Amanda: I’m doing the stationery for the wedding and need the name of your date.
Fiona’s fingers tightened around her cell, each word in the text from her sister glaring at her. She’d known it was coming. Hell, she’d actually been expecting it earlier, seeing as the wedding was less than a month away. Yet, here she was, feeling completely unprepared for it.
Oh, man. A date. She’d told her sister she had a real, living, breathing date for her wedding. And now, not only did her sister expect her to bring said date, her entire family did too.
It was official, she was screwed. Completely and utterly screwed.
She massaged her temple as the beginnings of a headache pricked the backs of her eyes. The lie had just kind of slipped out at the last family dinner, somewhere between talk of flower arrangements and you’re-going-to-die-alone looks.
And now she was paying the price.
She started typing out a response but quickly deleted the words. Then she started typing again. Same thing. Argh. This was dumb. She had to just tell her sister there was no date.
Her phone vibrated while she was midway through text attempt number three.
Amanda: If there’s no boyfriend, it would be best to just admit the truth.
Her jaw clicked and her spine straightened.
Excuse me? It was one thing for her to be a lonely liar, but another for her sister to call her out on it with no proof.
Maybe moving an hour and a half away from the woman wasn’t enough. Maybe she should have tried for another time zone. Or better yet, another galaxy.
“Fiona Lock!”
She jumped at the use of her full name and spun to find her library manager, not only in the same aisle as her but marching toward her with a beet-red face. Great. Just what her morning needed.
“How many times have I told you not to use your phone at work?”
Uh, zero? Not that she’d be admitting that to a man who could win an award for biggest ass of a boss. Actually, no. He wasn’t always an ass. Sometimes he was ridiculously nice to the point she almost felt like he was coming on to her. But as soon as she didn’t reciprocate that…hello, asshole again.
“Sorry, Rick.”
His cheeks reddened further, something she hadn’t thought possible a moment earlier, and he shoved his glasses up his nose. He was a tall, thin man and kind of reminded her of Kevin Bacon…only a much less likable version. Not that she’d met Kevin Bacon. She just assumed he wasn’t a grumpy middle-aged man who gave people whiplash with his mood changes.
Rick huffed. “That will come out of your break time. You have ten minutes left.”
Yep, definitely in the running for that ass award.
She plastered a phony smile to her mouth while holding in the slew of curses she wanted to throw his way. “Sure.”
She moved out of the aisle, almost surprised when he didn’t call after her with some other problem. Maybe her knee-length skirt was somehow inappropriate for work. Or she’d filed a book incorrectly. He’d been fine with her when she was hired eight months ago, almost always teetering more on the flirtatious side. But over the last few weeks, he’d done a complete flip on her. What she’d done to piss the man off, she had no idea.
She stepped into the shared staff room to find Jenny, the only librarian close to her age, dropping her bag into a locker. The woman had only started working here a month ago, but God, she’d saved Fiona from a lonely existence. She was on the shy side but always friendly.
When Jenny’s gaze hit hers, the woman’s smile slipped. “Hey. You okay?”
Not only did the woman have the cutest bangs and bob Fiona had ever seen, she also had big red-rimmed glasses and a cute mole on her cheek. There was a small scar beside her right eye, but it didn’t detract from how pretty she was. She fit “librarian” to a T.
“Yep, just Rick being Rick again.”
Jenny gave a sympathetic smile. “I know you think you’re the only one he picks on, but trust me, you’re not. Today he told me I was late when I got in at nine oh one. Nine oh one! That’s basically early. The man has a serious stick up his ass.”
Yeah, Jenny wasn’t wrong. “Let’s not say it too loud. He’s probably bugged the place and is wearing a hidden earpiece to listen to these kinds of exchanges.”
“Let him hear us. I’d like him to try and find more librarians. Everyone else is on retirement row.” She squeezed Fiona’s arm before walking out of the staff room.
Fiona grabbed her apple and was about to sit down when her phone rang. She almost expected it to be Amanda, wanting to ride her ass about this date stuff. Nope. Her cousin’s name popped up on the screen. Thank God.
Fiona moved back into the library, then out the front door, where she sat on the bench beneath a pine tree.
“She called you, didn’t she?” Fiona said before Stacey could get a word in.
There was a beat of silence, and Fiona could just imagine her cousin cringing. “Yeah, text then call.”
Of course. Because it wasn’t harassment with just one mode of contact. “Did she also tell you she thinks I’m lying about the whole having-a-boyfriend thing?”
“Kind of. But it’s not lying, remember? It’s fudging the truth.”
“Stace, it’d only become fudging the truth if I’d miraculously found a boyfriend between then and now…which I haven’t.” Hence, straight-up lie.
“Amanda was pretty firm that she needed a response within the week.”
Oh, man.
“I know,” Stacey said, as though she could hear Fiona’s thoughts. “It’s soon. But don’t you have a guy friend who could just, you know, come over to Twin Falls and pretend?”
Fiona laughed out loud, a big, yeah-the-hell-right kind of laugh. “Even if I’d made a male friend in this town in the last eight months—which I haven’t—our friendship would not be at the let’s-play-house stage.”
That was like a good ten-year friendship thing, right?
“Let’s just call it what it is,” Fiona continued before Stacey offered any other ideas. “I’m screwed and all out of options. I’m going to have to admit to my god-awful sister that I’m dateless and will be watching alone as she marries the man who broke my heart.”
