Due Or Die

BRIAR CREEK

PUBLIC LIBRARY

Edmund spun and glanced at Sully. “Oh, well, very good, then.”

Sully held out his right hand. “Mike Sullivan.”

Edmund clasped his hand briefly. “Edmund Sint.”

Neither of them smiled, and Lindsey got the distinct feeling they were measuring one another like two dogs trying to decide if the bone was worth the fight. Utterly ridiculous.

“Are you about ready?” Sully asked her.

“Almost, I just need to get my things and set the alarm,” she said.

“No, problem I’ll wait,” he said.

“Thank you,” she said.

Edmund glanced between them and then gave her a small smile. “Be safe in the storm and we’ll have to reschedule our lunch date for when the roads are clear.”

“Sounds good,” she said. She could feel Sully watching her, and she knew her face had just flamed hot.

Edmund gave her a mischievous grin and left the building, whistling into the snow.

“I’ll meet you out back,” Sully said. He turned and followed Edmund out.

Lindsey stood there staring for a second, wondering whether she should be flattered or offended. Finally, she decided that she was relieved that when she had seen Sully again, she hadn’t keeled over with embarrassment. She supposed she could thank Edmund for that. He had provided a nice buffer.

“Hey, boss, you coming?” Ann Marie called from the workroom.

Lindsey shook her head and went to gather her things.

Ann Marie met her at the back door with a knowing smile.

“So, it looks like you have two admirers,” she said.

“No, no.” Lindsey shook her head. “Sully is just a friend and Edmund is very nice, but I don’t know that he’s interested in me as anything more than a librarian.”

Ann Marie rolled her eyes. “Oh, puleeze, I saw their faces. They both looked like Cupid came down and shot them in the butt.”

“I’m so not talking about this,” Lindsey said. “And don’t say anything to Beth or she’ll start matchmaking and you know how that goes.”

Ann Marie grinned. “What? You didn’t like that sad parade of guys she trotted in front of you when you first moved here?”

“I know she meant well, but I wasn’t even ready to think about dating,” Lindsey said.

“And a guy who still lives with his mother and is obsessed with alien abductions didn’t work for you?” Ann Marie tsked. “Imagine that.”

It was true. When she first moved here, Beth had so wanted her to like Briar Creek that she brought forth every single male she could find in a parade of losers that still lived in infamy to all who worked in the library and had been witness to the freak show.

“How about that guy who smelled like rancid olive loaf?” Ann Marie said. “He was a keeper.”

“You can stop now,” Lindsey said.

“Or how about the one who wanted you to be a mother to his twelve-year-old daughter?” she added. “With his receding hairline and potbelly, now he was a catch!”

Lindsey tapped in the alarm code and led the way out the back door.

“Or that middle-aged pizza delivery guy,” Ann Marie said as they stepped into the cold. “Free pizza for life. Really, you should have at least given him a chance.”

“The one with fifteen cats?” Lindsey clarified.

“I think he only has twelve.”

Lindsey groaned and glanced up at the falling snow. “Drive home safely. If this is as bad as they say, I doubt we’ll be opening tomorrow, but I’ll call everyone and let them know for sure.”

Sully was waiting at the curb; the hot exhaust from his pickup puffed out the back like a steam engine. Lindsey unlocked her bike and hurried toward the warm cab of his truck, feeling very grateful that she hadn’t embarrassed herself so much that he no longer gave her a lift.

He hopped out and opened the door for her, and she scooted in while he put her bike in back. She felt the snow that covered her head and shoulders start to melt immediately.

He climbed back in on his side and they waited while Ann Marie started her car and drove out ahead of them with a wave.

“Thank you,” she said. “You’ve really been a life saver this past week.”

“No worries,” he said as he slipped the gear on the steering wheel into drive and set off on the road. “I was in the Blue Anchor helping Ian storm proof the place when Jason Meeger and Candace Collins came in and said the town offices were closing. I figured that meant you, too, and that you might need a lift. In these conditions, you don’t want to be walking or bicycling.”

“Do you think it’s going to get as bad as they say?”

Sully was quiet for a moment. She noticed his eyes strayed toward the islands in the bay, and she wondered if he was worried about his parents.

“It feels like it’s going to get bad,” he said. “I was stationed on a warship in the Barents Sea when I was in the service. We saw a lot of blizzard conditions and this has the same feel.”

“The Barents Sea? That’s near the Arctic Circle, isn’t it?”

Sully looked impressed. “Yeah, we were just off the island Svalbard, which is Norwegian. Not many people know where the Barents Sea is.”

“My older brother, Jack, is quite the globe-trotter,” she said. “He’s the adventurous one of the two of us. I spend a lot of time studying maps to figure out where he is. He was in Hammerfest, Norway, for a summer, and I remember seeing the Barents Sea on the map.”

“Beautiful area,” Sully said.

“Do you miss it?” Lindsey asked. “The traveling?”

“Sometimes,” Sully admitted. “But then I think about it being fifteen degrees below zero in the Arctic or one hundred and six degrees above zero while stationed in the Persian Gulf, and I’m okay with Connecticut.”

They turned onto Lindsey’s street and a gust of wind buffeted the truck and the snow took on a ferocity that resembled ice bullets and not the whirly twirly flakes that had been falling just minutes before.

“Looks like you closed just in time,” he said. He pulled up in front of the house, and Lindsey fished her new key out of her bag.

They put her bike in the garage and he walked her to the porch and waited while she unlocked the door.

“Thanks again,” she said.

“Anytime,” he said. “If you need me, just call the Blue Anchor.”

Another gust of wind whipped around the side of the house and almost knocked Lindsey to her knees, but Sully caught her by the elbow. She stared up at him and saw snowflakes coating his eyelashes and the dimples that bracketed his mouth when he smiled like he was now. She felt that same zip she always did when he was around, and she just couldn’t resist. She leaned up and gave him a quick hug.

Without hesitation, he hugged her back, and when they separated, she noticed his smile had deepened.

Then he leaned close and said, “You know, I think I’m glad this storm hit.”

“Why’s that?” she asked.

“Because it’s keeping you from dating the wrong man,” he said.

With a wink, he spun her toward the door and gently pushed her inside, closing the door behind her.

Lindsey leaned against the door and tried to slow the pounding inside her chest. Did he really say that? Did he mean that? Did he mean it like she thought he meant it?

It was a good thing she was leaning against the door, trying to get her mental faculties to function, because Nancy’s door opened and a wriggling black ball of fur came at her as if she’d been gone for weeks instead of hours.

He stood on his back legs and wrapped his paws around Lindsey’s leg as if he was determined not to let her go