Never consent to courtship with a man of dubious reputation in the hopes of his reformation.
PEARL CHAMBERS, The Gentlewoman’s Guide to Love and Courtship
Monday morning came too quickly for Abby, as the thought of seeing Wyatt weighed heavily on her heart. She toyed with wearing her new dress that morning, but didn’t want to explain to her mother the reason for the sudden change in her appearance or why she was leaving early for work that day.
Her hands trembled as she made her way toward the coffee shop and the dangerous and mysterious Wyatt Tanner. She didn’t even drink coffee. She halted on the brick walkway of Main Street, tempted to turn around and go back home, but as she looked to her right, she realized that she was standing directly in front of the picture window of Mountain Perks.
Wyatt rose from his chair inside and pushed open the door. His smile made everything all right, and she immediately calmed. They were just two friends having coffee. The only danger Wyatt represented was if she allowed her imagination to make the event more than it was.
“Are you coming inside?” Wyatt asked. He wore a black V-neck T-shirt stretched to capacity over his well-developed pecs and a casual gray blazer thrown over the top. He managed casual chic without even trying.
“Uh, yeah. I’m coming in. I was just . . .” She was just wishing she’d worn the cute sling-back shoes her friends had bought her, or at the very least, the silver ballet flats. She hadn’t wanted Wyatt to think she’d dressed up for him. Now she wished she had dressed up a bit, so that they didn’t appear so grievously mismatched.
“I was worried you might not make it,” he said.
She smiled. Whatever his reason, she believed now that Wyatt did indeed want her there. “I just needed to give my mother breakfast before I left.”
“Come inside,” he said, a distinctive spark in his eye. “I’ve got us the best table in the house. What can I get you to drink?”
“I’ll get it.” She began to walk toward the counter when Wyatt appeared beside her and pulled out his wallet. She smiled inwardly. His presence made her nervous, but in the best kind of way. Could a man like Wyatt really have an interest in her? Was she really meeting him for coffee?
“When you invite me to coffee, you can pay,” he said and grinned.
Abby hiked her purse over her shoulder, trying to play it as casually as possible. As though his dreamy good looks had no effect on her whatsoever.
“I’ll have a chai tea,” she told Natalie, the owner.
“Want a gluten-free muffin with that?” Natalie asked.
Abby shook her head and checked her watch.
“Are you in a hurry?” Wyatt asked.
“Uh, no.” She glanced at her watch again. “Nervous habit.”
He grinned again. “So, you’re probably wondering why I was so anxious to discuss that book choice of yours.”
“It crossed my mind.” She ran her finger along the edge of the counter.
“I’m forgetting my manners. How is your mother?”
“She’s fine.” That answered her question. He wasn’t really interested in her at all. She felt the heat of humiliation rise into her cheeks.
“She has vertigo, right? That’s why she doesn’t drive?”
“Or walk without assistance, yes. How did you know that?”
“Casey told me.”
Casey. Casey was the biggest gossip in the library and looked for any excuse to pass on vital data that couldn’t be found on any of the library’s shelves. “Why would she tell you that?”
“I asked her about you.”
Natalie handed her the chai tea, and Wyatt led them back to his table in the corner by the window.
“Why wouldn’t you just ask me?”
“You don’t usually pay me any attention. You know, I’ve developed software that I think might help your mother. Anyone with vertigo.”
“My mother isn’t great on computers.”
“She wouldn’t need to be. I’ve developed programs to help sports enthusiasts get better at their sport, and working on balance was a natural part of it.”
“Is that what this meeting is about? Your software?”
He sat at the table and leaned in toward her. “No.”
His eyes held so much more than he said. Abby looked down at her cup and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
“Do you ever wear your hair down?”
She shook her head. “It gets in my way. I’ve thought of cutting it off—”
“No! I mean, don’t do that, it’s so beautiful.”
A smile gave her away—how hungry she was for his affirmation, even though she knew Wyatt was probably capable of saying what any woman wanted to hear. His gaze darted about the room, and silence spread between them like spilled coffee.
“Hasn’t this weather been fantastic? I love Vermont summers,” she offered.
“There’s nothing better.” He placed his coffee cup on the table and tapped his foot on the ground.
“Is something the matter?” She knew he needed to tell her something. She felt his nervous energy within her, and she wanted to offer him some relief, to tell him she felt the same way.
He drummed his fingers again. “I thought this would be easier.”
She braced herself on the chair as all sorts of scenarios ran through her head. Did he know something about the library being computerized? Was he privy to some kind of information about her job? Her breathing became shallow as she waited for some news that might challenge her safe world.
“Your father . . . ,” he started.
“My father passed away.”
“Last year, I know.” He raked his hand across his buzzed haircut. “I’ve waited too long to do this, but, Abby, I barely knew you. I told him that. I wanted to, but every time I got close to you, you’d move away. Or you’d let Casey come deal with me at the library.”
“You knew my father?”
“I was in his men’s group at church.”
She glanced at her watch again and wondered what that could mean. Wyatt was everything her father warned her against. Was that because he knew Wyatt so well? Knew his secrets? “I never heard my father mention your name.”
“They’re meeting right now. Mondays at seven,” he said. “Are you always so suspicious?”
“Am I?” she asked innocently, but she knew she was suspicious. Men like Wyatt lived their lives without any thought to the future. Life was one big game. A woman needed a serious man to settle down with—not a little boy with a grown exterior. How often had that been the topic at the dinner table?
“This isn’t going well,” he said as he rubbed his eyebrow. “I feel as though you’re accusing me of something, and I’m not sure why.”
