rather moved up the elegant staircase to the second floor. She stared after him wondering what his game was.
At exactly six Seymour burst through the main doors as he always did after a spirited run from the bus stop. Blanche was so relieved to see his smiling face, more than she dared to admit. He acknowledged her from the doorway with a wave and quickly moved to the desk. The anxious librarian scooted from behind the large desk to meet Seymour in the empty space at the bottom of the stairs. She grasped his arm, pulling him close to her, cradling his arm between her breasts as she pulled his ear low enough for her to whisper into.
“I am so glad to see you today,” she quietly spoke, her breath raising the hair on the back of his neck.
He turned his face to look into her eyes, she was beautiful, and having her so close made him feel warm all over. “And I you, is there something wrong?” He could see the worry in her face.
“I don’t know, I’m just a little freaked out by the stuff that is going on, you know The Stalker and all,” she said, not letting go of his arm, her lips moving dangerously close to his. “A guy with a straw hat came in about a half hour ago, kind of gave me the creeps and he’s upstairs doing something, I don’t dare go up and see.”
“Would you like me to take a look?” Seymour offered, wanting to shorten the distance even further and pull her into his arms.
“Could you? It would make me feel so much better if you would just see what he’s up to.”
He loved coming to her rescue, made him feel like her knight in shining armor, but he was sure he’d find the guy just reading a magazine or surfing the net on one of the many computers on the second floor. “Sure, your wish is my command,” he said, bowing before her as if she were a queen.
“Okay, knock it off and get your butt upstairs,” she said, with a girlish grin.
Seymour bounded up the stairs, taking them two at a time, and was gone from Blanche’s view. She returned to the desk and the work she had been putting off all day. A few minutes passed, then a few more, Blanche anxiously looked up the stairs but could see no one. Fifteen minutes later she felt she could wait no longer. “What is taking him so long, it’s not that much space. Must have found him and is having a heart to heart, or — or else…” Her mind ran wild with possibilities. “I’ve got to know,” she thought, anxious and trembling as she started up the stairs.
Half way up, she saw Seymour coming down. He lifted both hands, signifying empty, and met her in the middle of the staircase. “There’s nobody up there, I looked everywhere and then some. You sure he went up there?”
“I definitely saw him go up and it was about 30 minutes ago, I’m sure of it. I guess it’s possible that he came down and left the library when I was distracted, but I really haven’t left the desk.” She thought for a moment, running the past half hour through her mind. “That’s really the only logical explanation, I did step to the back for just a quick minute to get a box of tissues, he must have come down the stairs then and I didn’t notice.” Relieved she again took his arm and led him down the stairs to the desk. “I do appreciate you doing that for me, I’ve been a nervous wreck this afternoon. I feel so much better now that you’re here, thanks.”
“Glad I could help. Can I tell you something, and I hope it doesn’t sound corny to you.” He mustered up the courage to speak from his heart.
“Sure, what’s up?”
“I don’t know if you noticed, but I’m a little awkward around girls, I mean women.”
Blanche interrupted him with a little white lie, “No, no, I don’t think you are.”
“Well I am, anyway, I just wanted to tell you that when I’m with you I don’t feel that way. I feel like I can just be myself and you’ll still like me,” he managed to say, moving his eyes from his feet to her eyes as he expressed himself.
She wanted to pull the young man to her and hug him. She could tell this was difficult for him and she wanted to let him know that she felt the same way, but the words of his mother kept ringing in her ears, “Don’t hurt my son.”
“What I’m trying to say, I guess, is I really like you more than I think you know and I was wondering, and I know we work together and everything, but I was wondering if you would have dinner with me tomorrow night so we could be together someplace other than here,” he said, looking around the library.
Blanche’s heart skipped a beat and she wanted to enthusiastically say yes, but she hesitated for numerous reasons and moved her eyes away from his, as she dipped her chin to her chest. Seymour read the gesture as a no, and was almost sick, until she raised her head with a twinkle in her eyes and a beautiful smile across her lips.
“There is nothing I would like more than to spend an evening with you Seymour, when will you pick me up?”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
(Eight Years Earlier)
Jeremy Marshall sat in the office down the hall from his congressional boss, head in his hands, trying to weep but could not. The phone call had come out of the blue; his father was in the Emory University Hospital in Atlanta after suffering a massive heart attack in Valdosta. Emergency units there had responded, delivering him to the local hospital after stabilizing his vitals. The Valdosta doctors had concluded, under advisement from a local cardiologist, that his father’s condition warranted a transfer to a better-equipped cardiac unit in Atlanta.
The younger Marshall man had just celebrated his 28th birthday, but with the day’s events was feeling much older. Premature thick, grey hair, cut short at the sides and swept back, with no bangs, accentuated his thin face and slightly furrowed forehead. Green eyes, set back with narrow fissures, and long lashes almost made Jeremy look sinister, but a cosmetically altered row of teeth and a picture perfect smile, soon overcame most people’s first impressions. His nose, he’d inherited from his mother, was slightly angled to the left with an odd, little cleft right in the middle at the end. It drove him crazy but added character to his aging face. At almost 30, Jeremy’s lifestyle was already taking its toll. Too many meals at the mall and no exercise were wearing him down physically, but his brain was ever active, never a moment without something winding its way through the vast networks of his mind. Nights were often spent on the computer or reading material to keep his boss informed, but he could quite easily get by on four hours sleep without looking any worse for wear. Women found Jeremy Marshall attractive but he could not be bothered, the young clerks, interns and the occasional hooker were enough to satisfy his sexual urges, but a marriage relationship was nowhere on his radar, at least not yet.
The father and son had not spoken for months. The older Marshall’s wedding to a realtor, two years previous, had driven a wedge between them that seemed immovable. The woman, Beverly Davis, was a feisty piece of work, aggressive, motivated, and certainly not without merit, but Jeremy, from the beginning, believed the relationship was more about money than love. The weeks leading up to the marriage had put an unbearable strain on the father-son relationship; Jeremy had pushed for a pre-nup, which his father refused to consider. Blinded by love and lust, a man in the middle of his life would do all sorts of stupid things; at least Jeremy saw it that way.
His father had significant real estate holdings throughout the South, enough to make Beverly a very rich woman should he have an early demise, however, word of his heart attack had been a total surprise to the estranged son, and he suspected his stepmother had nothing to do with it. His interactions with Ms. Davis had been quite formal, with very little opportunity to get to know each other on a personal level, both lead very busy professional lives. She was likable and seemed to make his father happy, but two years for half his father’s estate was more than he could bear.
Jeremy was a top aide to a longstanding republican congressman who had a prominent position on the House Armed Services Committee. Most of his time was spent in Washington D.C. but he kept a home in Charleston, South Carolina, the place of his birth. It had been Beverly that had convinced his father to pull up roots and move his operation and home to Valdosta. The move had been more than troubling for Jeremy, what little control or influence he had with his father was gone, and he knew it. It was not that his father did not love him, he knew better, but the two men, both very independent, did not see eye to eye, and that was it.
The news of his father’s condition sent Jeremy’s mind into full, self-preservation mode. He wondered how much information, in regards to his father’s vast holdings, had been released to his new wife. Prior to the wedding he had warned his dad not to make his business affairs an open book to the realtor, but rather give it some time, see how the marriage went before disclosing everything. He hoped, as he sat in the office, that his father had taken
