The Firefighter's Woman (9 page)

“This is Mrs. Anne Derringer,” John said. “She’s the head librarian and she needs an assistant. That’s you.” He gave her a little nudge. “Say hello, Sarah.”

“Hello, Sarah,” Sarah said with a bright smile. Mrs. Derringer’s brow rose just a hair.

“Don’t be a little smart ass,” John murmured in her ear.

“It’s nice to meet you, Sarah,” Mrs. Derringer said in cultured tones.

“Nice to meet you too,” Sarah lied. She couldn’t believe John thought she should work at the library. If she had to have a job, she would have much preferred to work in a clothing store or something bright and loud. Somewhere with life. It made sense though, that he would choose someplace like this, somewhere boring where she couldn’t get into what he would have called ‘trouble.’

“Have you worked in a library before, Sarah?”

“I didn’t even know they still had libraries,” Sarah said brashly. “I thought these places had gone the way of the dinosaurs. Is there a section for stone tablets?”

Mrs. Derringer’s lips pressed into a thin smile and she cast a questioning look at John as if to ask him why he had brought such a hellion into her presence.

“You’re being rude,” John growled into her ear.

“I don’t care,” Sarah rejoined in a hiss. “I don’t want to work here.”

“You don’t want to work anywhere,” John replied. “But this is a good place to start, and we’re killing two birds with one stone. As well as offering you a job, Mrs. Derringer has kindly offered to have you stay on the nights where I have night shifts to work.”

Sarah stared at the woman, and then at John. “What?”

“You’re going to stay with Mrs. Derringer when I have night shifts.”

“Oh. Well.” Sarah forced a plastic smile onto her face. “Can I please talk to you outside, John?”

To her surprise, he agreed to step outside of Mrs. Derringer’s office, but not before apologizing profusely to the woman herself. He and Sarah stood on the landing and had a whispered argument with each other.

“I don’t want to stay with some old woman,” Sarah hissed. “I don’t need someone watching my every move.”

“That’s precisely what you need,” he drawled back at her. “Until I’m sure you’re going to stay out of trouble, I want you to be polite to Mrs. Derringer. She’s a decent, upstanding woman and I know you’ll be in safe hands with her.”

“I don’t need to be in anyone’s hands.”

“If you don’t settle down, you’ll be over my lap in a moment.”

She gritted her teeth and did her best not to let out an audible growl. “Look, I’ll get a job if you want me to. I’ll become a bartender. I can do that now, I’m twenty-one. I’ll be out while you’re out at nights.”

“Definitely not.”

“Why?”

“Because there’s way too much scope for trouble there. I want you out of trouble. I want you somewhere safe at night. I don’t want you hanging around a lot of drunk men.”

“You want me bored out of my mind in a library.”

“You don’t have to work here forever. This is just a start. If it’s boring, use that time to think about what you do want for yourself. No, it doesn’t have to be a nine to five job. It could be anything. But what it can’t be is sitting around the house all day and going out and getting drunk all night.” He reached out and brushed some stray strands of hair out of her eyes. “Not everything has to be a fight,” he said more gently. “Can you see why I want this?”

“Yes,” she said with a sigh. “I can see why, but John… this is going to suck.”

“Just until you work out what won’t suck,” he winked. “Come on, let’s go and see Mrs. Derringer again.”

Sarah took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. She knew if she kept pushing it, John really would punish her. And the woman, Mrs. Derringer, she’d already made a fool of herself in front of her.

“Fine,” she said. “Have it your way.”

Chapter Ten

After finishing the rest of the interview from hell, in which she listened to Mrs. Derringer and John discuss the many benefits of forced library labor, Sarah started work the next day, the same day that John was returning to the night shift. She was, by far, the library’s least happy employee. The work was just as boring as she had imagined it would be. At first she tried avoiding doing any work by hiding in the reference section and playing on her phone, but Mrs. Derringer soon got wise to that ploy and insisted on supervising her more directly.

Sarah had been shelving books for three hours and was fantasizing about jumping out one of the large windows and just running away. The doors were wide open, of course, but there was something about the window with its view onto the botanical gardens that sparked her fantasies. She could have taken the heavy book in her hand, thrown it right through the glass, and escaped into the tulip bed beyond.

