Second Chance (3 page)

Claire giggled and nodded. “And a bookmark!”

Deirdre laughed and set Claire down again, but kept one arm around the girl’s shoulders. “Thanks for taking her out, Col.”

He nodded. “No problem. We were actually coming back ‘round to see if you wanted to walk up to Kiki’s with us for a cocoa.”

“With marshmallows,” Claire chimed in.

“Ah, yes. Of course. With marshmallows.” He raised an eyebrow at Deirdre, trying to somehow will her to say yes, even if just this once, and to his relief, she smiled and nodded.

“That sounds like a lovely plan. Let me just change out of my work clothes and then we’ll go, okay?”

“Hooray!” shrieked Claire, forcing both adults to recoil a bit at the volume, but then they all laughed. “I’ll go tell Papa that we’re going!”

She scampered off to the back part of the house. Da was probably dozing in front of the TV, where Collin and Claire had left him just a couple of hours before. Ma was at her bridge game all afternoon and likely wouldn’t be home until dinnertime.

Collin gestured with his chin at Deirdre’s pencil skirt and prim button-down blouse. “Everything went okay at the office?”

“Yes!” His sister nearly squealed like Claire. “I got the raise I asked for and I even managed to get my boss to agree that I’ll have a title promotion in another three months if I can meet my quarterly goals!” Her smile was bright, like he hadn’t seen in ages.

The relief and pride rushed out of him in a shout. “Hey, atta girl, Deirdre!” He hugged her as she bounced up and down, as triumphant and confident as he’d ever seen her. Thank God. Maybe she’d pull out of this horrible time without as much pain as Ma had gone through when they’d left home.

When they parted, her eyes were sparkling. Damn, it reminded him so much of Claire. What must that feel like, to have created a small person with so many of your qualities? Who shared your blood and genes and mannerisms, and who brought so much innocent wonder into everything?

For the first time in his life, Collin found himself wishing he had a family of his own, and the thought surprised him enough that he almost didn’t hear what Deirdre said next.

“I’m so excited! With a raise, I can probably even afford dance lessons for Claire.”

But when it finally registered, he frowned. “Hey, now. I already told you that I’d pay for those—”

“I know, Col. But I’m her
mom
. And I can’t keep depending on a man for something, even if you’re my brother. I lost too much when Graham walked out. I didn’t realize how much I’d invested in him. I-I need to do this as much as she needs me to do it.”

He backed off, nodding. It bothered him that she wouldn’t take his money, because God knows he had more than enough of it, but he could see how important it was to her. Instead he shrugged and gave her a cheeky smile. “Fine, but I’m paying for the cocoa.”

“In that case, I’m definitely getting marshmallows with mine.”

By the time they’d gone to Kiki’s and drunk way too much sugar for Collin’s taste, it was getting late and he’d gotten six more calls, all left unanswered. They were getting ready to leave the café when Deirdre asked him if he needed a ride to his car.

He shook his head and pulled his jacket on. “Nah, I parked back at the library. I’ll walk back. It’s not far.”

“If you’re sure…”

“Yeah, I’m sure. But speaking of the library, I didn’t know Marnie Thomas was the librarian now. You remember her? I think she was your year.”

He hoped he sounded more nonchalant than he felt. For some reason, even saying her name out loud was making his blood pump harder and giving him a funny feeling in his chest. But if Deirdre sensed any of that, she’d never let up.

Deirdre nodded. “Yes, she was. She went away to college, but she didn’t stay away. I think she returned because her mom got sick, then languished for a long time. Marnie managed to hold down the job at the library and take care of Mrs. Thomas ‘round the clock in those last years.”

Oh, damn. That sounded rough. He made a sound of sympathy. “I’m sorry to hear that. I had Mrs. Thomas for eleventh grade English. What happened to her, anyway?”

“Cancer of some sort. I think she had chemo treatments for a while, because I remember her walking around town with a scarf over her head at some point. But about a year later, I ran into Marnie at the pharmacy and she told me that her mom was too frail to walk anymore. Mrs. Thomas died the next month.”

