Love and Music (Small Town Secrets Book 3), page 1
Love and Music
(Small Town Secrets #3)
Jade C. Jamison
Copyright 2020 by Jade C. Jamison
Cover image © curaphotography/ Depositphotos
Cover design by Mr. Jamison
Portions of this novel were previously published in 2012 as the book Madversary.
All rights reserved.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author. Characters and names of real persons who appear in the book are used fictitiously.
Chapter One
Now, I want you to understand something. I loved—love—my job. But you know what it’s like. Some customers are huge pains in the ass, taking even the best job and making it sucky.
That was how this particular day in April started.
We were actually doing one of my favorite things to do at the library: looking at books. I got that digital books were the wave of the future, but it didn’t change the fact that I still loved touching a book’s cover, examining it with my fingers, caressing it with my eyes, turning pages, even smelling them, sticking a bookmark inside to hold my place. And being surrounded by thousands of them felt like heaven on earth. On this one day in particular, we were in between two tall stacks of shelves in a quiet corner, and I slid my finger down a row of cloth-covered books, realizing that the ones in this section sat under a thin layer of dust.
I’d need to take care of that later.
Wiping that dust from my finger onto the side of my blue jeans, I then pulled out the book I’d been searching for—a 1948 edition of Dante’s Divine Comedy. As I began to tug on the book, urging it out from its home, particles of dust flew around, disturbed, looking for a new place to settle. This lovely burgundy tome had been far too comfortable sitting next to its neighbors in this tight spot—hell, all of these books had been untouched for longer than I knew. And that was a crying shame. This book should have been read and loved well and often, and I wondered if it and the others here had been neglected due to ebook versions or just a general lack of interest in reading.
We had far too many shiny pennies to distract us nowadays—a bazillion channels available on the TV and internet, social media, and lots of hype with those distractions to keep us emotionally charged. Who had time, other than librarians like yours truly, to read a book?
At the moment, my present company wouldn’t have given two shits to hear me wax poetic, so instead of talking, I blew on the top of the book where the pages had collected dust, wanting this volume to feel less like a bastard child.
Yes, I know books don’t have feelings. But they were my world, and I did.
I rubbed the cover with my hand as if I were consoling it, because it wasn’t like I would be sending it home with an avid reader who would love and cherish it.
Nope. Where I was sending this book was about as opposite of that as you can get. And that worried me more than you know.
I returned to the desk where a teenage boy with shoulder-length brown hair stood joking with his blond friend. No matter what my initial assessment of them had been, I needed to be kind and courteous.
You know, the customer service part of my job.
One of my least favorite things to do here.
Though it was hard to part with it, I offered the book to the young man with brown hair. “Here you go.”
The way he held it, you’d have thought I’d given him a cantaloupe. Or a turnip pulled fresh from the ground. Turning it over in his hands before opening the cover, he squinted at the title page as if he’d forgotten his glasses. “Hey, lady. You got the guy right, but I said I need Dante’s Inferno, not this Comedy shit.”
Oh, God. This is where the rubber met the road. We could talk about customer service all. Day. Long. But when you were confronted with an ignorant little fuck like this one, especially with the snotty tone in his voice, being courteous didn’t come naturally.
Fortunately, I’d spent a good part of my adult life practicing.
I ran my tongue over the back of my top teeth, sucking in a deep breath until I got through the initial emotion of wanting to smack him across the cheek while asking him if that was how his mama had raised him. Managing to put a sweet smile on my face, I worked hard to make sure my tone matched. “Maybe you didn’t catch it in class, but your English teacher probably mentioned that Dante’s Inferno is part of The Divine Comedy. It’s divided into three sections—Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. You’ll find what you’re looking for inside.”
I was ninety-nine point nine percent sure his English teacher had probably said it a dozen times or more, but when you’re sitting in class trying to be cool and funny, these things might slip by.
And his friend, the blond kid, almost made me laugh. “Yeah, dumb ass.” He slapped the brown-haired kid on the back of his head, causing his baseball cap to fly to the floor.
Even though the brown-haired kid lowered his voice, I heard him just the same. “Knock it off, fuckwad.” Then he picked up his cap before addressing me.
Politely, mind you.
“Can I check it out then?”
“Of course.” I walked behind the counter where he’d found me earlier. “Do you have your library card handy? Or are you using our new app?”
The kid looked befuddled for just a moment, but then he pulled his cell out of the back pocket of his knee-length jean shorts. “Yeah, I have it on my phone. You guys don’t have any of those Cliffsnotes things, too, do ya?”
Smiling as sweetly as I could, I logged into my workstation. “We have some, but you can’t check them out. You can read them here if you like. If not, the bookstore downtown might have what you’re looking for.”
“Do you have a Cliffsnotes for Inferno?”
“We might. Let me check.”
