True believer - Nicholas Sparks [41]
“You just enjoy that. I told ’em to make it extra special, since you’re visiting from New York City. I absolutely love that place!”
“Oh, you’ve been there?”
“Well, no. But I’ve always wanted to go. It seems so . . . glamorous and exciting.”
“You should go. It’s like nowhere else in the world.”
She smiled, looking coy. “Why, Mr. Marsh . . . is that an invitation?”
Jeremy’s jaw dropped. Huh?
Rachel, on the other hand, didn’t seem to notice his expression. “Well, I just might want to take you up on that,” she twittered. “And I’d be glad to show you ’round the cemetery, any night you’d like to go. I’m usually finished here by three o’clock.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Jeremy mumbled.
Over the next twenty minutes, as Jeremy ate, Rachel came by a dozen times, refilling his coffee cup a quarter inch each time, smiling at him unrelentingly.
Jeremy made his way to his car, recovering from what was supposed to have been a leisurely breakfast.
Deputy Hopper. Mayor Gherkin. Tully. Rachel. Jed.
Small-town USA was way too much to deal with before coffee.
Tomorrow he’d just grab a cup of coffee somewhere else. He wasn’t sure eating at Herbs was worth it, even if the food was great. And, he had to admit, it was even better than he’d thought it would be. As Doris had said yesterday, it tasted fresh, like the ingredients had been gathered from the farm that morning.
Still, tomorrow would be coffee elsewhere. And not from Tully’s gas station, either, assuming he even had coffee. He didn’t want to get stuck in a conversation when he had other things to do.
He paused in midstep, amazed. Good Lord, he thought, I’m already thinking like a local.
He shook his head and retrieved his keys from his pocket as he walked toward the car. At least breakfast was over. Checking his watch, he saw that it was coming up on nine o’clock. Good.
Lexie found herself glancing out the window of her office the exact moment Jeremy Marsh pulled into the library parking lot.
Jeremy Marsh. Who’d continued to creep into her thoughts, even though she was trying to work. And just look at him now. Trying to dress more casually to blend with folks around here, she supposed. And somehow he’d almost pulled it off.
But enough of that. She had work to do. Her office was lined with bookcases crammed from top to bottom: books piled every which way, vertical and horizontal. A steel-gray filing cabinet stood in the corner, and her desk and chair were typically functional. There was little in the office that was decorative, simply for lack of space, and paperwork was piled everywhere: in corners, beneath the window, on the extra chair perched in a corner. Large stacks were also present on her desk, which held everything she considered urgent.
The budget was due at the end of the month, and she had a stack of publishers’ catalogs to go through before placing her weekly order. Add to the list finding a speaker for the Friends of the Library luncheon in April and getting everything set for the Historic Homes Tour—of which the library was part, since at one point it was a historic home—and she barely had enough time to breathe. She had two full-time employees, but she’d learned that things worked best if she didn’t delegate. The employees were fine for recommending recent titles and helping students find what they were looking for, but the last time she’d let one of them decide what books to order, she’d ended up with six different titles about orchids, since that happened to be the employee’s favorite flower. Earlier, after taking a seat in front of her computer, she’d tried to lay out a plan for organizing her schedule, but she hadn’t gotten anywhere. No matter how hard she’d tried to squelch it, her mind kept wandering back to Jeremy Marsh. She didn’t want to think about him, but Doris had said just enough to pique her curiosity.
He’s not what you imagine him to be.
What was that supposed to mean? Last night, when she’d pressed, Doris had clammed up, as if she hadn’t said anything in the first place. She didn