Royally Yours Read online

  Mary Johnson insisted a bake sale would raise enough funds to sway the city council and, of course, her neighbor of forty-some years Hattie agreed and offered to contribute scones by the basket-full.

  From the front row, Rowan’s best friend caught her eye. Liza’s raised eyebrows and erratic foot tapping got her message across well enough. Stand up and say something, girl. You’re the library director. Aren’t you supposed to be in charge here?

  Maybe so, but Rowan shouldn’t be. It should be Grandma sitting in this chair facing this ragtag committee. It should be Grandma standing up to Tinsel’s city leaders and insisting that the library stay right where it was—in this aged Cape Cod house in one of Tinsel’s oldest neighborhoods—rather than moving to a commonplace building downtown.

  This library was Grandma’s legacy and she would’ve known oh so much better than Rowan how to preserve it.

  But Grandma wasn’t here and Rowan was and if she had any hope at all of escaping the beige, bare walls of this basement in time for her usual nightly walk around town, she should take a cue from Liza and play her part. Get everyone’s attention and come up with a plan.

  Which would be a whole lot easier if she had a gavel. Or any whistling skills whatsoever.

  She stood. “Excuse me, folks.”

  No one even looked at her. Except for Liza, that is, whose eyebrows had now disappeared entirely behind her bangs. And she was tapping both feet, jostling the winter coat she’d spread over her legs like a blanket. What was she trying to do? Work off the scone’s calories?

  “Guys, let’s all calm down for a minute.”

  Still no response and, great, now Mary and Hattie had taken to arguing over recipes.

  Rowan’s gaze drifted to the egress window. It gave only the barest peek to the outdoors but it was enough. Snow. The first snow of the season! Drifting down in cottony, oversized fluffs . . . and Rowan was missing it.

  Drastic times. Drastic measures.

  With a huff, she climbed onto her chair and cupped her hands around her mouth. “Hey, listen up!”

  Silence. Beautiful, sudden silence.

  Other than the clinking of Liza’s plethora of bracelets as she crossed her arms with a relieved grin. Liza would never say it, but surely she’d only come tonight to support Rowan. While everyone else in the room was here to stand up for history, for tradition, Liza had never cared all that much about either.

  And she didn’t even have a library card.

  Then again, neither did Rowan. And why that ironic little secret so delighted her little librarian heart, she had no idea.

  “This is not how to run a productive meeting. I don’t want to go all Robert’s Rules of Order on this committee, but so help me, I will if I have to.”

  Twelve pairs of wide eyes ogled her now and oh, she must look ridiculous standing up here on her chair in her leggings and oversized sweater and an actual messy bun—like, really, truly unruly versus the carefully arranged “messy” knot her college-aged assistant librarian always wore.

  Come to think of it, where was Ashley? As Rowan’s sole employee, she really ought to be here tonight.

  “Shouldn’t you get down, dear?” Mary spoke from the second row. “The last thing we need is a leader with a broken arm. Or leg. Or two.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that,” Peter the Postman countered, the web of wrinkles on his face bunching. “A couple of broken limbs might get some sympathy consideration from the city council. Not that I wish you any harm, of course, Miss Bell.”

  Liza let out a snort at that. At least she’d quit with the foot tapping.

  Rowan rubbed one palm over the opposite arm. “Look, folks, the goal of tonight’s meeting was to strategize, but instead, all we’re doing is bickering. And that won’t help our cause.”

  Liza shifted in her seat, bracelets jingling again. “Actually, Row, maybe we should backtrack for a sec and reassess our cause altogether. Is all of this even necessary?”

  If the room had quieted when Rowan climbed onto her chair, it hollowed entirely now. And all those pairs of eyes darted back and forth and up and down between the two of them.

  Rowan stepped down from her chair. “What do you mean?”

  Liza tucked a strand of chin-length black hair behind her ear and stood, her jacket slipping to the floor. “The Tinsel City Council isn’t trying to close the library. They just want to move it to a newer building. I’m not sure why that’s a bad thing.” Gasps sputtered all around—reminiscent of Rowan’s own gasp a few days ago when she’d read in The Gazette about the council’s plans to relocate the library after the new year.

