don’t know your whole life story,” his mother denied.
“How much do they know?”
“I might have mentioned that you’re a single father.”
“Might have mentioned?” he echoed suspiciously.
“Well, in a group of much younger women, it was immediately apparent that Saige isn’t my child. Someone—I think it was Annalise—asked if I looked after her while her mother was at work and I said no, that I looked after her while her dad’s at work because Saige doesn’t have a mother.”
“Hmm,” he said. He couldn’t fault his mother for answering the question, but he didn’t like the way she made him sound like some kind of “super dad” just because he was taking care of his daughter—especially when they both knew there was no way he’d be able to manage without Ellen’s help.
“And you’re not the only single parent with a child in the group,” she pointed out. “There are a couple of single moms there, too.”
“I met Heather,” he admitted.
“She’s a pretty girl. And a loving mother.”
“I’m not interested in a woman who’s obviously looking for a man to be a father to her child,” he warned.
“She told you that?”
“She gave me the ‘single parenthood is so much harder than most people realize’ speech.”
“Which you already know,” she pointed out.
He nodded again.
“So maybe you should think about finding a new mother for Saige,” she urged.
“Because the third time’s the charm?” he asked skeptically.
“Because a little girl needs a mother,” she said firmly. “And because you deserve to have someone in your life, too.”
“I have Saige,” he reminded her, as he always did when she started in on this particular topic. But this time the automatic response was followed by a picture of the pretty librarian forming in his mind.
“And no one doubts how much you love her,” Ellen acknowledged. “But if you do your job as a parent right—and I expect you will—she’s going to grow up and go off to live her own life one day, and then who will you have?”
“I think I’ve got a few years before I need to worry about that,” he pointed out. “And maybe by then, I’ll be ready to start dating again.”
His mother’s sigh was filled with resignation.
“By the way,” he said, in a desperate effort to shift the topic of conversation away from his blank social calendar, “Cassie said that she hopes you feel better soon.”
As soon as he mentioned the librarian’s name, a speculative gleam sparked in his mother’s eyes that warned his effort had been for naught.
“She’s such a sweet girl,” Ellen said. “Smart and beautiful, and so ideally suited for her job.”
Braden had intended to keep his mouth firmly shut, not wanting to be drawn into a discussion about Miss MacKinnon’s many attributes. But the last part of his mother’s statement piqued his curiosity. “She’s a librarian—what kind of qualifications does she need?”
His mother frowned her disapproval. “The janitor who scrubs the floors of a surgery is just as crucial as the doctor who performs the operation,” she reminded him.
“But she’s not a surgeon or a janitor,” he pointed out. “She’s a librarian.” And he didn’t think keeping a collection of books in order required any particular knowledge outside of the twenty-six letters of the alphabet.
“With a master’s degree in library studies.”
“I didn’t know there was such a discipline,” he acknowledged.
“Apparently there are a lot of things you don’t know,” she said pointedly.
He nodded an acknowledgment of the fact. “I guess, when I went into the library, I was expecting to find someone more like Miss Houlahan behind the desk.”
His mother chuckled. “Irene Houlahan’s been retired more than half a dozen years now.”
“I’m relieved to know she’s no longer terrifying young book borrowers.”
“She wasn’t terrifying,” Ellen chided. “You were only afraid of her because you lost a library book.”
“I didn’t lose it,” he denied. “I just couldn’t find it when it was due. And you made me pay the late fines out of my allowance.”
“Because you were the one who misplaced it,” she pointed out logically.
“That’s probably why I buy my books now—I’d rather pay for them up front and without guilt.”
Which didn’t begin to explain why he was now carrying a library card in his wallet—or his determination to put it to use in the near future.
Cassie stood with her back against the counter as she lifted the last forkful of cheesy macaroni to her mouth.
“You might be surprised to hear that I like to cook,” she said to Westley and Buttercup. “I just don’t do it very often because it’s not worth the effort to prepare a whole meal for one person.”
Aside from the crunch of the two cats chowing down on their seafood medley, there was no response.
“Maybe I should get a dog,” she mused. “Dogs at least wag their tails when you talk to them.”
As usual, the two strays she’d rescued from a box in the library parking lot ignored her.
“Unfortunately, a dog would be a lot less tolerant of the occasional ten-hour shift at the library,” she noted.
That was one good thing about Westley and Buttercup—they didn’t really need her except when their food or water bowls were empty. And when she was away for several hours at a time, she didn’t worry because they had one another for company.
But she did worry that she was turning into a cliché—the lonely librarian with only her cats and her books to keep her company. Since Westley and Buttercup were more interested in their dinner than the woman who fed it to them, she put her bowl and spoon in the dishwasher, then went into the living room and turned her attention to the tightly packed shelves.
The books were her reliable companions and steadfast friends. She had other friends, of course—real people that she went to the movies with or met for the occasional cup of coffee. But most of her friends were married now, with husbands and children to care for. It wasn’t that Cassie didn’t want