“I’m not much of a conversationalist, I guess.” She wanted to run before he realized his mistake in asking her anywhere. “Really. It was lovely. Thanks for the tea.” She started to rise.
“Please don’t leave, Abby. That’s not what I meant.”
She settled back into her seat and decided to lead with the truth. She wasn’t like Scarlett. She didn’t have the mindset to play games, and with a man like Wyatt she’d be out of her league anyway. “Wyatt, you make me nervous.” She took a sip from her tea and avoided his gaze. She could feel his eyes upon her, and she tapped her foot anxiously.
“I make you nervous? You’re so beautiful, Abby, and smart too. Why would someone like me make you nervous?”
She looked up at him, wondering how he could possibly ask such a question. Wyatt was all charm and good looks, and his smooth words were most likely well practiced. “You just do.”
“Because I said you were beautiful? Or because I said you were suspicious?”
She met his intense chestnut eyes directly. “I need to know what this is about, Wyatt. I feel like there’s some ulterior motive that I don’t understand and that you’re laughing at me behind my back.” She wanted to hear him protest, to hear him say he felt the undeniable energy between them, but she prepared for the worst.
His cheek flinched as if she’d struck him, and for the first time she saw that he might not be as rough as his exterior. Maybe her words did have the power to cut him to the quick, and she should be more responsible with them. “Abby, I’d never laugh at you.”
His words, the warm way he said them, melted her heart. She was so desperate to believe in him that it automatically sent her guard up.
“It’s just you’ve been around the library for so long. Why now?”
He chuckled. “Abby, I’ve been trying to get to know you for the past year. I’ve read dozens of books just to have something to say to you. I’ve read Jane Austen for you! I’ve tried to talk to you countless times at church . . . and at work. You think I want to digitize the library? I couldn’t care less if Smitten’s library is fully computerized. I’m just drawn to you. When I’m near you, I feel calm and contented.”
She swallowed hard and glanced around her—to see if there was a camera pointed at her. Or if her friends were going to pop out of the back room telling her they’d made a video for YouTube. To hear him say the words she wanted to hear seemed too good to be true, and as was her inclination, she waited for the other shoe to drop.
“Why is that so hard for you to believe . . . that I want to get to know you?”
Had he looked at himself lately? Had he seen how the women at church gathered around him like moths to the gaslights? His confident nature, his expression-filled eyes, and his easy warmth all weighed against his being the authentic man her father had been. “I’m a librarian. You’re an adrenaline junkie who probably belongs on The Bachelor—is it really that hard to wonder why this is uncomfortable?”
He shifted in his seat. “We are different, but what if you looked at it like this? You showed me the benefits of Jane Austen. I, in turn, can offer you more adventure in your life. Isn’t that a fair trade?” He leaned into the table, and the way he gazed at her with his intense dark eyes made her squirm. Mostly because she was tempted to kiss those lips as they came close to her. The thought surprised and annoyed her.
She cleared her throat to break her gaze. “You really want credit for reading Austen, don’t you?”
“If you jumped out of an airplane, wouldn’t you want credit for it?”
“I’m not going to jump out of an airplane, so I suppose it wouldn’t matter.”
“I haven’t exactly been honest with you,” Wyatt said.
Finally, she’d hear the truth behind his sudden interest.
“Honest is the wrong word,” he continued. “I haven’t been forthright with you. Like I said, I wanted this to come naturally, but maybe we’re too different for that. There is another reason I asked you here. It isn’t the whole reason, but it’s a part of it.”
She’d known it all along. Men like Wyatt Tanner didn’t offer such attentions without expecting something in return.
“Your father asked me for a favor before he passed.” Wyatt stared off in the distance, and his square jaw tightened.
Abby’s shoulders drooped. She didn’t want to hear the truth. Basking in the warm glow of Wyatt’s honeyed words had made her forget for a moment that she was a librarian whose only excitement was lived in books.
She nodded slowly while her eyes rested on his rugged hands. “I see. Well, consider your promise kept. You gave the librarian some attention.”
He shook his head. “No, no, you don’t understand. I should have done this a year ago, but I didn’t think you were ready, and I didn’t want to make your grieving that much worse. But I promised your father.”
She sipped her tea and swirled the foam in her cup rather than meet those dark, expectant eyes again. “You can’t be held responsible for a promise you can’t keep.”
“Your father was frantic about you before he passed. He thought you’d become a shadow of yourself, taking care of him and your mother. He said he’d always felt guilty they’d adopted you at such a late age. He thought that held you back in life—made you afraid to take risks.”
“My parents never held me back. They were—correction—they are the best, most loving people anyone could be fortunate enough to know.”
“I agree,” he said as he stared into his empty cup. Then Wyatt glanced up at her, his chocolate eyes melting with warmth. Whatever he was trying to say, it didn’t speak nearly as loudly as his intense gaze. He reached into his jacket pocket and brought out an envelope and placed it in the center of the table.
Tears welled up in her eyes at the sight of Wyatt’s name in the familiar, oversized script of her father’s handwriting. It seemed like a part of her father had come back to her.
Wyatt looked at her. “Read it.”
Her dad was a gentle soul. He was sensitive, but tough as nails. Easygoing, but volatile when someone did wrong against his family. Mostly, he was Abby’s warrior. A man she knew she could count on, come famine or high water.
Her heart pounded. Why would her father trust a man like Wyatt Tanner with his last secret? Wyatt was everything he’d ever warned her about: a risk taker, a man who worked when he felt like it, and worst of all, an absolute chick magnet.
“My father never even mentioned you,” she said.
“Maybe he didn’t talk about me at home, but he spoke of you often to me. I can’t help but see you through his light.”