As I started tapping on my computer screen, I did a quick search. I’d never been able to understand why we had Cliffsnotes here anyway. Those poor booklets had seen better days—and if our town’s high school teachers had any idea how many kids competed to read those booklets every spring instead of the real Romeo and Juliet or Macbeth, they’d probably have had the students reading Shakespeare in class rather than as homework.
“Sorry. It doesn’t look like we have a Cliffsnotes for that.”
“Where’s the bookstore?”
What the hell did these kids do in their free time that they didn’t know where the bookstore was? “It’s on Main Street. There’s a consignment store on one side of it and the drugstore on the other.”
Blond kid said, “I think it’s across the street from that weapons place.”
Ugh. “Yep, that’s it.”
The other kid held out his phone so I could scan it the app to pull up his account. Then he took his wallet out of his back pocket. “Do you know how much those Cliffsnotes cost?”
“Sorry. I really don’t.” I wasn’t going to tell these guys, but I’d been known to buy a few in college—not because I didn’t want to read my assignments, but because I wanted to make sure I understood what I was reading. It wasn’t until I’d read lots of literature like Chaucer, Moliere, and, of course, the Bard before it became less of a struggle.
While I looked over his account, his friend snickered again, jabbing him in the ribs with his elbow. “How long have those been in your wallet?”
Jesus. Had I ever dated boys that immature in high school?
Nope, he wasn’t anything like these kids.
But I wasn’t going to let my brain go there to the guy who got away. No way. Not today.
And, focusing on this young man, I assured myself that at least a little challenging reading might help expand his brain, even if he used the Cliffnotes summary instead of reading Dante’s actual words.
“Oh. You have an overdue fee.”
“From what?”
“Looks like you checked out The Grapes of Wrath over a year ago.”
The blond kid cackled again. “You read that?” When he started laughing louder, I fought the urge to shush him, reminding him he was in a library after all. After finding that little shit amusing at first, I was now beginning to feel sorry for the brown-haired kid, the one actually trying to do his homework.
He was blushing, for heaven’s sake.
And he was also getting ready to walk away. No way was I going to let him miss expanding his mind. “Look…how about I wipe the slate clean for you? How’s that sound?”
The kid blinked, a deer caught in headlights. “What do you mean?”
“I mean I’ll take off the overdue fee. I just want you to promise to return this book by the due date.”
It was the first time I saw this kid smile since he’d walked through the door. “Really? You’d do that?”
Nodding, I gave him a smile back and started tapping on my keyboard, clicking the mouse to take care of my promise. “Here’s the deal. This book will be due in two weeks. The due date will be printed on the receipt I’m going to give you. If you need the book for longer, you can call us to extend the due date for another two weeks. Or you can do it on your app—but that doesn’t always work, for some reason.” I tucked said receipt inside the front cover of the book before demagnetizing the strip that would sound the alarms if he’d tried running out with it. I suspected that if something embarrassing like that happened to this young man, he’d never step foot
“Cool. Thanks, lady.”
I’d take that. After all, I’d managed to shut the blond kid up. That alone was worth it.
And I resisted the urge to lecture him about how to care for a book, hoping that the good will I’d just fostered would go a long way.
As I watched the boys leave, Serenity, one of our library techs, leaned on the counter with half a scowl on her face. I’d often wondered if today her parents appreciated the irony of how their daughter had evolved—because her name was a complete misnomer and, in fact, it was the only calm thing about her.
Today, her hair was teal. Next week, it’d be something else.
“You’re too nice, Megan. I would’ve let the kid have it with both barrels.”
Did I want to get into it today with her?
Maybe.
“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t expect you to understand all the nuances that went into my decision.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Suppressing a large grin, I put my finger up to my lips. “Don’t forget to use your library voice.” I winked before grabbing the cart loaded with returned books and left the front desk. Not only would Serenity “find” something else to do if I was at the desk, but if she didn’t, she would drown me in incessant babble about her alcohol-fueled weekend and whatever boy toy she’d played with.
Ugh.
Trust me—I was no boring librarian, but lately I’d been wondering if there was more to life. I loved working here, appreciated almost every little thing about my job, but there had to be something more. I’d been toying with the idea of starting a book club—because another weird thing about the handful of library techs we employed, few of them were avid book readers. I wanted to ask why the hell they’d applied to work here, but Helen, our head librarian, made all hiring decisions in dictator fashion, so I had no clue why she’d chosen any of them. My title of Assistant Librarian meant very little. Other than earning slightly more than my coworkers, it put me in charge when Helen was on vacation.
And the woman hadn’t taken a vacation in three years.
