Broken Resolutions (6 page)

Angie’s instructions didn’t say anything else, but Penny had a few thoughts to add. “Keep in mind that this is a public library. So have fun with the scavenger hunt and the photos, but don’t do anything that would get you arrested if you did it on the street.” She forced a last smile before striding toward the circulation desk.

“Spoilsport,” she heard Red Tie mutter.

“Come on, Carl,” Brenda said. “Let’s beat all these kids in the scavenger hunt.”

The group scattered as Penny sat down heavily behind the desk, rubbing her face with her hands. Finally, a moment of peace away from the crowd. Away from Jack. She slipped off her shoes beneath the desk. They were pinching, no doubt because she’d stood on her feet for hours tonight.

“Tired?” a deep, increasingly familiar voice asked.

Oh, Jesus.
Removing her hands from her face, she looked up at Jack. “Yeah,” she admitted. “I find crowds exhausting. And I originally had other plans for tonight. Pajama-related plans. Ones that involved not moving from the couch until bedtime.”

“Were you going to sit on that couch alone?” He lowered himself into Angie’s usual chair, swiveling it to face her.

“I live by myself,” she hedged, not wanting to discuss her love life. Or lack thereof.
By my own choice
, she reminded herself.
This time, I’m alone by my own choice
.

“Good to know,” he said. “But do you have a boyfriend who’s missing you tonight? Or a girlfriend, for that matter?”

“No,” she said, and decided to lay her cards on the circulation table. “I’ve had a rough year when it comes to dating. I’m taking this next one off. It’s my New Year’s resolution.”

There you go, Pen
, she told herself.
You’ve made yourself clear. He’ll stand up and go now, which is a good thing. Really. He needs to leave before he makes you forget your resolution. Before you fall for him and he turns out to be a dishonest asshole.

“Why?” His green eyes looked at her calmly. Steadily.

“I don’t think that’s any of your business,” she told him. “I just met you tonight.”

“I know,” he said. “And I’ve spent most of the night trying to get to know you better, only to have you pull away each time.”

“Maybe I’m not interested in you.”

“If so, I’ll walk away right this second. I promise.” He sat very still. “Is that the issue, Penelope?”

She closed her eyes, considering what to say. A lie would serve her purpose here, but . . . she almost never lied. Not even when a lie would save her from pain.

“No. That’s not it,” she admitted, her voice soft.

To his credit, he didn’t push. Didn’t seem triumphant. He just kept his hot eyes fixed on hers and waited for more.

She heaved a deep sigh and decided to tell him everything. Maybe after she did, he’d finally leave and go find another woman. One who could handle a man like him. “I dated two men this last year,” she said. “They both cheated on me. Lied to me. Used me. In both cases, I didn’t realize it until the day each of them told me and walked away. In retrospect, neither of them thought much of me.”

“Those guys weren’t just assholes. They were idiots. To cheat on a woman like you . . .” He shook his head. “Not all men are like that.
I’m
not like that.”

“I know not all men are like them,” she said. “The problem isn’t that two random guys turned out to be cheating assholes. The problem is that I picked those men in the first place. My judgment is suspect, Jack. I clearly don’t know what I’m doing. Maybe I don’t value myself enough. Maybe I don’t read other people well enough. But until I get my head straight and can tell a good man from a bad one, I shouldn’t be dating.”

“Thus the New Year’s resolution?”

“Thus the New Year’s resolution,” she affirmed.

Penny waited for him to get up, but he didn’t move. He seemed lost in thought.

“You don’t trust yourself anymore,” he murmured, as if to himself. “I don’t trust other people, but you don’t trust yourself.”

At that, she sat up straight. “What do you mean, you don’t trust—”

“I have a proposal to make,” he said, interrupting her. “Give me the rest of the night. Talk to me. Let us get to know each other. Before we leave here, I’m going to try to convince you of two things. First, that what happened to you last year wasn’t because you have bad judgment. It’s because two jerks saw a woman with an open, honest heart and took advantage of it. Of you. And that’s their problem, not yours. You didn’t do anything wrong. You just need to find a man who appreciates that heart and wants to take care of it.”

He took her hand in his, brushing his thumb over the backs of her fingers. “Which brings me to the second thing. By the end of the night, I mean to convince you I’m that man. I’m the man for you.”

