“I’m impressed,” Douglas said.
“So am I,” Liam admitted. “How did you decide to get into that?”
Feeling a little uncomfortable, Naomi shrugged again. “Books were always my refuge, all my life. When I got into middle school, my English class spent a whole week on libraries and referencing… alphabetizing and classifying, Dewey decimal system, old-school stuff. As well as OPAC—online public access catalog—the computerized catalog that replaced the old card system. I found it fascinating. I’d already been using the libraries, researching things that interested me. Just for fun, you know? So when I went into college, it was a natural direction for me to go. Plus, the field is wide-open. There’s always a need for librarians, and archivists, and researchers. Plus, it pays very well, even with only a B.A.”
“Have you thought of going for your Masters?” Liam inquired, looking interested.
“Of course. But I needed to get out of Florida, away from my family. I moved to Sarasota first, but…” she shivered, remembering, wrapping her arms about herself. “I didn’t feel safe. I worried they would come for me, angry that I had gotten out from under their control, you know? I was always looking over my shoulder. It’s a few hours’ drive from Palm Beach, where we’d always lived, but still… so, I put in some applications in different parts of the country, all well away from Florida. I took the first job offer I got, which was with the public library in Manhattan. And, well, here we are.”
“And here we are,” Jacinth echoed with a radiant smile. “So, you’re looking to work at a library? Are there other kinds of jobs you can go for with a Library Sciences degree, besides librarian?”
“Yes, quite a few, including teaching. But libraries are where it’s at for me. I’ll do something else for awhile if I have to, but where I’m most at home is in a library. It’s my comfort zone, I guess you’d say. And the Bookmobile,” she broke off, smiling, as memories swamped her. “That was so wonderful. People would be waiting at each stop, eager to come inside and browse what we had available, find something new, a new author or new title.” She chuckled. “The adults were every bit as excited as the children, they just hid it better.”
“You sound like you really like the children,” Jacinth said, her voice soft.
Naomi nodded, blinking a bit to clear her vision, which had become oddly misty. “I do, I love children. That’s one of the things that is so gratifying, working in the library. And, well, since I never thought I’d be able to have any of my own…”
Her voice faded, and she left the sentence unfinished. An uncomfortable silence fell in the room.
Jacinth moved to perch on the arm of the sofa beside her, reaching to take her hand in a comforting clasp. “But now things are different. You can look to the future, and maybe see things there that you didn’t think were possible, before. Of course you have to focus on the immediate future, finding a job, an apartment, and so forth, but be open to exploring your possibilities in the long-term.”
Naomi swallowed hard, Jacinth’s words hitting her hard. Children, and a husband. A family. They could really be hers. At the very least, they were no longer the impossibility they had seemed before.
She nodded. “I understand. And I will, I promise.”
Chapter15
A weekafter having retrieved her car, Naomi came dancing into the dining room, where Liam was helping Adina get her children’s breakfasts dished up.
“I did it!” She exclaimed, bouncing in delight. “I did it! I got a job!”
Liam paused in the process of spooning scrambled eggs onto a plate, looking at her over his shoulder. “Really?”
“Yes!” She punched the air. “I just got a phone call from the library. I’ll be starting as a regular librarian, but they’re also really interested in possibly starting up a Bookmobile for the area, next year maybe, in time for summer, and I’ll be in on the ground floor with that if they decide to do it. I spoke with the head librarian. She wants me to write up a proposal, which she’ll present to the Board.”
“That is so wonderful,” Adina exclaimed. “You must be very proud.”
“It is, and I am,” Naomi agreed, scarcely able to contain her excitement. “I start on the Monday after Thanksgiving. It turns out they’ve had this opening for awhile, but she says they’ve been having a hard time finding qualified librarians. Most want to be in the city, I guess.”
The back of her neck prickled suddenly, and deep inside, her cat raised its head, snarling. Naomi turned quickly toward the front of the inn. There was no one in the lounge, or visible from what she could see of the lobby, and the front lawn through the bay windows was vacant, but her cat was clearly alarmed, and on high alert.
“What it it?” Liam placed the plate in front of the little girl and came to Naomi’s side.
Naomi frowned in puzzlement. “I don’t know. I don’t see anything, but my cat is afraid… and angry, too, I think. Like someone dangerous is watching us. But I see no one.”
Liam went to the door to the lobby, peering inside. “No one is in here.”
“So it has to be someone from outside,” she said, wrapping her arms around her waist, shivering.
“Let me go check.” Liam started for the front door of the inn, but she ran to his side, clutching his arm.
“No! Don’t go out there. Please,” she asked. “I-I’m really scared. I don’t want you to go out there.”
Angus looked up from his desk, his grizzled brows rising.
“What’s going on?”
Liam explained, and Angus rose to his feet, moving around the counter with a speed that belied his age.