“How much longer are you intending on sulking?” A mature female voice interrupted her thoughts.

Sarah looked over to see leather boots a few feet away. She hadn’t heard the woman coming closer, so either Mrs. Derringer moved like a ninja or Sarah had just tuned out from reality due to boredom. Either way, the question made her blush a little.

“I’m not sulking,” she said. “I’m just doing my job. That’s what everyone wants me to do, so that’s what I’m doing.”

She was aware that she sounded more sullen than ever, but that could hardly be avoided. She was on her knees on the floor and Mrs. Derringer was quite a tall woman to start with and the effect of all that was to make Sarah feel very, very small.

“It’s what John wants you to do,” Mrs. Derringer observed. “And you’re doing it to please him more than yourself.”

It didn’t take a genius to work that much out, so Sarah wasn’t impressed. “Mhm,” she muttered noncommittally.

“John is a kind and handsome man, isn’t he?” The woman tried to make conversation again.

“He’s nice,” Sarah said, reluctant to share more.

“He’s a very good man,” Mrs. Derringer said. “I’ve known him a long time. I’ve never known him to bring anyone to the library before.”

“It’s not exactly a hot date spot,” Sarah muttered.

“Are you being deliberately obtuse, dear?”

Sarah looked at the woman with a hint of surprise. “No?”

“I’m saying he must be very taken with you. Are you equally taken with him?”

Sarah didn’t reply.

“You think I’m being nosy,” Mrs. Derringer said wisely. “But John is a dear boy and I’ve known him since he was very small. Him bringing you here means something, I think.”

Ah. So that’s what was going on. The woman was vetting her, trying to work out what her intentions were.

Sarah sat back and looked Mrs. Derringer in the eye. It was not an easy thing to do. The woman was a formidable spinster, emphasis on the formidable. “Look, if this is the equivalent of meeting his parents, I’m sorry, but I don’t really do family things. So I’m not going to sit here and try to make you like me, or prove myself to you. I’m not even going to stay at your place. I don’t need anyone to look out for me.”

“I can see why he likes you,” Mrs. Derringer said, smiling for the first time. “But you are going to stay with me, my dear.”

“You can’t make me.”

“No, but John can. And if I have to call him and tell him that you’re not where you’re supposed to be, then I think he will have words with you.”

A not-so-subtle inflection on
words
told Sarah that Mrs. Derringer knew precisely what she was threatening. After years on her own, Sarah was suddenly facing the adult equivalent of a potential ‘wait until your father gets home’ situation.

“I cannot believe this,” she muttered under her breath as she shoved another book back into the shelf.

* * *

Five o’clock crawled around and far from being happy that she was done with work, Sarah found herself dreading closer contact with Mrs. Derringer. She wanted to go back to John’s place and just curl up on the couch by herself, and she even figured a way to sneak out a side door and accomplish that, but Mrs. Derringer was two steps ahead of her. Before Sarah managed to skulk away, the head librarian called her and informed her that they would be heading home early.

“Really, Mrs. Derringer,” Sarah said. “This isn’t necessary. I’m twenty-one, I don’t need a babysitter.”

“I wasn’t intending on babysitting you,” Mrs. Derringer said calmly. “And I don’t think we need to call John and talk about this, do we?”

“You can’t throw John at me every time I want to do something other than what’s been planned for me.”

“I can’t throw John at you whatsoever,” Mrs. Derringer said, her lips quirking with amusement at her own joke. “Come along, Sarah. We have a long commute.”

“Great,” Sarah said flatly. After a day of tedious work, she was now going to be stuck in traffic with a woman she barely knew and who made her nervous.

She followed Mrs. Derringer through the parking lot with the demeanor of a prisoner going to the gallows. Throughout the commute, she kept largely silent, alternately staring out the window and playing with her phone.

* * *

Mrs. Derringer lived on the other side of the city, far from the devastation of the tornado and fairly far from John’s place too. It was a nice neighborhood, quiet and leafy and peaceful and Mrs. Derringer’s house was a double-storied home with a swing on the porch and gerberas in the front garden.