She didn’t attempt to pull her hand away from his. The way he touched her—so gentle, so careful—felt too good. So did his words. God, if only she could believe them.

“Why me?” she asked him, her voice quiet. “I’m a shy librarian. You could have any woman in this room.” She paused. “Except for your mother. And Yolanda and Tasha. I’m pretty sure they don’t want you.”

“Okay,” he said, “that’s the third thing I’ll show you tonight. How interesting I think you are. How sexy. I haven’t been able to take my eyes off you the whole night.”

“You didn’t seem to have that problem when I first arrived,” she reminded him.

He shrugged sheepishly. “I know. I acted like a petulant ass. Mom tricked me into being here tonight, and I took it out on you.”

“I knew it!” she exclaimed. “I knew Brenda had dragged you to this stupid event.”

“You see?” he said, smiling at her. “That’s another thing I like about you. You’re smart.”

“Thank you,” she said, embarrassed. “And you weren’t
too
much of a petulant ass. You mostly just scowled for a while.”

“I apologize, Penelope. No more scowling. I promise,” he said. “Unless you don’t give me a chance. Then I may glare a hole through every person and piece of furniture in this room, maturity be damned.”

She peered at his face. It radiated sincerity, at least to her eyes. Then again, as she’d already noted, she wasn’t exactly the best judge of character.

She looked down for a moment, thinking. If any man could persuade her to break her New Year’s resolution, it was him. From what she could tell, he embodied everything she’d always wanted in a man. Intelligence. Strength. Gentleness. Humor. And, God help her, an absolutely irresistible face and body.

Her ribs expanded with a deep breath, and she laced her fingers through his.

“This will be a new record. I’ve never broken a New Year’s resolution before the New Year actually began.” She watched his eyes light up at her words, the green depths glowing. “But you make a convincing argument. The library can’t afford to replace the furniture you’d destroy with your piercing scowl. Not to mention all the lawsuits from people with glare-holes in them.”

He laughed, and she smiled up at him.

“Okay,” she said. “You win. You have the rest of the night to make your case.”

He lifted her hand to his lips, giving it a soft kiss. “I can’t wait to begin.”

God help me, I can’t either
, she thought.
I just hope I haven’t made the wrong decision. Again.

6

“G
oodnight, honey. I love you,” Jack told his daughter. “Happy New Year’s Eve, and I’ll talk to you tomorrow morning.”

“Love you too, Daddy,” Casey said. “Squishy Turtle says goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Squishy Turtle. Take good care of my sweet girl.”

“I will,” his daughter squeaked in her Squishy Turtle voice.

His ex-wife came on the line. “If you call before ten tomorrow morning, I’ll make sure we’re still at home,” Beth said.

“Will do,” he said. “Happy New Year.”

He disconnected the call and came back out from the workroom, settling himself again in the chair next to Penelope behind the circulation desk. She was watching some of the couples attempt to decipher the scavenger hunt clues, a smile on her face.

“I don’t understand this one,” Skintight Dress told Cologne Guy. “It says to look for a book with this weird opening line. Something about the universe and single men looking for wives.”

Cologne Guy thoughtfully drummed his fingers on his chin. “That sounds familiar.”

Skintight Dress brightened. “Wasn’t it a movie starring Colin Firth?”

“You’re a genius!” Cologne Guy exclaimed. “Let’s find
Bridget Jones’s Diary
!”

As the pair happily set off to find the next item, Jack saw Penelope’s smile widen. “Do you think they’ll eventually figure out it’s
Pride and Prejudice
?” he asked.

“Maybe,” she said. “Maybe not. But they seem to be having a good time, which is the most important thing.” Leaning down, she rubbed the arches of her feet for a moment.

Her shoes rested beneath the circulation desk. They looked brand-new, and he could see the lines they’d left on her feet. “Shoes aren’t broken in yet?” he asked. “Or are your feet just tired?”

“Both,” she said.

She went very still when he bent at the waist, lifting her feet to rest in his lap. Her wide brown eyes met his. He looked down at her feet, so small and pale in his hands, and gave them a firm squeeze. He wasn’t a particularly tall or large man, but his hands still engulfed her.
Just as my body would
, he thought. When he started pressing his fingers into her arches, he heard her give a tiny moan of pleasure.

