I noticed when I pulled up to the house that all the lights were off except one. The library was lit up, and through the sheer curtain I could see the outline of a woman inside. I knew it was Lauren by the shadow of her lovely dark hair tumbling down her back, and I smiled to myself as I went inside and made my way up the stairs to the third-floor library. I opened the door and she jumped when I entered, her hand fluttering to her chest as she stared at me in surprise.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t be in here, I—”

“This whole house is yours, Lauren,” I said to her. “You’re welcome in any room.”

“Oh,” she said softly. “Thank you.”

“Of course,” I said. I walked up to her and stood next to her, gazing at the shelf she had been browsing.

“Has anything caught your interest?” I asked, looking at her face. She looked at me, her lips parted to speak.

“Yes,” she said, holding my eye. I couldn’t look away from her. I felt compelled to touch her like I had earlier out by the car. All I had done was touch her face briefly but it had been enough to make the feeling on my skin linger long after I had left her behind. I’d gone to the restaurant but had been distracted the entire time thinking of Lauren, her eyes over dinner, that smile.

“Tell me,” I said to her. She didn’t look away, but brushed her fingers over the spines of the books on the shelf.

“I don’t even know where to start,” she said, finally breaking my gaze as she looked at the cases. It was an impressive room, beautiful—I’d had it built to imitate the one that I’d had in my house back in the city, a place that had been well over two centuries old. I didn’t like newer houses as a general rule but the one I’d had built here in Garner suited me perfectly, and by the look on her face I knew that it suited Lauren as well.

“Who’s your favorite author?”

“God, there are so many,” she said. “I’m a sucker for those old mysteries. Raymond Chandler.”

“Dashiell Hammett?” I asked her. “The Maltese Falcon?”

“Yes,” she gushed, looking surprised. “I love that one. I used to make my grandpa read them to me as a kid.”

I grinned. “You were kind of a weird kid, weren’t you?”

She covered her mouth as she laughed and I wished she wouldn’t. I wanted to see her smile, but part of her seemed to feel shy with me. I wanted to open her up and get to know every single facet of her. 

“I guess I was,” she said.

“All the best kids were,” I told her.

“Were you?” she asked. I nodded.

“I was a morbid child,” I said to her. “Really interested in horror movies and unsolved mysteries. My parents thought there was something wrong with me.”

“And was there something wrong with you?” she asked, her eyes playful.

“Probably,” I said. That look on her face was only making me crave her more. We were close to each other, standing shoulder-to-shoulder looking at the shelves. She pulled a book off and opened it up, an old volume with a cover that was too worn to read.

“Where did you get all of these books?” she asked, gazing up in wonder at the floor-to-ceiling shelves, the hundreds of volumes that I’d had brought over.

“I brought them from my old place. I collect them.”

“I can see that,” she said, looking up at my face. “Why?”

“It gets me time alone with pretty girls,” I said, daring to flirt with her. She gave me a small smile, a look of chiding in her eye. She gave a small shake of her head that told me to step back and so I did, shooting her a look of apology for the compliment. She didn’t look put-off, but was chewing on her lip as she looked at me, something obviously on her mind.

“Why did you come back to Garner?” I asked her. I wanted to keep her talking and would have kept her up all night if I could, just to be in her presence.

“I lived in New York before. It didn’t end well. I came back here because I needed to get away.”

“I know the feeling,” I said, briefly thinking about my ex-wife. I had just gotten the divorce papers from her saying that she only wanted to see Ivy on holidays, and just thinking about how cold and cruel she was made my jaw tense. “Can I ask you something else?”

“Sure,” she said, though there was a hesitant look on her face.

“What happened to you in New York?”

She sighed. “I um, got dumped. And things just weren’t going well. I was nannying and waitressing at the same time, plus teaching music lessons, and I just couldn’t keep up with everything. I guess I couldn’t cut it in the city.”

“Neither could I,” I said to her. She snorted, covering her mouth with her hand.

“You’re one of the most successful people in the world, Mr. Stephens.”

“Jack,” I corrected her. “And you’re right. But that doesn’t mean I was cut out for the city. I had to run away just like you did.”

“At least you didn’t get dumped,” she said. I gave a short laugh.

“Oh, I definitely got dumped,” I said to her. “Divorced. But I’m better off.”

“I think I am, too,” she said, looking down at her hands.

“You are,” I told her. She looked up at me again, meeting my eye.

“Have you met any other interesting people in town?” she asked.

“Just you. And the clown,” I said. “I met this jackass the other day at the gas station.”

“Who?” she asked curiously.

“His name was Josh, I think,” I said, remembering the way the man had yelled at the girl behind the counter.

“Oh, Josh,” she said, her voice dry. “Yeah.”

“You know him?”

“The first person to dump me for another girl,” she said, rolling her eyes. A look of embarrassment passed over her face then. “I’m sorry, that’s not—”

“Stupid,” I said, the first word that came to mind when I thought about anybody passing up on a chance to spend their life with someone like Lauren. “What an idiot.”

“I like to think so,” she said, that small, sweet smile back on her face. “I ran into him when I first got to town and it almost sent me packing again.”

“Where?” I asked her.

“At the coffee shop where my friend works,” she said. “I went in to find Sam, and Josh was sitting there with the girl he left me for.”

I shook my head. “I’m assuming that didn’t go well.”

“I pretty much ran out of the building,” she said. “It was embarrassing.”

“I’m sure nobody noticed.”

She laughed. “Maybe you’re right.”

It went quiet for a moment. She had stepped closer to me after I’d moved away from her, her body moving instinctively toward mine. I was close enough to touch her, and I met her eye with a questioning look as I reached forward and took her hand with mine. I turned it over, traced her fingers with mine as we stood there, the air growing thick and heavy around us.

“I’d better go to bed,” she said, but remained in place while I brought her hand up to my lips to kiss the backs of her fingers.

“Okay, Lauren,” I said to her, though I wanted to ask her to stay, talk to me a bit longer or let me take her to my own bed. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Jack,” she said, and slipped out of the room with one last glance at me. I sank down in one of the reading chairs, taking a deep breath while I closed my eyes. Images of Lauren were on the back of my lids, her face, her smile mingling with my fantasies of what her body would look like bare and naked in my bed.