Baby Talk & Wedding Bells Read online

  The child she did recognize. Saige regularly attended Baby Talk at the library with her grandmother, which meant that the man holding the tiny hand had to be her dad: Braden Garrett, Charisma’s very own crown prince.

  * * *

  A lot of years had passed since Braden was last inside the Charisma Public Library, and when he stepped through the front doors, he had a moment of doubt that he was even in the right place. In the past twenty years, the building had undergone major renovations so that the address was the only part of the library that remained unchanged.

  He stepped farther into the room, noting that the card catalogue system had been replaced by computer terminals and the checkout desk wasn’t just automated but self-serve—which meant that the kids borrowing books or other materials weren’t subjected to the narrow-eyed stare of Miss Houlahan, the old librarian who marked the cards inside the back covers of the books, her gnarled fingers wielding the stamp like a weapon. He’d been terrified of the woman.

  Of course, the librarian had been about a hundred years old when Braden was a kid—or so she’d seemed—so he didn’t really expect to find her still working behind the desk. But the woman seated there now, her fingers moving over the keyboard as she conversed with an elderly gentleman, was at least twenty years younger than he’d expected, with chin-length auburn hair that shone with gold and copper highlights. Her face was heart-shaped with creamy skin and a delicately pointed chin. Her eyes were dark—green, he guessed, to go with the red hair—and her glossy lips curved in response to something the old man said to her.

  Saige wiggled again, silently asking to be set down. Since she’d taken her first tentative steps four months earlier, she preferred to walk everywhere. Braden set her on her feet but held firmly to her hand and headed toward the information desk.

  The woman he assumed was Miss MacKinnon stopped typing and picked up a pen to jot a note on a piece of paper that she then handed across the desk to the elderly patron.

  The old man nodded his thanks. “By the way, Margie wanted me to tell you that our daughter, Karen, is expecting again.”

  “This will be her third, won’t it?”

  “Third and fourth,” he replied.

  Neatly arched brows lifted. “Twins?”

  He nodded again. “Our seventh and eighth grandchildren.”

  “That’s wonderful news—congratulations to all of you.”

  “You know, I keep waiting for the day when you have big news to share.”

  The librarian smiled indulgently. “Didn’t I tell you just this morning that there’s a new John Grisham on the shelves?”

  Mr. Bowman shook his head. “Marriage plans, Cassie.”

  “You’ve been with Mrs. Bowman for almost fifty years—I don’t see you giving her up to run away with me now.”

  The old man’s ears flushed red. “Fifty-one,” he said proudly. “And I didn’t mean me. You need a handsome young man to put a ring on your finger and give you beautiful babies.”

  “Until that happens, you keep bringing me pictures of your gorgeous grandbabies,” she suggested.

  “I certainly will,” he promised.

  “In the meantime—” she picked up a flyer from the counter and offered it to Mr. Bowman “—I hope you’re planning to come to our Annual Book & Bake Sale on the fifteenth.”

  “It’s already marked on the calendar at home,” he told her. “And Margie’s promised to make a couple dozen muffins.”

  “I’ll definitely look forward to those.”

  The old man finally moved toward the elevator and Braden stepped forward. “Miss MacKinnon?”

  She turned toward him, and he saw that her eyes weren’t green, after all, but a dark chocolate brown and fringed with even darker lashes.

  “Good morning,” she said. “How can I help you?”

  “I’m here for...Baby Talk?”

  Her mouth curved, drawing his attention to her full, glossy lips. “Are you sure?”

  “Not entirely,” he admitted, shifting his gaze to meet hers again. “Am I in the right place?”

  “You are,” she confirmed. “Baby Talk is in the Bronte Room on the upper level at ten.”

  He glanced at the clock on the wall, saw that it wasn’t yet nine thirty. “I guess we’re a little early.”

  “Downstairs in the children’s section, there’s a play area with puzzles and games, a puppet theater and a train table.”

  “Choo-choo,” Saige urged.

  Miss MacKinnon glanced down at his daughter and smiled. “Although if you go there now, you might have trouble tearing your daughter away. You like the trains, don’t you, Saige?”

  She nodded, her head bobbing up and down with enthusiasm.

  Braden’s brows lifted. He was surprised—and a little disconcerted—to discover that this woman knew something about his daughter that he didn’t. “Obviously she spends more time here than I realized.”

  “Your mom brings her twice a week.”

  “Well, since you know my mother and Saige, I guess I should introduce myself—I’m Braden Garrett.”

  She accepted the hand he offered. He noted that hers was soft, but her grip firm. “Cassie MacKinnon.”

  “Are you really the librarian?” he heard himself ask.

  “One of them,” she said.

  “When I think of librarians, I think of Miss Houlahan.”

  “So do I,” she told him. “In fact, she’s the reason I chose to become a librarian.”

  “We must be thinking of different Miss Houlahans,” he decided.

  “Perhaps,” she allowed. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to check on something upstairs.”