Sarah followed Mrs. Derringer inside, expecting the place to be dated like the library. Surprisingly, it was quite modern and clean. There were books lining shelves in the living room, but the shelves weren’t old wood, they were reinforced glass, and between the books were various items from around the world: statues and gems and rocks and pictures of creatures and places she’d never seen or heard of before. Finally, she decided to initiate conversation.

“You like travel, or garage sales?”

“Travel,” Mrs. Derringer said. “I collected each of these pieces in my younger years when I worked as an archeology assistant in the Middle East and African continent.”

“Wow,” Sarah said, surprised. She had imagined that Mrs. Derringer had been born in the library, never setting foot outside it except maybe to get some groceries every now and then. It was surprising to learn that she’d lived a very full life. Pictures further down the room showed a younger Anne Derringer smiling from the exotic locations she’d named. “That’s really impressive, Mrs. Derringer.”

“Call me Anne, dear,” Mrs. Derringer said. “And I’m glad you think so. Have you been overseas before?”

“Never.” Sarah shook her head emphatically. “I’ve barely been out of the state.”

“That’s a shame. Travel broadens the mind.”

“I always liked being at home. Well, when I had one. Now I’m stuck imposing in other people’s homes.”

Anne gave her a sympathetic look. “You’ve been through a lot,” she said. “Perhaps, if you didn’t fight the help you’re being given quite so hard, it would be easier.”

“I’m not fighting help,” Sarah frowned. “I’m just not used to all this. I’ve been on my own for a long time, so it’s a little weird to suddenly have John thinking he needs to do all these things for me.”

“He’s a traditional man, and he’s protective,” Anne agreed. “There aren’t many like him left.”

Sarah nodded, not sure what else to say. Mrs. Derringer, Anne, was still a stranger to her, and there was something about the woman that made Sarah feel very topsy-turvy inside. Not quite in the same way John did, but almost as powerfully.

“Come and help prepare a salad for dinner,” Anne said. “I’ve some roast chicken in the refrigerator. We’ll boil some new potatoes.”

“I’m not hungry,” Sarah said. “If it’s alright, I’m just going to go lie down.”

“You can lie down after dinner,” her host said more firmly. “I’m going to make sure you’re well fed. I don’t want John complaining that I’ve been starving you.”

“I don’t think he’ll do that,” Sarah said. “Really, it’s nice of you, but…”

“No buts,” Anne said in tones that brooked absolutely no argument.

* * *

Dinner was soon prepared and Sarah sat down at a neatly set table to eat with Anne. “It’s been a long time since I had food like this,” she said as she picked over the chicken and the potatoes.

“Oh?”

“I mostly microwave things,” she admitted. “You can microwave pretty much anything. Food-related anything,” she added, feeling a bit nervous. “Probably other things too, I guess. And I toasted stuff. Like, you know, toaster strudels.”

Anne Derringer watched her with a quietly bemused expression. “There’s no need to be afraid of me,” she said. “I’m sorry if I make you uncomfortable.”

Sarah blinked at the direct addressing of her obvious nerves. “You don’t make me uncomfortable,” she started to say, before changing her mind. “Well, you do, but I know you’re trying to be nice, it’s just I’m not used to…”

“Nice?” Anne finished the sentence as Sarah fumbled for words.

“Like I said, I’m used to being on my own,” Sarah said. “And this, how you’re being…” She blushed. “I don’t need to be looked after.”

“I think being looked after scares you,” Anne said.

“Why would it scare me?”

“Maybe because it feels like something you should have had all this time, and because it’s something you lost early and learned to live without. But you don’t have to live without it forever.”

All of a sudden, Sarah’s throat was far too tight to swallow food. She was choked up with tears that rose unbidden and almost without reason.

“I’m really not hungry,” she said. “And I’m really tired. I think I need to lie down.”

“Very well,” Mrs. Derringer nodded. “I’ll show you to your room.”

The spare room was on the second floor at the opposite end of the hall to Mrs. Derringer’s bedroom. It was decorated in feminine style and it had an en-suite bathroom. It was very nice, and Sarah knew she should be more grateful for it than she felt.

“Thank you,” she said, forcing the words out. “This is very nice.”

“Call out if you need anything,” Anne said with a smile.