  How could they have made a decision like that without even consulting her? Eight years she’d been running this place and they hadn’t even bothered to include her in the discussion?

  After reading the article, she’d given herself an hour to digest the news before barreling into action. A few phone calls later, she’d had the beginnings of a committee.

  The one upside of the whole thing? It’d given her an excuse to bow out of traveling with Mom and Eddie to Boston for a Thanksgiving gathering with her stepfather’s extended family. Not that she didn’t enjoy time with her passel of stepsiblings, but ever since Mom had married Eddie two years ago, holidays had felt a little . . . off.

  She was happy for Mom, of course she was. Mom had entered a whole new season of life with an expanded family she adored. Rowan just couldn’t seem to find her own place in it.

  “Yes, this cottage is charming and historical,” Liza went on, “but it’s also falling apart. Rowan, you’ve got a plumber, electrician, and an HVAC guy on speed dial, for heaven’s sake. The furnace sounds like it’s going to give out again. Maybe it already has, considering my feet are numb and I’ve been using my coat like a quilt. Hattie over there actually brought her own blanket.”

  “Yes, but I bring this thing everywhere, honey. Even church.” Hattie clucked her tongue. “Don’t use my bad circulation to suggest we give in to aggressive modernization.”

  Liza angled to face the older woman. “This isn’t about modernization, Hattie. This is about a public facility supported by public funds. And if the city is spending more money trying to keep it from crumbling than it would by simply moving into a nicer, newer space—” she turned back to Rowan, apology rimming her hazel eyes “—I really don’t know why we’re so against that.”

  Except that she did know. Rowan swallowed, her throat dry and her sweater growing itchy against her skin. Liza knew why this house mattered so. She’d been at Grandma’s funeral eight years ago. She’d sat right next to twenty-year-old Rowan in that hard, un-cushioned pew.

  And later that night, after the burial and the solemn luncheon that followed, Liza had listened as Rowan told her all about Grandma’s last words. A final, rasped request. “I’m not sad to go, Rowan. I’m leaving a legacy behind. A beautiful legacy full of promise and potential. Just see that you take care of it, okay? Make sure my legacy blossoms and thrives.”

  Liza had listened and hugged Rowan and hadn’t uttered even one argument when Rowan had finally stopped sniffling long enough to declare her plan to quit college, move home, and pick up where Grandma had left off. Tending to the library. Keeping her promise.

  So why would Liza say all this now? When she knew what this cottage stood for?

  Liza tipped her head and in her eyes was a plea for understanding. “Wouldn’t your life be so much less stressful if you weren’t constantly dealing with this old place? Without so many repairs, maybe there’d even be enough money to hire another librarian. You could actually take a vacation for once. Travel the world—that’s all you used to talk about when we were kids. But you’ve barely left Tinsel in years.”

  Chunky snowflakes—no, raindrops now—tapped the window. So quickly Rowan had missed it—the first white waltz of winter.

  Oh, there’d still be the twinkle lights wrapped around every streetlamp when she went out for her nightly stroll. There’d still be garland
strung over Main Avenue and the lit-up tree in the town square and wreaths on every business door. All the traditional Christmas decorations had gone up this morning, the Friday after Thanksgiving, just like every year in Tinsel.

  But she’d need an umbrella if she had any chance of enjoying it.

  And a patch in her heart over the wound that’d just reopened.

  “What about a letter to the editor?” It was Lester Schneekloth who spoke up, adjusting his wire-rimmed glasses as he stood. “A nice, simple way to raise awareness for our cause.” He glanced at Liza with a frown. “Our very important cause.”

  Liza sighed. Nodded. “In that case, Rowan should write it. She’s a spectacular writer. Always has been.”

  There was an apology hovering in that compliment. Rowan looked around the room. “You’re all comfortable with me speaking on behalf of the whole group?”