Collin was silent, taking it in. He remembered Marnie’s mom as a nice woman, but already a little faded even ten years ago. Marnie, though…despite her awkwardness, she’d been bright and vibrant. Intense, even. She’d been kind of girl that somehow endeared herself in a man’s heart.

And now she was the kind of woman who heated a man’s blood.

He wondered whether she got out much. Whether she was still mourning her mother. He shook his head. “It’s a shame. Both parents gone.”

“Actually, Mr. Thomas is back now. He actually moved back here with his new wife and his bratty little son. The kid is in Claire’s class, in fact. You might have seen him today. Dark hair, really nasty attitude.”

No way.

Collin was willing to bet the Granger development that the man he’d rebuked this afternoon was Marnie’s dad. “You don’t say. Does the kid’s name happen to be Patrick, by any chance?”

Deirdre blinked in surprise. “Yes, how did you know?”

“His nasty attitude got out of hand even during the story hour at the library.”

“Oh, no. Don’t tell me that Mr. Thomas was there even when Marnie was reading…” Deirdre trailed off when Collin nodded. “Oh, good gracious. He ran out on them, too, you know. Just like Graham did to me and Claire.”

Damn. He shouldn’t be surprised that the guy was such an asshole, but it made him think about how shy and reserved Marnie had been in high school, and he regretted not making more of an effort to draw her out of her shell back then.

“I didn’t realize. I always thought he’d died.”

She shook her head. “May as well have. He left when Marnie was twelve, right before we moved here. It was a pretty bad time. But I didn’t know her well enough in high school to get any more details from her.”

At least some generous spirit had seen fit to deliver a form of payback in the library. He snorted in amusement, remembering the scene, and told Deirdre, “Well he got a smidge of comeuppance, anyway, by falling on his face in front of all the kids and their parents at the library today.”

“What?” Her tone was mildly concerned, but a smile played on her lips while Collin shared the story. When he was finished, she laughed. “Serves him right.”

That’s what Collin had thought at the time. But now, he could only think about how that was nothing compared to the pain that man had inflicted on his wife and kids.

They were both silent for a second, until Claire chirped, “C’mon, I’m ready!”

“Oh, hell.” Deirdre muttered under her breath. “I’ve been faffing about with you in the kitchen and haven’t changed. Back in a tick.”

She disappeared upstairs just as Claire walked in wearing pink sweatpants and a shirt with a cat on it. So his niece hadn’t been kidding earlier, when she said she liked kitties. After a couple of minutes, Deirdre raced back in, looking more casual, as well, and they all headed to the door.

Claire walked out first and Collin gestured for Deirdre to go ahead. As she passed him, she asked under her breath, “What’s Chloe up to tonight?”

Chloe? Oh, right.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. We broke up a couple weeks ago.”

Claire skipped ahead, and Deirdre sighed loudly as Collin shut the door and they followed after the girl. “Well, thank God for little miracles.”

“What? She was nice.”

He turned and frowned at his sister, but she was staring down the sidewalk at Claire. “You and I have a very different definition of
nice
, Col.”

He shrugged. “So maybe she was a little catty.”

“Frankly, I’d have preferred that she scratched up the furniture and pissed on the rug rather than flung nasty comments at me all night about how Graham had left me because I’d let myself go.”

That stopped him in his tracks. He stared at Deirdre “She did
what
?”

She made a sound of frustration. “Crap. I’m sorry. I told myself I wasn’t going to say anything, especially if you felt serious about her. I’d almost be willing to forgive something like that if you’d just find a good woman to settle down with. Not that I should be giving relationship advice at the moment. Like Ma says, I burnt my coal and didn’t get a lick of warmth from it.”

“Don’t listen to her. You know she’s had a hard time of it, too. But I’m sorry about Chloe. You should have told me sooner and I would have booted her to the curb. Family comes first, okay?”

She hugged him and kissed his cheek. “Whoever you end up with someday will be so lucky to have a guy like you.” She pulled back a bit and pinched his cheek fondly. “Just make sure she’s someone I like, too.”