  “Something upstairs” sounded rather vague to Braden, and he got the strange feeling that he was being brushed off. Or maybe he was reading too much into those two words. After all, this was a library and she was the librarian—no doubt there were any number of “somethings” she had to do, although he couldn’t begin to imagine what they might be.

  As she walked away, Braden found himself admiring the curve of her butt and the sway of her hips and thinking that he might have spent a lot more time in the library as a kid if there had been a librarian like Miss MacKinnon to help him navigate the book stacks.

  Chapter Two

  By the time he managed to drag Saige away from the trains and find the Bronte Room, there were several other parents and children already there—along with Cassie MacKinnon. Apparently one of the “somethings” that she did at the library was lead the stories, songs and games at Baby Talk.

  She nodded to him as he entered the room and gestured to an empty place in the circle. “Have a seat,” she invited.

  Except there were no seats. All of the moms—and yes, they were all moms, there wasn’t another XY chromosome anywhere to be found, unless it was tucked away in a diaper—were sitting on the beige Berber carpet. He lowered himself to the floor, certain he looked as awkward as he felt as he attempted to cross his legs.

  “Did you bring your pillow, Mr. Garrett?”

  “Pillow?” he echoed. His mother hadn’t said anything about a pillow, but when he looked around, he saw that all of the moms had square pillows underneath their babies.

  “I’ve got an extra that you can borrow,” she said, opening a cabinet to retrieve a big pink square with an enormous daisy embroidered on it.

  He managed not to grimace as he thanked her and set the pillow on the floor, then sat Saige down on top of it. She immediately began to clap her hands, excited to begin.

  Ellen had told him that Baby Talk was for infants up to eighteen months of age, and looking around, he guessed that his daughter was one of the oldest in the room. A quick glance confirmed that the moms were of various ages, as well. The one thing they had in common: they were all chec
king out the lone male in the room.

  He focused on Cassie, eager to get the class started and finished.

  What he learned during the thirty-minute session was that the librarian had a lot more patience than he did. Even when there were babies crying, she continued to read or sing in the same soothing tone. About halfway through the session, she took a bin of plastic instruments out of the cupboard and passed it around so the babies could jingle bells or pound on drums or bang sticks together. Of course, the kids had a lot more enthusiasm than talent—his daughter included—and by the time they were finished, Braden could feel a headache brewing.

  “That was a great effort today,” Cassie told them, and he breathed a grateful sigh of relief that they were done. “I’ll see you all next week, and please don’t forget the Book & Bake Sale on the fifteenth—any and all donations of gently used books are appreciated.”

  Despite the class being dismissed, none of the moms seemed to be in a hurry to leave, instead continuing to chat with one another about feeding schedules and diaper rashes and teething woes. Braden just wanted to be gone but Saige had somehow managed to pull off her shoes, forcing him to stay put long enough to untie the laces, put the shoes back on her feet and tie them up again.

  While he was preoccupied with this task, the woman who had been seated on his left shifted closer. “I’m Heather Turcotte. And this—” she jiggled the baby in her lap “—is Katie.”

  “Braden Garrett,” he told her, confident that she already knew his daughter.

  “You’re a brave man to subject yourself to a baby class full of women,” she said, then smiled at him.

  “I’m only here today because my mom had an appointment.”

  “That’s too bad. It would be nice to have another single parent in the group,” she told him. “Most of these women don’t have a clue how hard it is to raise a child on their own. Of course, I didn’t know, either, until I had Katie. All through my pregnancy, I was so certain that I could handle this. But the idea of a baby is a lot different than the reality.”

  “That’s true,” he agreed, only half listening to her as he worked Saige’s shoes back onto her feet. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Cassie talking to one of the other moms and cleaning the instruments with antibacterial wipes, which made him feel a little bit better about the bells that his daughter had been chewing on.

  “Of course, it helps that I have a flexible schedule at work,” Heather was saying. “As I’m sure you do, considering that your name is on the company letterhead.”

  “There are benefits to working for a family business,” he agreed.

  Cassie waved goodbye to the other woman and her baby, then carried the bin of instruments to the cupboard.

  “Such as being able to take a little extra time to grab a cup of coffee now?” Heather suggested hopefully.

  He forced his attention back to her, inwardly wincing at the hopeful expression on her face. “Sorry, I really do need to get to the office.”

  She pouted, much like his daughter did when she didn’t get what she wanted, but the look wasn’t nearly as cute on a grown woman who had a daughter of her own.

  “Well, maybe we could get the kids together sometime. A playdate for the little ones—” she winked “—and the grown-ups.”

  “I appreciate the invitation, but my time is really limited these days.”

  “Oh. Okay.” She forced a smile, but he could tell that she was disappointed. “Well, if you change your mind, you know where to find me on Tuesday mornings.”

  “Yes, I do,” he confirmed.

  Somehow, while he’d been putting on her shoes, Saige had found his phone and was using it as a chew toy. With a sigh, he pried it from her fingers and wiped it on his trousers. “Are you cutting more teeth, sweetie?”

  Her only answer was to shove her fist into her mouth.

