the dance floor...

It had all been so vivid, too.

Too vivid.

The ballroom, the gowns, the self-conscious feeling as she stood against a wall, wishing she were home instead of corseted into the ball gown.

And then the waltz, and the way Troy held her, and the feel of him against her.

She’d liked it.

She’d liked it so much she wasn’t even sure who had initiated the kiss. Him, or her.

That’s when she’d woken up. At the kiss.

The minute she’d woken she wanted to be asleep again, dreaming again. The dream was gone.

She told herself she was glad.

She wasn’t.

And so baffled, and grouchy from lack of sleep, she trudged off to the library in her winter boots and heavy coat, with her striped scarf wrapped around her neck, walking the ten blocks to the library, down Bramble Lane, the sidewalk mostly shoveled clean and salted.

She did not want to go to the Valentine Ball. And she most definitely did not want to go with Troy Sheenan.

On break mid-morning at the library, Taylor made calls, filed reports and begged the Bozeman insurance adjustor to go see her car as soon as it was towed to Marietta’s body shop, instead of waiting until the next available opening, which was next week.

Then during her lunch, Kara picked up Taylor from in front of the library and drove her to Marietta’s only car dealer to pick up a loaner car for the next week.

The loaner car was an older four-wheel drive Jeep, and sketchy at best, but it was a car and it ran, so it was something.

Taylor had hoped to grab a sandwich on her way back to the library but time ran out and she ended up back at work without eating anything. By the time the Tuesday night book club arrived at five thirty for their meeting, Taylor was dragging.

She needed food, and coffee, or just a big cup of coffee.

But there was no time to get anything before the book club discussion began and after an hour and a half Taylor’s energy and patience was running low.

She loved her job here in Marietta. She loved this library, too.

Although to be quite honest, right now, Taylor wanted to be anywhere but sequestered in the upstairs conference room with the Tuesday Night Book Group. Her stomach was growling and she still had the Wedding Giveaway meeting to attend. And Taylor couldn’t make it to tonight’s Wedding committee meeting until she emptied and secured the second floor meeting room for the night. Emptying the room was never easy, but tonight it was starting to appear impossible since three of the founding members of the Tuesday Night Book Club did not like new chamber director, Jane Weiss, and did not approve of the Wedding Giveaway in the first place.

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Taylor said, raising her voice to be heard over the fifteen women, and one man, that made up the group. “But we really do need to wrap up. As I mentioned at the beginning of tonight’s discussion, I must get to the committee meeting downstairs—”

Maureen continued talking as if Taylor had not spoken.

Taylor pursed her lips, keeping her temper in check. Maureen was one of the ladies that had made Jane’s life miserable last November and December and it was difficult for Taylor to be in the same room with Maureen, but it was also Taylor’s job to sit in on the book group meetings and run the meeting. She cleared her throat and rose from her chair. “It’s time to wrap up,” she said firmly. “Unfortunately, we can’t go late tonight—”

“Why not?” Maureen demanded, interrupting Taylor tartly, asking a question she already knew the answer to. “We always go late.”

“We’ve always been allowed to go as long as we want,” Virginia chimed in. Virginia was Maureen’s best friend and minion. “I can’t remember the last time we had to end at seven thirty.”