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1
MERE PLAYED IT COOL
“He’s back,” Dee said in a singsong voice.
Mere already knew. She always did. The hairs on her arms stood at attention and the air in the library seemed to thicken the moment he stepped foot inside. But admitting it to Dee would be unwise. As good as her intentions might be, the older woman would tease her mercilessly about landing such a “hunk.”
Instead, Mere played it cool. “Oh?”
“How can you not notice…that?” Dee gestured in his direction.
She wasn’t wrong. Long and lean with the tan of someone who worked outside all day, the newest arrival in Strawberry Creek was a man nearly every woman in town noticed. Married or not. Old and young. Even old Mrs. Murillo stared at him from behind the cart of books she was supposed to be re-shelving with a lusty gleam Mere hoped she still had at age eighty.
“Lots of people come through here, Dee. If I stop what I’m doing every single time, I’d never get anything done.”
“If you never stop, never talk to anyone, how are you going to make friends? And he could be a very special kind of friend.”
That was a doozy of a question, and she did not want to answer it in front of everyone in the freaking library. Enough people knew her past as it was—small towns were like that. But she didn’t need to broadcast her history to tall, handsome strangers.
“I don’t need new friends,” she said instead.
Dee tsked and continued scanning in the returns from last night. The man approached, pulling out a wallet from his pocket. Mere stood and met him at the desk.
“Hi, there. How can I help you today, Mr. Haynes?”
He pushed his messy dark brown hair out of his face and smiled, and when it reached his pale blue eyes, they sparkled, hand to God.
“I told you, you can call me Anders,” he said in a softly accented voice.
She hadn’t been able to place the accent yet. He either studied English from a young age or had moved to the US long ago and lost what accent he had. It was only curiosity, as no one seemed to know much of anything about him. The only thing she knew that no one else did was his penchant for old town records.
“Yes, you have. I’m sorry. I’ll try to remember next time.” Mere returned the smile.
His eyes shone with an almost otherworldly brightness, pushing away the coldness she had glimpsed at first. She kept herself from swooning like a heroine in her favorite historical romances by sheer willpower. Holy cow.
“I’m looking for anything you have from 1920.”
“In Strawberry Creek, or in the state?”
“Anything you have.”
“Okay. Why don’t you have a seat at a table? I’ll dig around and bring you what I find.”
“Thank you, Meretta.”
A shiver threatened to overtake her upon hearing her name from his lips. She suppressed it but remained frozen in place as he walked to his favorite table in the corner of the library. She couldn’t help but admire his loping stride and the way his muscles worked under his tight t-shirt and work jeans. Anders pulled out a chair, and it squealed horribly on the tile, breaking the spell. Before he could notice her slack-jawed gaping, she disappeared down the stairs to the musty archives.
The town of Strawberry Creek had only ten thousand permanent residents. It swelled in the summer by another couple thousand as the desert dwellers escaped the brutal heat. The library was on the first floor of the old town hall and doubled as the archives.
Anders Haynes had first stepped foot in her domain about a month ago, and as the newest resident, a hot one at that, he quickly became the talk of the town. Mere could see why. He rarely talked to anyone besides her. As far as she knew, he only came to the library and stopped by farm stands for fresh produce and meat.
Their conversations, near a dozen by now, had only been about the archives. He politely requested materials from a particular year, read them, stacked them neatly when he finished, and thanked her just as politely. Mere might be the envy of every woman in town, but she didn’t know the man any better than they did.
The motion sensor turned on the lights as she moved deep into the stacks. She pulled the bound folios of the local newspaper first. They were the oldest available. The paper had been founded in 1920, and the city incorporated the year prior.
She moved to the other archive material. They still had some microfiche, though the machine was a bit touchy. Dee had been applying for grants to digitize them for almost a decade. This year’s application had made it through the first round, so they were keeping their fingers crossed. If it didn’t come through soon, Mere would have to think outside the box. Maybe a university student home for the summer might be willing to volunteer some time. Lord knew, neither she nor Dee had any to spare.
She put the film on top of the folios. There was a disintegrating scrapbook a town council member had assembled covering the entire decade. She added it to the pile. All that was left were the official minutes of council meetings, some blueprints, and a box of photos. Mere would have to make another trip if he wanted any of that.
