Taken with You(31)

As soon as she opened the door, she was hit by a wave of sound. Everybody was talking at once, and she waded through them to get to the kitchen. After adding the pizza rolls to the bounty, she grabbed a plate and started filling it with a little bit of everything.

Fran and Rose were in the corner talking, but as soon as they saw Hailey, they descended upon her. And since she was in the middle of trying to make room for buffalo chicken dip on her plate, Hailey couldn’t retreat.

“You made it!” That was Fran, whose excitement seemed a bit much considering Hailey rarely missed move night.

“We weren’t sure you’d come,” Rose added. “I think if I...lived next door to a man like Matt Barnett, I’d find an excuse not to hang out with a bunch of women.”

Hailey’s gaze bounced back and forth between them, trying to figure out just how suggestive Rose’s pause was meant to be. She trusted Tori, Paige and Liz implicitly, which meant the two women were fishing.

“Watching him through the window might be a pretty picture,” she said, “but there’s no dialogue.”

Both of them looked a little crestfallen, but Rose recovered first. “It’s only been...how long?”

“It’s been a month since I met him.”

Fran raised her eyebrows. “That was quick. Keeping track are you?”

“Really, Fran?” Sometimes she had no patience for the mind games. “Since I met him the day Tori and I skipped movie night—which is once a month—to go on an adventure tour and I’m here for movie night, I went out on a limb and guessed a month.”

She turned and went back to the living room with her plate. Guilt poked at her because her tone had bordered on disrespectful and they were an older generation, but sometimes it was ridiculous. Hell, the town had never forgotten Hailey and Mitch Kowalski had gotten busy in the back of her dad’s Cadillac when they were teenagers and had still brought it up whenever the opportunity presented itself, until Paige and Mitch started dating. That had been the end of it, thank goodness. And Paige had never had a problem with the fact her best friend and her husband had shared one night of drunken stupidity a very long time ago.

Hailey saw Tori sitting on the heavy oak chest that housed a fraction of Fran’s knitting supplies and headed straight for her. “Make some room.”

It wasn’t very wide, but it had a cushion and Hailey didn’t mind bumping elbows with her. “Fran’s being about as subtle as a jackhammer tonight.”

“You knew that would happen when you went to the diner with him.”

“Right now, if there was another store in Whitford, I would totally shop there.”

Fran and Rose were the last ones into the living room. They didn’t have to worry about seats, since they got the two matching recliners by right of age. Jilly Crenshaw, Tori’s aunt, was there, sitting on the couch with Liz and Nola, who worked at the town hall. Katie was sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of them. Hailey waved to them all, then gave her attention to Fran, who was clearing her throat over by the television.

“Tonight, for the June movie night, we’re watching...” Fran paused dramatically, then held up the movie case. “Deliverance!”

Hailey groaned. “Real funny, Fran.”

“It kind of is,” Katie said, grinning.

“We’re not really watching that, are we?”

“We didn’t all get to live it, honey.” Fran said. “Just you.”

Tori looked at Hailey with a horrified expression. “How much did you embellish that story?”

“I didn’t!” Not much, anyway.

“I think this is a horror-type version, though,” Fran continued. “Who thinks Hailey’s working on a romance version?”

Unanimous agreement. Big surprise there. Hailey dragged a tortilla chip through buffalo chicken dip and popped it into her mouth to keep from saying anything rude.

Tori leaned close enough to whisper. “She thinks she’s being funny, but you know she loves you. Just let it go.”

“Stop being the voice of reason on my shoulder,” she mumbled around a mouthful of very hot dip.

“I guess we have the wrong version,” Fran announced. Then she slid the picture of the Deliverance movie poster out of the plastic slipcover to reveal the cover of Thor. “I thought we’d mix it up a little and watch an action movie because look at this guy. He’s got a very impressive...hammer.”

There was applause from the ladies, and Hailey was relieved when everybody’s attention shifted away from her.

