Читать книгу What the Librarian Did / LA Cinderella: What the Librarian Did / LA Cinderella - Karina Bliss - Страница 13

DEVIN WAS WALKING THROUGH Albert Park en route to class the next morning when he glimpsed the librarian sitting by the circular fountain.

Her gaze immediately dropped to the open book in her lap, but he’d been around enough stalkers—and better ones than this—to know he was her target.

Her skills needed work, but her choice of location was sound. All the park’s paths converged on the historic fountain, with its bronze cherubs and their water-trickling orifices.

He hid a grin. This should be interesting. Of course, she had no idea he knew she’d warned Mark to shun him. He braced himself for verbal sparks.

As he approached, she looked up in feigned surprise and Devin was conscious of another spark. One that with any other woman he would have called sexual … if she wasn’t wearing a fifties-style calf-length dress in a red-and-white diamond check with a matching fabric belt. Did this woman own any clothes from this decade? Red suited her, though. He particularly liked the matching lipstick.

He stopped in front of her. “Of all the fountains in all the world, somehow we meet at this one.”

“Isn’t that a coincidence!” She looked past him—checking for Mark—then back with such undisguised relief that Devin was provoked to tease her.

“You don’t happen to have any Tylenol, do you?” He put on his shades to hide his amusement. “I’m too old to keep partying this hard.”

She frowned slightly and he read her thoughts. Had Mark been with him? But the only way to get information. She opened her bag. “Sure.”

Devin sat down next to her and lifted his face to the sun. It was only eight-thirty but already humid. The scent of the park’s roses was heavy in the air.

The breeze changed direction. Fountain mist drifted toward Rachel, forcing her to move closer. She wasn’t wearing perfume today but she still smelled seductive. How did she do that? Maybe he shouldn’t torment her by making things up. He and Mark had eaten at Katherine’s, then been cleaned out in a friendly poker game with her elderly neighbor before the kid caught the 9:00 p.m. ferry.

Rachel said way too casually, “I didn’t think you knew many people here.” Fishing.

He took the pills she offered, shiny in their silver foil. “Heartbreaker, when you’re a rock star you can always find people to party with.” There was no bitterness in the observation. He’d long ago accepted that his real friends were people he knew before he’d become famous.

Except they were still treating him as fragile. Another reason to stay away from L.A. He was too close to broken to shrug off someone else’s doubt. How ironic that the only person who looked at him without deference or sympathy was this woman.

“Well, the last ferry from Waiheke leaves at midnight,” Rachel ventured. “So I don’t suppose things got too out of hand.”

She’d checked the ferry timetable? Her concern for Mark seemed a little excessive. “Oh, I have plenty of room for sleepovers and no one minds three to a bed.” Her lovely mouth tightened. “But it was all pretty tame … some bourbon, coke …” Devin winked to make sure she’d make the connection to the drug, not the beverage. “A hot tub filled with twenty of my closest friends, and rock blasting over the sound system …”

He noticed as he ran out of rock star clichés that she’d slid almost to the other end of the fountain edge, and he had to bite the inside of his cheek. “It was a spontaneous thing or I would have invited you. We could have done with some classier chicks.”

Devin had a sudden image of her in a hot tub, incongruous and unexpectedly appealing. It had been too long since he’d had sex, but the months of therapy and rehab had left him feeling like a peeled onion, exposed and vulnerable.

“Was Mark with you?” she asked bluntly.

“The kid? Hmm, let me just think…. We started the evening together. So hard to recognize people when they’re naked and wet.” He stopped when he saw the stricken look in her eyes. “I’m kidding.”

“Please leave him alone.”

He frowned, puzzled. “Who is that boy to you?”

For a split second Rachel looked guilty. “No one. I … I just don’t like seeing minors being led astray.”

Devin’s sympathy evaporated. Ignoring the fact that he’d just given her reasons to be concerned, he got pissed. She was being officious, no doubt basing her assumptions on what she read in the press. Well, if she expected depravity …

“If you don’t want me corrupting minors, then give me someone my own age to play with.” Lazily, his gaze traveled down her body, deliberately provocative.

Angry color flooded Rachel’s cheeks. She stood. “Grow up!”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Devin stood, too, stretched and yawned. “You know, I like a feisty woman, and this heartbreaker reputation of yours has me intrigued. Any time you want to take a ride with me—”

“I wouldn’t take a walk with you, cowboy,” she interrupted heatedly, “let alone a drive.”

“Darlin,’ “ he drawled, “who said anything about a car?”

BY WEDNESDAY OF THE following week, Rachel had confronted an unpalatable truth. Mark was deliberately avoiding her. She knew he’d been into the library because his online history showed he’d been taking out books. But he was obviously timing his visits around her shifts.

She’d blown it, warning him against Devin. In hindsight, it had been a stupid thing to do. But she seemed unable to do anything except react to her emotions where her son was concerned.

The yearning to see him was terrible, as bad as giving him up had been.

Fortunately, he’d struck an acquaintance with Trixie—it seemed only Rachel couldn’t make friends with him—so she was able to gather crumbs of information. It was through Trixie that she knew Mark still spent time with Devin. Apparently the rocker had become some sort of musical mentor, which Trixie thought was the coolest thing to happen to Mark, and which Rachel thought was the absolute worst.

But what could she do about it?

As she walked to the downtown parking lot after her shift, a thread of music in the city cacophony distracted her from her gloomy musings. Glancing up, she saw Mark strumming guitar with another teenager outside The Body Shop, their voices straining over the blare and honk of rush hour traffic. A meager collection of coins lay scattered in an open guitar case. Rachel stepped into a nearby doorway where she could watch unobserved.