  He picked her up and she dropped her head onto his shoulder, apparently ready for her nap. He bent his knees carefully to reach the daisy pillow and carried it to the librarian. “Thanks for the loan.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said. Then, “I wanted to ask about your mother earlier, but I didn’t want you to think I was being nosy.”

  “What did you want to ask?”

  “In the past six months, Ellen hasn’t missed a single class—I just wondered if she was okay.”

  “Oh. Yes, she’s fine. At least, I think so,” he told her. “She chipped a tooth at breakfast and had an emergency appointment at the dentist.”

  “Well, please tell her that I hope she’s feeling better and I’m looking forward to seeing her on Thursday.”

  “Is that your way of saying that you don’t want to see me on Thursday?” he teased.

  “This is a public library, Mr. Garrett,” she pointed out. “You’re welcome any time the doors are open.”

  “And will I find you here if I come back?” he wondered.

  “Most days,” she confirmed.

  “So this is your real job—you don’t work anywhere else?”

  Her brows lifted at that. “Yes, this is my real job,” she said, her tone cooler now by several degrees.

  And despite having turned down Heather’s offer of coffee only a few minutes earlier, he found the prospect of enjoying a hot beverage with this woman an incredibly appealing one. “Can you sneak away for a cup of coffee?”

  She seemed surprised by the invitation—and maybe a little tempted—but after a brief hesitation, she shook her head. “No, I can’t. I’m working, Mr. Garrett.”

  “I know,” he said, and offered her what he’d been told was a charming smile. “But the class is finished and I’m sure that whatever else you have to do can wait for half an hour or so while we go across the street to the café.”

  “Obviously you think that ‘whatever else’ I have to do is pretty insignificant,” she noted, her tone downright frosty now.

  “I didn’t mean to offend you, Miss MacKinnon,” he said, because it was obvious that he’d done so.

  “I may not be the CEO of a national corporation, but the work I do matters to the people who come here.” She moved toward the door where she hit a switch on the wall to turn off the overhead lights—a clear sign that it was time for him to leave.

  He stepped out of the room, and she closed and locked the door. “Have a good day, Mr. Garrett.”

  “I will,” he said. “But I need one more thing before I go.”

  “What’s that?” she asked warily.

  “A library card.”

  * * *

  Cassie stared at him for a moment, trying to decide if he was joking. “You want a library card?”

  “I assume I need one to borrow books,” Braden said matter-of-factly.

  “You do,” she confirmed, still wondering about his angle—because she was certain that he had one.

  “So where do I get a card?” he prompted, sounding sincere in his request.

  But how could she know for sure? If her recent experience with the male species had taught her nothing else, she’d at least learned that she wasn’t a good judge of their intentions or motivations.

  “Follow me,” she said.

  He did, and with each step, she was conscious of him beside her—not just his presence but his masculinity. The library wasn’t a female domain. A lot of males came through the doors every day—mostly boys, a few teens and some older men. Rarely did she cross paths with a male in the twenty-five to forty-four age bracket. Never had she crossed paths with anyone like Braden Garrett.

  He was the type of man who made heads turn and hearts flutter and made women think all kinds of naughty thoughts. And his nearness now made her skin feel hot and tight, tingly in a way that made her uneasy. Cassie didn’t want to feel tingly, she didn’t want to think about how long it had been since she’d be
en attracted, on a purely physical level, to a man, and she definitely didn’t want to be attracted to this man now.

  Aside from the fact that he was a Garrett and, therefore, way out of her league, she had no intention of wasting a single minute of her time with a man who didn’t value who she was. Not again. Thankfully, his disparaging remark about her job was an effective antidote to his good looks and easy charm.

  Taking a seat at the computer, she logged in to create a new account. He took his driver’s license out of his wallet so that she could input the necessary data. She noted that his middle name was Michael, his thirty-ninth birthday was coming up and he lived in one of the most exclusive parts of town.

  “What kind of books do you like to read?” she inquired, as she would of any other newcomer to the library.

  “Mostly historical fiction and nonfiction, some action-thriller type stories.”

  “Like Bernard Cornwell, Tom Clancy and Clive Cussler?”

  He nodded. “And John Jakes and Diana Gabaldon.”

  She looked up from the computer screen. “You read Diana Gabaldon?”

  “Sure,” he said, not the least bit self-conscious about the admission. “My cousin, Tristyn, left a copy of Outlander at my place on Ocracoke and I got hooked.”

  For a moment while they’d been chatting about favorite authors, she’d almost let herself believe he was a normal person—just a handsome single dad hanging out at the library with his daughter. But the revelation that he not only lived in Forrest Hill but had another house on an island in the Outer Banks immediately dispelled that notion.

  “My brothers tease me about reading romance,” he continued, oblivious to her thought process, “but there’s a lot more to her books than that.”

  “There’s a lot more to most romance novels than many people believe,” she told him.

  “What do you like to read?” he asked her.

  “Anything and everything,” she said. “I have favorite authors, of course, but I try to read across the whole spectrum in order to be able to make recommendations to our patrons.” She set his newly printed library card on the counter along with a pen for him to sign it.