“I’m not talking about a romantic date, Mr. Kittredge,” Harriet said, a little snap in her voice as if he were being ridiculous. As if he were the problem here. “I’m the librarian at Cold River High. I intended to give money to charity, which is the entire purpose of the Harvest Gala and the Heritage Society that throws it, but not only that.”
“You do know that a large part of the heritage celebrated by the Heritage Society has to do with my family, right?” Jensen grinned widely as if he were doing her a favor. “If you’re that excited by the history around here.”
Harriet ignored that—also novel. “I think it’s incredibly useful for the children to understand primary sources. I wanted to use the date I bought with Buddy as a learning opportunity for the students.”
“It’s summer. Shouldn’t your students be off on summer vacation?”
“Some of them, yes. Others find themselves compelled to take summer classes.”
“Summer school. Ouch.”
Over by the bar, he saw the brunettes again. And this time, without their phones in hand. They both pouted in his direction.
It occurred to him to wonder what he was doing. As entertaining as this woman was, he did not intend to spend his Saturday night talking to the high school librarian. Not because she was a high school librarian, but because he doubted she was here to get her sin on.
And because another benefit of being a grown-ass man was that Jensen didn’t waste his time trying to convince people who didn’t like him that they should. He figured it was their loss.
Even if she did have pretty blue eyes.
Which suggested to him that she wasn’t exactly the dried-up old spinster she clearly wanted to be mistaken for. Not like the long-term high school secretary, the terrifying Miss Martina Patrick, whose very name was enough to make any teenage boy’s blood run cold. Harriet dressed like his memories of that famous local dragon lady, but a closer examination made it clear that though Harriet dressed like an old woman, she really wasn’t one.
Jensen couldn’t help but find that interesting. Interesting, sure. But certainly not as compelling as two young women of deliciously loose morals sending him come-hither glances from across the bar.
“I appreciate you seeking me out to discuss your Heritage Gala bid from last Thanksgiving,” he said, uncurling himself as he pushed his way out of the booth and stood. “I’ll give you this, Miss Harriet. It’s not the usual conversation we get around here. Good luck with your primary sources.”
He wasn’t surprised that she stood with him, once again clutching the bag on her shoulder as if she were either protecting her worldly goods or was fully prepared to take measures should any ruffians attack her.
In fairness, this being the Coyote, there were ruffians aplenty.
“You’re not understanding me, Mr. Kittredge. The proxy that the fire chief selected was you.”
“Me?” Jensen laughed at that. “I’m afraid old Howie’s putting you on, ma’am. I’m a smoke jumper, not a local.”
“I don’t know what that has to do with the date I won.”
“Howie Duncan isn’t the boss of me.” Though Jensen had always liked him well enough. But proxy dates and the feelings of the librarian involved weren’t his problem. He shrugged. “You’re going to have to find a different date.”
Harriet lifted her chin. “He said you might say that.”
Jensen was a big man. He was used to looking down at women—and other men, for that matter. But there was something about this faintly agitated little hen before him that got to him, and not only because she was so tiny even as she stood there before him, looking defiant. Something about her made him want to … mess her up.
Just a little. Just for fun.
And it was disconcerting. He knew what to do with a regular old urge to get naked. This was something else.
He concentrated on that surprisingly belligerent chin.
“He told me to remind you that you owe him a favor,” Harriet said.
Jensen considered. “I do owe him a favor. But I don’t date.”
He watched, definitely growing more entertained by the moment despite the brunette duo waiting at the bar, as Miss Harriet Barnett in her layers of church clothes looked at him in pure exasperation.
Jensen was used to bringing out the worst in folks. He was big. He was loud. He’d played football in high school, and whether men slapped him on the back as they counted his triumphs on the field or women clucked over the same, it was usually couched in words they expected a dumb jock to understand. He was good at geniality. It served him well on the ranch where he was in charge of business affairs, though he liked to pretend that he was a little too simple to fully understand what he was doing—right before he went in for the kill.
He was well acquainted with the way Harriet Barnett was looking at him.
As if she greatly resented that she was being forced to contend with a man who was as dim as he was.
Normally he found moments like this hilarious.
“Don’t consider it a date, then,” she was saying, looking like she resented having to explain herself to the likes of him. Also a common theme in people’s reactions to him that he usually thought was fun. “Here’s the situation. For whatever reason, you are held up to be a role model in this town. I’d like to give you the opportunity to use your position as said role model for good. That’s all. If you had answered even one of the seven messages I left, I wouldn’t have had to come find you in this … place.”
“I’m not a role model.” Jensen wasn’t amused any longer. He held her gaze until she blinked, and he didn’t smile while he did it. “I’m not your date. And if you’ll excuse me, there’s a whole lot of sin calling my name, and I don’t intend to ignore it.”
He walked away from her and her big blue eyes then, not sure if he was focused on the girls at the bar or the bottles behind it, because they were the same thing, really.
Oblivion.
Because the other option was remembering, and he didn’t do that. Not if he could help it.
When he got to the bar, he found his smile again and found the pair of brunettes far more receptive.
But for some reason, as the night wore on and sweet oblivion beckoned, it was Harriet Barnett’s direct blue gaze that he couldn’t seem to shake.
2
Harriet Barnett woke the following morning to discover her hair smelled like cigarettes, thanks to the clouds of smoke she’d been forced to cough her way through on her way to the neon-framed door of the Coyote. And if she wasn’t mistaken, there was also the faintest odor of sticky alcoholic substances on her skin, even though she’d gone out of her way to touch as little as possible and to drink nothing at all.
Because she, for one, had learned significant life lessons from Alice in Wonderland. Or, to be precise and not merely colloquial—as Harriet liked to be about her books—Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
Yet it was as if merely stepping inside that place had stained her, just as her friend and colleague Martina had warned it would. In suitably dire tones, as if she’d proposed a day trip to the underworld to see the devil himself.
How galling that Martina had been right. She felt, distinctly, that Jensen Kittredge himself had tainted her with all his … extreme and unapologetic maleness.