Maybe one day she’d retire and then the library would be mine, but Helen was barely fifty, and I was beginning to wonder if I’d be able to hold out that long, or if I should look for something else. That would probably mean moving from my happy little hometown of Winchester, Colorado—and I didn’t know that I wanted to do that. My parents still lived here, and I was fifteen minutes away from the beauty of mountains and forest. I’d attended a university in Kansas on a scholarship and, while the town and surrounding area had had its own beauty, Colorado had always been my home. Somehow, the environment away from here had seemed sterile and oddly oppressive without being nestled by the mountains.
Hard to explain.
One of the things I loved about my job was sometimes one of the things I didn’t like. As I put away one book at a time, rolling the cart to the appropriate aisle as I went, I had lots of time to think and ponder. Sometimes that was good, because I could wrestle over the meaning of a book I’d just finished reading—or, if I were in the middle of one, I could spend that quiet time trying to figure out what might happen next or what the author was trying to communicate.
But other times I’d be trapped in my head, musing over the meaning of life. Seriously. Like what the fuck is my life all about? Why am I here? And the kicker: Would I be happier and feel more fulfilled doing something else? This was shit I did not want to think about, because it would make me question every fucking thing about my life, like why I’d wasted six years in school before deciding maybe I didn’t want to be a librarian.
I took a deep breath in through my nostrils. I had to stop that. Shelving an older John Grisham novel, I reminded myself of something I knew to be true. It wasn’t the job. I actually loved it still, even if I didn’t adore all of my coworkers or my boss. I continued feeling a thrill when new books came in, and I loved everything about the process of getting them ready for the public. I enjoyed returning books like the one in my hand to their homes. I cherished it all—the building, the shelves, even the computers.
It was, frankly, my personal life that sucked.
I wanted someone to love, to share my time with. I wanted a special person to snuggle up next to while reading that novel—and maybe we could discuss the stories we read together while we took a hike in the mountains west of Winchester. The problem was finding the right guy. There were plenty of men who just couldn’t cut the mustard with me. My mom said I was too picky. My bestie Lisa told me (and I knew she was right, but I’d never admit it) that I’d always felt like my first love had been the best, and no man could ever compare.
Damn you, Tyler Green, for ruining me for all time.
But I hadn’t given up hope. For starters, I wasn’t even thirty years old yet. And I’d started using a dating site, and that made it loads easier to meet guys. Even though searching through hundreds of men cut into my valuable reading time, I hoped that the time I put in now would pay off later.
In fact, I had a date tomorrow night with a guy named Dylan. The man was gorgeous and seemed sweet—and it turned out we had a lot in common. We’d both attended the same small concert a few weeks earlier without even knowing it, and that made me think we would definitely hit it off. The concert had featured local hard rock bands at a place called The Black Sheep in Colorado Springs, a city not too far from Winchester. When we discovered we had that much in common, we wound up talking on the phone a few times and texting some. Dinner had been his idea, not mine, but I was happy to accept.
I even felt a little relaxed about it, because a Tuesday night date probably meant he wouldn’t want to immediately jump in the sack. I loved sex just as much as the next girl, but I wanted to get to know the guy better before rumbling in the sheets.
Sometimes easier said than done.
By the time I finished shelving all the books, I started feeling better about life in general and even a little excited about my date, trying to figure out what I wanted to wear, planning to try several outfits tonight until I found the one that communicated everything I needed it to: smart, a little sexy but not slutty and definitely not ready to fuck on the first date, and—what else would I want my clothing choice to say?
And would I be able to hide the fact that, even though I was no nerd, I most definitely had my own opinionated ideas about books and nature and…life?
Probably not. So here was to hoping that Dylan loved me just the way I was. Because changing wasn’t an option.
I rolled the cart back to its spot by the front desk where Serenity and now Jeff, another tech whom I adored, were chatting. Jeff stood almost ramrod straight, every short light-brown hair on his head exactly where he wanted it, his clothing pressed to perfection. I didn’t know it for a fact, but I suspected Jeff’s hands were softer than mine—and I didn’t know if that should make me jealous or ashamed.
“Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, sweet girl. I guarantee Jason Bourne would be a thousand times better in bed than James Bond.”
“I don’t know about that.” Serenity giggled, covering her mouth with fingers sporting claws rather than fingernails. “But you know what? I never noticed those characters have the same initials. Do you think that was on purpose?”
Jeff gave a small shake of his head. “Probably. But you’re squirreling again.”
I had to ask. “Squirreling?”
“Yes. You know, distracting me from my main point.” Jeff stood up straight, looked out the window, and pointed. “Squirrel!” Then he looked at me. “Get it?”
Laughing, I nodded. “Yes, I get it.” What I called shiny pennies.
“What do you think, Megan? Who’d be better in bed? Jason Bourne or James Bond?”
“I’d go for Jack Ryan instead.”
“Ooh,” Jeff said, raising his eyebrows. “That’s cheating, Megan.”
“No way. I added the option I liked best. He’s in the same category, so I don’t know how that could be considered cheating.”