  Nods all around. And that, apparently, was that. Soon they were gathering coats and folding chairs, then filing up the basement stairway and out the door at the back of the house. They dodged light drizzle as they trundled to their cars parked along the residential street at the side of the house.

  Until it was only Rowan and Liza and the patter of the rain on the sidewalk around them. Scattered clumps of wet snow remained on the grass from the earlier snowfall, and a full moon peered through translucent clouds, brushing the slanted rooftops of the century-old houses lining the block.

  “You’re totally going to take a walk in this soggy mess, aren’t you?” Liza tipped the hood of her coat over her head.

  “I’ve walked in worse.”

  “You’re such a creature of habit, my friend.” She huddled into the collar of her jacket. “Row—”

  “Let’s not talk about it, okay?” A damp wind freed spirals of hair from her bun and a lone raindrop trekked down her cheek. “You didn’t have to join the committee in the first place. I know it’s not your thing.”

  “Yeah, but you’re my thing. I joined because of you. And I said what I said tonight because of you. I miss you. It’s like this library has become your life. Even when it’s not open, you’re cleaning the bathrooms or dusting the shelves or taking care of the latest repair.”

  “It’s my job. You know that.”

  “But you’re not happy. You’re stuck.”

  “I’m not—”

  “Row.”

  “Liz.” Rowan swiped a wet strand of hair from her forehead, doing her best to conjure a grin.

  Liza hugged her, squeezing tightly in the way she always did, and they walked together the half-block to Liza’s car. Liza rounded to the driver’s side, but paused before opening the door. “You know I’ll support you, right? If you really want to take on Mayor Hayden and the city council, I’ll be right there with you.”

  Of course she would.

  Until that long-distance boyfriend of hers proposed and they married and Liza moved away from Tinsel. Moved on with her life. Like Mom had.

  While Rowan would still be . . . here. Stuck.

  No, not stuck. Yes, she did used to talk about traveling the world. But that was then. This is where she was meant to be now and this is what she was meant to be doing. Taking care of Grandma’s library.

  Rowan turned, gaze roaming over the structure she knew so well—pale yellow clapboard siding, a steep gable roof, double-hung windows framed by white shutters. A tall chimney climbed one side of the house, its brick matching the narrow walkway leading to the front door. Charming in every way.

  Whereas the downtown building the city wanted to move the library to was as nondescript as it could get. It had a nice enough exterior storefront and sure, unlike the house, it had a parking lot. But inside it was just gray walls and one long open space.

  It just wasn’t right. It wasn’t—

  Wait.

  Her focus cut through the rain and the dark and homed in on the library’s front door. The arched overhang shadowed the entrance, but not enough to hide the movement underneath. A man. Tall, with an umbrella hooked over one arm, reaching for the door handle as if it wasn’t after nine p.m. and he wouldn’t find it locked and . . .

  And, huh, apparently it wasn’t locked. Because a moment later, he disappeared into the house.

  Rowan narrowed her eyes and tromped through a puddle. It seemed her walk would have to wait.

  Jonah probably shouldn’t be here right now. The library’s hours were posted plain as day on the door that had just latched behind him. All was dark and abandoned.

  No probably about it. He definitely shouldn’t be here.

  He should be checking in to his hotel. He should be taking a shower and ordering room service and reveling in the reality that tomorrow he could sleep as late as he wanted.

  But oh, that urge to follow an impulse. Just this once. And if ever there was a time for it, wasn’t it now? When he was more unfettered and free than he’d ever been in his life?

  Never mind the jetlag. The fact that this place had closed two hours ago. The strange sense he’d had ever since stepping out of the airport into the crisp, gray afternoon hours ago that maybe he wasn’t as alone as he’d thought.

  That intuition had followed him all the way to this tucked-away town where he was assured a privacy he’d never known before.

  But the odd feeling evaporated now as he leaned his umbrella against a bench just inside the front door and waited for his eyes to adjust to the dim. He breathed in the aroma of coffee and polished wood and books and . . .

