Hailey realized she should have seen that coming. She shook her head, but Tori just grinned and kept walking until she reached the circulation desk. Then she turned so she could see the class.
“Aw. His back’s to us.”
“You need to go away.”
“Not without seeing the new and improved Matt-the-hot-game-warden.”
Hailey sighed, praying Tori’s voice was low enough so they wouldn’t be overheard. Old buildings tended to have acoustic quirks. “Work Matt might be hot, but we’ve seen not-at-work Matt. Not hot.”
“That’s called potential.”
No matter what Tori had said before, Hailey found herself wondering if Tori had stopped by out of curiosity, or if she was interested in him herself. Not that she cared. “I’m working.”
“I’m not leaving until he turns around.”
“He’s working.”
“That’s okay. You guys can keep working.”
“While you stand there and stare at him?”
Tori nodded. “He’ll turn around eventually. You can feel when somebody’s staring at you and, since he’s law enforcement, it probably won’t take very long.”
Hailey blew out an exasperated breath. “I can’t let you stalk people in my library.”
“Okay.” Tori started to move and Hailey figured she was giving up.
She should have known better. Her friend headed straight for the class and there was no way to stop her without making a spectacle of themselves. Instead, she watched while Tori interrupted and had a few words with the game warden. There were smiles and nods, along with a laugh from Matt, and then they shook hands.
Tori made an OMG face at Hailey as she walked back to the desk, her back safely to the class group. “The picture doesn’t do him justice.”
“Since I was trying not to be obvious, I’m not surprised.”
“You need to claim him before somebody else does.”
Hailey rolled her eyes. “I don’t want him.”
“Bullshit. Who wouldn’t want him? Get that Property of Whitford Public Library stamp and stamp it right on his forehead. Then cross out the library’s name and write yours.”
“Go away.”
“If you don’t want to keep him, then pretend he’s a book. Enjoy him for two weeks, then return him.”
That wasn’t an unappealing idea. Enjoy this Matt and throw him back before he had enough time off to regress to his previous condition. But that’s not what she was after at this point in her life. “I’m not looking for a fling, Tori. If I’m going to find a husband and a father for the kids I’m running out of time to have, I can’t be distracted by a guy who’s all wrong for me.”
“What’s wrong is that you can look at that man down there and not see the possibilities.”
Tori winked and walked out the door before Hailey could further her argument that the possibility she saw was the possibility he would turn back into scruffy, smelly Matt and stay that way. She didn’t think a little sophistication in a man was too much to ask for.
When three o’clock rolled around and the safety certificates were handed out, the class practically exploded out of the library. It was a beautiful day and there were plenty of daylight hours left to burn. The men packed up their stuff and cleaned up before heading out.
“Thank you for letting us use the library,” Matt told her, because of course he had to stop and torment her a little more before he left. “I saw the hours on the door, so I know you went out of your way for us.”
“Remember that if you ever catch me fishing without a license.” She realized her mistake as soon as his face registered interest.
“Do you fish, Hailey?”
She laughed. “God, no. Worms. Bugs. Fish. It was a joke.”
“Oh.” He shifted the box in his arms. “Maybe I’ll see you around.”
She was not going to be able to keep her eyes on the bigger picture if Matt kept popping up to tempt her. “I doubt it. Really, since I don’t plan on going out in the woods again anytime soon, what are the chances we’ll run into each other again?”
The game warden left, but not before giving her a we’ll see about that smile that she turned over and over in her mind for hours. What was that supposed to mean?
FOUR
HAILEY WOKE UP on the following Saturday—which was her Saturday off—well before she intended to. She even tried to burrow under the blanket and go back to sleep, but it wasn’t going to happen.
There was a truck idling outside. And whatever it was, she knew it was bigger than the UPS truck, which shouldn’t be there on a Saturday morning anyway, because she could hear it over the white noise of the fan running in the corner of her room.
With an annoyed growl rumbling in her throat, she got out of bed and walked to the window. Peeking through the gap in her curtains, she frowned. There was a moving truck parked in front of the house next door.
It wasn’t remotely possible somebody had bought her neighbors’ house without her knowing anything about it. She’d just been in the general store yesterday and if anybody knew why a moving truck might park in front of the house, it would be Fran. And Fran would have tripped all over herself trying to be the first person to tell Hailey what was happening on her own street.
Since she wasn’t going to be able to sleep again, she went downstairs and brewed herself a mug of coffee. By the time it was ready, they’d shut the truck off and she heard the bang of the back door being opened. She could hear a faint murmur of male voices and the less faint rattle of dollies being rolled up and down the truck’s ramps. Moving was a loud process and they’d just started.
At some point she’d have to put on some clothes, her brightest smile, and go welcome her surprise neighbors to the neighborhood. If nothing else, she’d coerce them into getting library cards, since they had to be from out of town or she’d have known they were coming.
Maybe it was some kind of witness protection thing, she mused. That was the only thing that could explain the Whitford grapevine dropping the ball. Taking her coffee with her, she wandered into the living room, where the huge windows offered better views of both the front and backyards. She could see the truck and part of the front yard from there, but no people.
Unfortunately, with the way the sun was facing, she couldn’t really see into the truck, either. She could make out some cardboard boxes, but nothing that would give her some clues about her new neighbors. She didn’t see any toys or bicycles, but that didn’t mean there weren’t kids.
She finished her first cup of coffee, then had another while she ate a microwaveable breakfast sandwich. It was early and she was too lazy to make a real breakfast for herself. After a quick shower, she got dressed and tried to ignore the noise from next door.
Curiosity got the better of her, though, and she found herself putting off mopping the kitchen floor in favor of peeking out the living room window. Two guys were trying to muscle a huge, beat-up brown leather sofa off the truck. They weren’t wearing any kind of a uniform, so she wasn’t sure if they were a moving company or her new neighbors or friends they’d roped into helping.
“Put some muscle into it,” she heard another male voice say, and then the guy laughed.
Hailey froze. It couldn’t be. There was no way in hell it was even possible. Then the owner of the voice stepped into view and her hands curled into fists. Matt Barnett was moving in next door.
Oh, hell no.
She went out the door and headed across the lawn. “Hey!”
He turned and there was no doubt he recognized her. His back stiffened and he rolled his head to the side. “You have got to be kidding me.”
“What are you doing?” Maybe he was helping a friend move in, which would still be a weird small world coincidence, but not too bad.
“I’m moving in.”
Damn. He was close enough to her now so she didn’t have to yell. “Since when? How did I not know this?”
“In a weird coincidence, I talked to the owners and finalized the details over the phone right before I met you and Tori in the woods. Have I mentioned how nice and polite and normal your friend is? Anyway, maybe you didn’t know because it’s none of your business.”
This was bad. “You’re stalking me.”
“Excuse me?”
“The woods? The library? Now you’re going to live next to me?”
He shook his head. “You are quite possibly the most irrational person I’ve ever met. And I’ve met some doozies in my line of work.”
“So it’s just a coincidence that you keep popping up in my life?”
“Honey, the last thing I need in my life is a woman like you.”
Even though she didn’t want him to want her, that pissed her off on principle. “You’d be lucky to have a woman like me. If you ever call me honey like that again, you’d better be running away at the time.”
“We both know I could just walk fast and you still wouldn’t catch me.”
She wanted to say something that would cut him to the bone, but her sense of humor was beating out her panic that she was going to have a hot neighbor who’d already caused her all kinds of turmoil, and she couldn’t hold back the smile.