His cock reacted immediately, and he discreetly slid her feet slightly to the side of his lap as he continued the massage. No need to scare her off five minutes after she’d agreed to give him a chance.

“That feels
so good
,” she said, her voice throaty. “Thank you.”

He bit the words burning on his tongue—
I could make you feel even better, if you gave me the opportunity
—and scooted his chair slightly closer to hers. Sitting so near to her, he could smell her gentle lemony fragrance and see the delicate shell of her ear beneath the soft wisps of her brown hair. Her slim hands rested in her lap, and she looked more relaxed than he’d seen her all night.

“So you know what I do for a living,” she said. “Though, to be fair, my job doesn’t usually involve encouraging people to read aloud about the sex lives of pirates. Tell me more about your work, Jack.”

His fingers involuntarily tightened on her feet, and she gave a little gasp.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I wasn’t thinking.”

But he was. Just not about her feet. He was considering whether he could tell the truth about himself without risking the privacy of his family. Without her running away from him and from the possibility of a future together. It was a gamble, no matter how he looked at it. And the thought of losing that gamble, of losing her without ever really having had her, made his hands clench into fists.

No. He needed to tie her more closely to him before she knew the truth.

“I’m just your average accountant,” he said. “Nothing too interesting about my job. I work from home, which means my schedule is more flexible for my daughter, Casey.” Just the thought of her put a genuine smile on his face. “She’s four, and a hellion. A great kid. I’ve been divorced about three years now, and we share custody of her.”

“I do storytimes for kids that age. They’re fun, but they can be a handful.”

“Yeah. Do you like kids?” he asked in a carefully neutral tone.

“Sure,” she said. “But one-on-one is easier for me than large groups of them. Thirty toddlers in one place can get a bit overwhelming, especially when glue and glitter are involved. Which is why my price for working tonight was making Angie work my next four Saturdays. I’ll have those entire weekends off. No library. No storytimes. Just me and a pottery class.”

“Pottery? You planning on having sex with a ghost while ‘Unchained Melody’ plays in the background?”

She laughed. “Angie said pretty much the same thing. As far as I know, the materials fee didn’t cover the horny spirits of dead husbands. But if I’m wrong, I’ll definitely let you know.”

Brenda and Carl approached the desk, holding hands.

“I think we got everything on the list,” Brenda said. With his free hand, Carl offered the basket of items they’d found around the library to Penelope.

While Penelope rifled through the basket, checking items off the list, Jack took a hard look at Carl and his mom. What he saw reassured him. The older man was looking at Brenda like he couldn’t believe his luck, and she seemed relaxed. Happy. Her green eyes sparkled when she looked at Carl. The evening had removed the last ten years from her face, and she once more resembled the vital woman he’d seen throughout his parents’ marriage.

At the same time as he observed Brenda and Carl, his mother scanned the scene behind the circulation desk. Her gaze sharpened when it hit Jack’s hands, still wrapped around Penelope’s feet. Brenda gave him a questioning look, and he grinned and shrugged.

“You found everything,” Penelope told the pair with a smile. “Congratulations.”

She removed her feet from his lap, slipped on her shoes, and stood up. “Attention, everyone!” she called out. “Brenda and Carl have completed the scavenger hunt, and they win the prize.”

Disgruntled murmurs came from the vicinity of Red Tie, and Jack gave the man a sharp look. The complaints ceased immediately. Brenda patted Jack on the arm, looking proud.

“The photo station is open, though,” Penelope reminded everyone, “and there are still plenty of snacks. In about half an hour, we’ll break out the champagne. Keep enjoying your evening!”

She handed gift cards to Brenda and Carl. “Enjoy,” she said. “You deserve these.”

“So . . .” Brenda eyed Jack and Penelope. “You’re getting to know my son, Penny?”

“A bit. He was just telling me about his daughter and his accounting work.”

At the mention of accounting, Brenda’s head shot in his direction. The pride in her eyes had disappeared, replaced by worry. He could read exactly what those eyes were saying:
Are you sure you know what you’re doing?
And the honest answer was no. He didn’t. His fumbling attempts to hold onto Penelope had emerged out of pure instinct, rather than certainty.