  And memories, dozens of them, decades old, waking up from a stretching slumber. Hour after hour he’d spent in this unusual library in this unusual town during that sole family vacation when the outside world had felt so very far away. Was Mrs. Bell still here? Would she remember him?

  Jonah strode from the entryway into the first room to the right, where pale moonlight cast a glow over bookshelves lining every wall. The Classics Room. There was the window seat where he’d curled up with Oliver Twist and Treasure Island and yes, he’d read his first Austen here in this room. Though, just to avoid being cliché, he’d started with Persuasion rather than Pride & Prejudice. He’d been too embarrassed to admit it at first later that day when Mum had asked which book he’d devoured.

  She’d pried it from him eventually, and he could almost hear her laugh still echoing in this space. “You are the joy of my life, my little bookworm. And I daresay you’ll grow up to be just as dashing as Captain Wentworth.”

  His heart pinched as he passed cedar pillars into what might’ve been a dining room a hundred years ago but tonight, like the room before it, bore floor-to-ceiling shelves. The Nonfiction Room. He hadn’t spent quite as much time in here as a kid, but he’d run through it often enough, always in a hurry to get to the kitchen at the back of the house for free cookies and hot chocolate and—

  Jonah froze. Those creaks echoing through the library weren’t his own steps, were they?

  He waited one drawn-out moment and then another.

  Nothing.

  A laugh pushed past his lips. Probably just that flower basket he’d seen dangling from the arch over the front door, twisting in the wind. He crossed into another room, where a great, yawning fireplace was surrounded by built-in bookcases and flanked by two tufted old sofas. The Mystery Room, his favorite of all the rooms.

  And he had the craziest, wildest urge to lunge for one of those sofas, plop down just as he had as a kid and prop his feet over an armrest. Let himself fall asleep right here. Forget the hotel. What a surprise that’d be for whatever librarian found him in the morning. He laughed again—louder this time.

  Until another creak cut him off. And another.

  No, that was no twisting flower basket. It was groaning floorboards, footsteps, growing closer and—

  “Don’t move.”

  He spun. Squinted at the shadowed form that had his—or maybe her?—arms raised, a large book in hand overhead. In the next breath, his surprised gaze jetted down and then curved back up. Uh, yeah, definitely
a her.

  He took a step forward. “Ma’am—”

  “I said don’t move.” She lifted the book higher.

  “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  “Well, I might hurt you. This is one of biggest books in the library.”

  And if she tried to raise it anymore, she’d most likely lose her balance and topple backwards. “What are you going to do? Hit me with it? Toss it at me? I guess either way my best move is to duck but—”

  “Your best move is to scram. The library’s closed.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I was just—”

  “You’re British.” She lowered the book, but only slightly.

  The accent, of course. Americans always got it wrong. “Close. I’m from Concordia.”

  “Concordia? Europe, right?”

  “If you can find it on a map, I’ll be impressed. Most people can’t.” Was he imagining it or was he hearing more creaks? Had she brought reinforcements? Or was she the only one who’d seen him standing in the middle of this room, laughing to himself, surely looking a bit crazed?

  He might be embarrassed about it if he wasn’t so amused right at the moment. Or so distracted by her mass of wavy hair spilling from what might’ve been a ponytail or maybe a bun before the wind got ahold of it. A little beguiling, actually—her bedraggled state. He just wished for a little light so he could make out her hair’s color.

  He cleared his throat. “Mind if I ask what you’re doing here?”

  “I have every right to be here. I live here.”

  “You live in the library?” That sounded . . . splendid, to be honest. To live in a house with books in every room. If he didn’t think it’d send the palace decorator into a tizzy, he’d insist on carrying armfuls of books from the royal library and spreading them through all sixty-four rooms back home. Maybe then the place wouldn’t feel so annoyingly austere all the time.

  “I live upstairs.”

  He shook his head. “You shouldn’t have told me that, you know. Giving your address out to an absolute stranger? I could be a criminal.”