“I should have stayed home and had sex with the hot game warden,” she murmured to Tori.

Tori stole a pizza roll from her plate. “We’re supposed to be celebrating being single.”

“Oh, I’m celebrating. Trust me.”

“You know, I could start hating you very easily. And you probably won’t be single much longer, which means I’ll have nobody to go on adventures with.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Tori arched her eyebrows. “Come on. You keep saying there’s nothing there, but you’re still pretty hot and heavy for a couple who’s not a couple.”

“We’re not a couple.” When her friend rolled her eyes, she sighed. “Okay, we’re kind of a couple. But it’s temporary.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

Hailey would have said more, but the movie started and anybody still talking got a stern shushing from Fran. And she wasn’t sure there was anything to say, anyway. She was falling into couple-hood with Matt and, no matter how much she denied it to her friends, she couldn’t deny it to herself.



MATT WANDERED INTO the library about mid-morning on Tuesday, hoping to catch Hailey during a lull.

Boy, had he misjudged. There were small children everywhere and he realized he’d stumbled across some kind of story hour. Whether they were all arriving or leaving, he couldn’t tell right away, but he could see Hailey was in her usual spot at her desk. She smiled when she spotted him and waved him over.

“I didn’t think you’d be busy,” he said. “I was wrong.”

“It’s story hour, but I have a volunteer helping me today. Are you here in an official capacity, Warden Barnett?”

He smiled and leaned on the desk. “I could be. I do want to talk to you at some point about doing another OHRV safety course this winter, in preparation for snowmobile season. But I really came by to get some books.”

“Anything in particular you’re looking for?” She stood and stepped out from behind the desk. “I happen to be very good at recommendations, but I don’t know your reading tastes since you haven’t unpacked that box of books in your garage yet.”

“I like true crime stuff. Thrillers. Biographies. Science Fiction. Westerns.” He paused, trying to remember what he’d read recently that he enjoyed. “Are you aware it’s freezing in here?”

She gave him a look that told him everything he needed to know about her feelings regarding their HVAC system. “I have a call in, but having too much air-conditioning is apparently less of a priority than not having it at all. I should be wearing flannel today. It’s June.”

He kept pace with her as she walked around the bookshelves, and took a careful look around to make sure there was nobody within earshot. “I may have fantasized about you in flannel.”

“You’re kidding”

“Nope. You in my button-down flannel shirt...and nothing else. I’d tell you more, but this isn’t a good place to talk about it.”

“But we will talk about it later.” Her cheeks were flushed as she looked over the shelves, pulling out a few books. “Try these. Though your tastes are broad enough so I could give you almost anything and you’d probably like it.”

“Sorry. I’ll try to be more narrow in my reading choices next time.”

“Oh, hush. It wasn’t a complaint.”

He took the books from her and followed her back toward the desk. “Being hushed by you is kind of sexy, too.”

“Stern librarian in flannel fetish? I don’t think I’ve heard that one before.”

“I’m unique.” He fished his library card out of his wallet and waited while she checked out his books. “You’re sure that’s the right return date?”

She blushed at the reminder she’d forgotten the day he’d taken her out in the woods and kissed her. “I’m sure. How late are you working tonight?”

“Barring any emergency calls, probably by six. You stopping by?”

Handing him his books, she shrugged. “I might.”

“I hope you do.”

When he finally walked through his front door at ten after seven, he knew something was up because Bear just lay on the couch and looked at him. Matt gave him a pat, wondering if the dog wasn’t feeling well, but then he realized Bear was looking at something behind him.

He turned and saw Hailey at the bottom of the stairs. She was wearing his red plaid flannel shirt.

And nothing else.

The shirt hit her at mid-thigh, making her legs go on forever. And she’d left enough of the top buttons undone to give him a tantalizing glimpse of her cleavage. He was instantly, almost painfully aroused, and he told the dog to stay.