CHAPTER ONE
Jenna
“How many raindrops do you think a cloud can hold?”
Twelve little hands sprang up into the air. I pointed to Oliver, whose hand waved most excitedly. He usually shouted out, so I called on him quickly before the answer broke free of his fragile control.
“Ten million and five!”
“Wow, that’s a lot!”
I called on a few more kids, then knelt next to the table to quietly ask the ones who hadn’t volunteered an answer.
“We have a lot of good ideas. Are you ready to see how many drops your clouds can hold?”
Cheers erupted around the table, making me smile. This is why I loved being a children’s librarian.
“Okay, here come the clouds. Don’t touch them yet.” I topped off each child’s cup of water with shaving cream, then hurried to hand out the cups of blue-dyed water and eye droppers. “Andthere’s the rain.” After a dramatic pause, I said, “Go ahead, make it rain!”
They dripped the rain onto their clouds, some one drop at a time, others as fast as they could pump the dropper, and I soaked up their enthusiasm as the ribbons of blue swirled into the clear water below.
As their excitement started to wane, I wrapped it up. “Thank you all for coming! Please check the calendar for our upcoming activities, and take a look at our spring books and crafts. Have a fun day!”
I followed the kids and their parents out of the activity room and into the children’s area—our little slice of fairy-tale heaven tucked behind an arched doorway painted like a towering stack of books, a world away from the quiet of the main library.
“That sounded like a success,” Izzy, my friend and co-worker, said as I joined her behind the children’s circulation desk.
“Yep, they loved it.”
“Awesome. I need to go prep before Homework Helpers starts. I need my own crash course in cell structure if I’m going to be any help for their test tomorrow.”
“Good luck!”
Izzy took off for the teen lounge on the other side of the library, her brown braid swishing behind her, and I meandered through the activity areas, grateful as always for Izzy. With my preference for younger kids and hers for the tweens and teens, we made a great team.
“Oliver, what a tall tower!” I said as I passed the blocks and made my way into the craft and kitchen corner.
“Maddy, your flowers are so colorful!” I said to her as she carefully colored in one of the pictures.
“I made this one yellow like the flowers on your skirt.”
I looked down at my maxi skirt and beamed at her. “It’s just like these sunflowers. That was so observant of you to notice.”
Movement drew my attention to a teenage boy in jeans and a hoodie, the hood pulled low over his face, standing near the children’s circulation desk and looking around. “Enjoy the coloring, Maddy. I can’t wait to see more later,” I said to her, but my eyes were fixed on him. I tried not to judge other boys based on Brian Belke, the teenage boy from my nightmares, but that didn’t mean I’d let them wander around unsupervised near the kids. I’d advocated to have the teen lounge all the way across the library for a good reason.
“Hi!” I said cheerfully as I approached him. “Can I help you?”
“Hello, Miss…may I ask your name?” His smooth voice and mature phrasing clashed with my first impression. I’d pegged him as a teenager from afar, but now he seemed much older.
I tried to see his face, but it was shadowed by his hood. The sense of being watched without seeing him made my skin prickle. I smiled, shoving those old feelings down, and glanced around, grateful not to see any of the kids too close. “I’m Jenna. What can I do for you?”
“I hope you can help me, Jenna. I’m looking for a book,From the Shallows.”
“Sure, I’ll check the computer.” Hopefully, it would be in the adult stacks, and I could pass him off to a colleague. I ignored the intense stare—no, the intense perusal—that I could feel even without seeing his eyes, and kept my gaze glued to the computer screen. Dang it. It was in the young adult stacks, and Izzy was busy.
I put up a sign directing anyone checking out a book to the main circulation desk, and I urged him to walk ahead of me to the teen lounge. No way in hell I’d let him walk behind me. Not with the weird vibes he was giving off. My body stiffened as I imagined him behind me. Grabbing me. Pulling me against his body. Trapping me against him. His penis?—
No. I wasn’t going there. I forced a smile onto my face and into my voice. “It’s just around that corner.” I was a professional. A normal, healthy, confident adult who didn’t freak out over random men. Or teenage boys. Whoever he was, it was fine.