Chapter Three

Marnie was exhausted. After the dramatic story hour, she’d spent another two hours helping patrons, answering e-mails, and shelving books.

It was just past four o’clock and she still had another hour before the library closed and she could go home and fall into bed. She’d bought several bags of candy to give out to trick-or-treaters later, which she usually loved to do, but seeing her father had sucked all the energy right out of her.

She hadn’t been this tired since the last days of Mom’s life in hospice, when she’d kept a near-constant vigil, too afraid to sleep lest she miss the moment of Mom’s passing.

She wiped a tear from her eye. Goodness, what was going on today? She never cried, and she’d already teared up twice in the span of a few hours. And then there had been Collin, who made her body and her mind go wild with something she hadn’t felt in a long time.

Need.

It had been a long time since she’d touched a man, or been touched by a man. She got hugs from the kids who came in for story hour, and kindly pats on the hand from her elderly patrons when she helped them find a book or use the computer. But the strength of a man’s arms around her waist, or the play of rough-tipped fingers between her thighs…

It had been years.

Goodness. Her emotions were all over the place. Maybe it was just the strangeness of Halloween, invading her senses. Everything would probably be fine again tomorrow, once the restless spirits went back to sleep.

“Marnie.”

Mike, the high school student who volunteered at the library a few afternoons a week, got her attention.

“What’s up?” She turned to see that he had the phone tucked under his ear.

“There’s a guy on the line who wants to know whether we have volume three, issue six of
The Wilford Leader
. I told him that Wilford doesn’t print the
Leader
but that we might have back issues of the
Gazette
, but he insisted that it used to be printed here in town.”

She nodded. “It was printed until 1985. So…well before your time. But we have a lot of the back issues in the archives.” She chuckled when Mike rolled his eyes. “The archives” was actually just a fancy way of referring to the attic of the converted old Victorian house that served as the Wilford Municipal Library. “Take down his information and tell him I’ll return his call tomorrow. I’ll go upstairs in a little bit to check.”

Mike nodded and Marnie walked away, pushing a cart of nonfiction books toward the elevator that they’d carved out of the old butler’s pantry. She’d shelve them on the second floor and then head up to the attic—er,
archives
.

The elevator arrived, and the doors opened on a slow roll.
God, this thing is so old.
But there were only so many tasks one could accomplish on a small budget, and making the elevator move faster was not even close to the top of the priority list.

What felt like eons later, she was pushing the cart through the stacks, sliding books back into place and straightening the spines as she went along. If there was one thing she was exceptionally proud of, it was how neat and welcoming she kept the library. It took a little extra work to make sure that things were always shining and clean, but it was worth it.

After a while, she left the empty cart next to the elevator and took the staircase up to through the third floor, where community education classes were sometimes held in the converted old servants’ quarters, then continued up an even narrower set of stairs from there into the attic.

The sun was already low in the sky, and the small windows up here didn’t let in much light. She flipped on the single bulb, which was the only light that they’d bothered to install in the attack when the library first opened. Hopefully, it wouldn’t blow out before she found the newspaper. The bulb buzzed to life, and the room glowed a dim yellow, creating more shadows than even the approaching dusk would.

The archives was the only part of the library that she didn’t spend much time cleaning. Since only the staff was allowed up there, it was crowded and stuffy, not as welcoming a space as the lower three floors. At least she made sure to keep it organized, if not completely dust-free.

It was cold, too. The heating system hadn’t been extended to the attic when the library had last been renovated, about thirty years before. The former librarian had maintained the archives on the floor below, unwilling to open up the rooms for use by the community. She hadn’t been what one might call a
people person
.

Marnie trailed a finger along the shelves, idly thinking to herself that she really needed to conduct a fundraiser to get someone to digitize the collection of old periodicals and journals before they all crumbled to dust.

“There you are,” she murmured, as
The Wilford Leader
appeared under her finger. Back issues were bound in large booklets, with several issues glued into the big bindings. She searched the spines, moving all the way to the end of the shelf. There it was.
Volume one
. Marnie slid the book out of its place and began walking back toward the door at the top of the stairs.