Mark’s reluctance was evident as he joined in the choruses; he obviously knew he had an indifferent singing voice. She was to blame for that. The other boy’s voice was stronger and well served by a song that was both melodic and haunting.

She wasn’t an expert, but Rachel could see nothing in his performance to excite a music legend into mentorship. Her fingers tightened on her bag. Was that relationship more payback from Devin?

He’d breezed into the library several times this week, always calling across the room, “Keep me posted about that ride, won’t you, Heartbreaker.” Rachel had fielded a lot of interested questions from fellow staff members who were agog at the thought of one of their own attracting a rocker.

As if.

She knew damn well that Devin was baiting her as punishment for sticking her nose in something that didn’t concern her. What she couldn’t judge was how much of that depravity was feigned to annoy her.

In her worst moments, she even considered telling Devin the truth. But Rachel had kept this secret too long to trust it to an undisciplined rocker who probably had looser lips than Jagger.

The song finished; the buskers took a break. Flipping his hair out of his eyes, Mark caught sight of Rachel and scowled. She responded with a tentative smile and stepped forward. “Can I talk to you privately for a minute?”

“I don’t need another lecture.”

“I want to apologize.”

He searched her face, then shrugged. “Back in a sec, Ray.” They walked down the side street a few feet. It was quieter here. She steeled herself.

“I know my concern seemed intrusive—”

“It was the disloyalty that got me.”

She swallowed. “Disloyalty?”

“To Devin,” Mark said impatiently. “I mean, the guy’s your friend.”

“Oh.”

“He’s the one you should be apologizing to.”

Rachel murmured noncommittally and Mark’s expression grew even sterner.

“Especially when he agreed with you that he was a bad influence.”

That surprised her. “He did?”

“At least until you read him the riot act. Then he said I could hang out with him as much as I like.” Mark grinned. “Maybe I should accept your apology.”

Rachel bit her lip. So she’d provoked Devin into doing the very thing she’d set out to prevent. Mark really was better off without her. Except … this was the only chance she’d ever have to know him. “So are we okay again?” Will you stop avoiding me?

“I guess.” He was already looking beyond her as he waved to his mate. “Yeah, coming! So is that all you wanted?” He was taller than her by a few inches. Amazing.

Through force of will she matched his casualness. “Yes, that’s all.” As he walked away, Rachel knew she’d never be anything to him other than as the loopy librarian. Unless … “Mark?”

He turned back impatiently. “Yeah?”

“I will think about apologizing to Devin.”

He nodded in approval; she basked in it all the way to the parking lot.

She’d always had one imperative for her son. To keep him safe. And that hadn’t changed.

If the only way to Mark was through Devin Freedman, then so be it.

In the driver’s seat of her Honda hatchback, she passed a hand over her face, suddenly exhausted. She felt as if she was on a teeter-totter, up one minute, down the next. For years she’d worked hard to achieve serenity. Her childhood had held no security … even the long periods of relative peace were the only uneasy calm before an impending storm.

As an adult she’d organized her life into neat compartments. Now the drawer was a jumble again.

She needed to start thinking smarter. Apologizing wasn’t a fix; somehow she had to scrutinize that damn man. Then she could judge him herself.

An idea occurred to her and she grew thoughtful. If she befriended the rocker, then Mark’s attitude would soften toward her, providing an opportunity to get to know her son.

Not quite the threesome Devin had had in mind when he’d tried to shock her. Rachel chuckled. She’d thought of a way to get what she wanted and extract a little revenge on Mr. Rock Star.

The next day when Devin called across the library, “When are you going to put me out of my misery, Heartbreaker?” Rachel smiled.

“Right now.”

THINKING HE’D MISHEARD, Devin moved closer. “Excuse me?”

Rachel beamed at him. “I’m saying yes to a date. Well, really, it’s a way of apologizing for hurting your feelings last week.”

Hurting his … Okay, now he knew she was joking. “I realize I was out of line,” she continued earnestly, “and this is my way of making it up to you.”

Devin folded his arms, leaned on the counter and waited for the punch line. And waited.

“How does tonight sound?”

Good God, she was serious. He was so flummoxed he couldn’t think of an excuse. “Umm …”

“Seven o’clock suit you?” Without waiting for a response, she wrote it in her diary in neat script.

“Look, this really isn’t necessary. No hard feelings.”

“No, I insist. And my goodness, you need a reward for all that persistence. Which is sweet of you, incidentally.”

Devin winced. “The word sweet should only be applied to situations involving whipped cream and a supermodel,” he said, and sparked a frown from her. His confusion gave way to suspicion. Wait a minute. The librarian didn’t want to date him any more than he wanted to date her. This was counterterrorism. Intrigued, he decided to beat her at her own game.

“Give me your address,” he drawled. “I’ll pick you up.”

“Maybe it’s better if we meet at the restaurant.”

“Except I’m still deciding where to take you.”

Reluctantly, Rachel found a piece of paper and wrote down her address.

“You know, I’m kinda nervous about this,” he said as he accepted it. “Given your reputation as a heartbreaker and all.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Yes, I had decided not to date until I’d got that situation under control. Are you sure you want to take the risk?”

“Hmm, good point.” He rubbed his chin. “Maybe I should reconsider….”

Something oddly like panic clouded her expression. It was as if she really cared about this. Then she leaned forward and said softly, “Chicken?”

Devin chuckled. There were so many lessons he could teach this woman. Specifically, never take on a hell-raiser. Even reformed ones were dangerous. “Go ahead,” he dared, “break my heart.”