The words had barely left her lips when she turned her head and spotted Callum stepping up to the door of the library. A deep breath filled her lungs, and her heart beat to a new, faster rhythm in her chest. Not because he was a million feet tall with biceps so thick they looked like tree trunks. But because his beautiful light brown eyes were looking directly at her.
Stacey’s voice turned to a buzz of background noise. The brush of wind on her face lost its coolness, and the world faded away to just her and him. Then he winked, one side of his mouth lifting, before he disappeared inside the brick walls of the library.
Her chest deflated and she exhaled so long and so loudly, it was a wonder she had a speck of oxygen left in her.
Christ, why did he have to be so pretty?
Callum was one of eight men who ran Blue Halo Security here in Cradle Mountain. They were all former military. All huge, and beautiful, and dangerous—in more ways than one.
How much of her conversation had he heard? The man had good hearing…really good. He and his team had been part of a non-government-sanctioned project that involved experimental drugs. Those drugs had made the men faster and stronger than they should be, and able to hear things they shouldn’t. Had he heard her pathetic admission about needing a boyfriend? Oh God, where was that hole in the sand for her to bury her head?
“Earth to Fiona! Are you still there?”
Crap. She forced her attention back to the call. “I’m sorry, I…” Saw a man I absolutely do not like and got distracted while I was simultaneously thinking about how pretty and off-limits he is? “Nothing. I’m going to text Amanda that I’m coming alone.”
Yep, the words sounded as painful out loud as they did in her head. What would typing and sending them in a text feel like? Razor blades to her fingertips? Electrical bursts up her arms?
It sounded like she was being dramatic. She was not. Amanda and her fiancé were the worst humans on the planet. Okay, maybe not the planet, but the worst in her world after what she’d found them doing while Fiona was still with him…
“Don’t you dare!” Stacey basically shouted. “You have the week, just give it until then. I’m going to spend my evening researching real-life wedding dates for hire.”
The corners of Fiona’s mouth twitched. How many times had she and Stacey watched The Wedding Date growing up? So many she’d lost count. She’d never thought she might actually need a date for hire. “Okay. You do that. But I’m only hiring him if he looks like Dermot Mulroney.”
One-sided smiles and dark eyes…yes, please.
When thoughts of the actor spidered through her mind, another set of eyes bombarded her. Light brown eyes.
Dammit, Fiona. Get it together! You are not at a point in your life where you can afford to date another attractive, sexy-as-sin man.
“Deal,” Stacey said easily, like there was a good chance she might actually find this made-up man, when really there was none. Zilch.
“All right, I have to go before Rick comes out here.”
“Okay, I’ll call you once I find something.”
She laughed. “I’ll be eagerly awaiting that call.”
Once she hung up, she took a massive bite of her apple, knowing she’d only get a couple in before needing to get back inside.
Her heart gave a little skip at the fact Callum was in there. The man came to the library often, usually after borrowing one of her favorite books, the ones on which she put the little tags of recommendation. The books were never returned as they’d been borrowed, though. He always seemed to damage them in some way. Often with a fold of a page or a stain on the cover.
She told herself that was the reason she couldn’t crush on him, but in reality, she wasn’t that shallow. What she was, was scared shitless of getting her heart broken again.
With a resigned sigh, she stood and moved into the library, throwing the apple into the trash after a second bite. Immediately, and completely without her permission, her gaze searched the stacks for Callum. The library was small, designed with some self-borrowing machines at the front and a manned circulation desk behind them. There were aisles of books beyond, extending to the back wall.
Third row…that’s where Mr. Million Feet of Muscle stood. His head was down, and he was reading the back of a book. One she’d popped her recommendation tag onto that morning.
Her brain tried to short-circuit at the way his biceps flexed as he turned the book over. God, why did the man have to be built like God’s gift to women?
Because that’s how they get you, the burned voice in her head whispered.
With a shake of her head, she looked away before he could spot her staring. Do not focus on him, Fiona.
Quickly, she found a trolley of books that needed to be shelved and chose the aisle furthest from Callum to start in. The third book from her cart needed to go on the top shelf. Because the library wasn’t big enough for a lot of aisles, the rows of books went up quite high instead. Only the librarians used the ladders to get books from the high shelves, though. They were mostly study aids. Books people knew they needed, so they didn’t have to read a blurb.
She grabbed a ladder and placed it beneath the shelf, then climbed to the top. She’d just slotted the book in when her phone vibrated from her pocket. She cursed. God, was that her sister again? What was it this time? Was Amanda messaging to tell her she knew she was going to die alone? Because that wasn’t news to Fiona.
She shouldn’t check it. She knew she shouldn’t. Yet her stupid hand still slid into her pocket and pulled it out. She was smart enough to cast a quick, covert look around her. No Rick. Good.
Unknown number: You better keep your hands off what’s mine, bitch.
What the hell? She re-read the text three times, convinced that she must be misreading, but nope, the words were still there and unchanged every time.
Who would send her—
“Fiona! What did I just say?”
Rick’s angry voice boomed through the aisle, so loud and menacing that she flinched—and the one hand still on the ladder tugged it forward. It rocked, and she tried to right it, but her efforts only made the rocking more violent, until both she and the ladder were falling back.
