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.
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
