What the Librarian Did (6 page)

Devin resisted until the old man reached the door. “Wait!”
Damn Rachel
. “Let’s swap tables. It’s not a big night for us.”

“No, couldn’t put you out.”

Devin said grimly, “Happy to do it.”

“Why should you have to put up with clanging pots and swinging doors?” The old man’s face brightened. “Tell you what, we’ll join you.”

“J
UST CALLING TO SEE
how the date’s going with the rock star?”

Shifting her cell phone to the other ear, Rachel glanced in the direction of the men’s room. “I told you, Trix, it’s not a date. It’s—”
an interrogation that’s taken a disturbing turn
“—just dinner.”

“Rach, the guy’s been in seclusion for months. It’s a real coup…ohmygod!” Rachel held the phone away as her assistant’s voice rose to a non-Goth squeal. “You should be selling your story to the tabloids! I’ll be your agent.”

Rachel speared a green bean. “Here’s your headline—I Had the Fish, He Had the Steak.”

“Obviously you’ll need to have sex with him to make
any real money.” The bean went down the wrong way and Rachel burst into a fit of coughing. Trixie read that as encouragement. “You can’t deny there are plenty of women who’ve got famous through sleeping with a celebrity,” she argued. “You could even get a place on a reality TV show…you know, celebs surviving in the Outback.”

Rachel dabbed her streaming eyes with a napkin. “Tempting as the prospect is,” she croaked, “I think I’ll pass.”

“You’ll never get famous as a librarian,” Trixie warned her.

“Oh, I don’t know. Melvil Dewey invented the Dewey Decimal System over one hundred and thirty years ago and everybody knows his name.”

At least Trixie’s nonsense was steadying Rachel’s nerves. So she’d been momentarily sideswiped by the guy’s sex appeal. She was female and he was prime grade male.

“For God’s sake,
don’t
tell him one of your hobbies is finding wacky facts on Wiki.” Trixie sounded genuinely horrified. “You’ll lose whatever credibility we have.”

Rachel laughed. “Goodbye.”

“Who was that?” Devin asked from behind her, and she jumped, her nervousness returning. Not for a minute did she believe he was seriously attracted to her, but she had an uneasy feeling he’d try anything—or anyone—once.

“Trixie, my assistant. She—”
told me to sleep with you
“—had a work query.”

Devin took his seat and signaled for their waitress. “There’ll be another two people joining us.” He filled Rachel in. “And this is all
your
fault.”

But she was impressed by his gesture—finally, signs of a conscience. And secretly relieved they wouldn’t be alone.

She was starting to have doubts about her ability to manage him.

The Kincaids—Kev and Beryl—arrived. Only halfway through the introductions did Rachel realize the downside of Devin’s generosity. She’d lost her opportunity to grill him further about his ethics.

“So, Devin, you’re a Yank,” said Beryl as they’d settled at the table. Plump and pretty, she was like a late harvest apple, softly wrinkled and very sweet.

Rachel tried to remember if Yank was an acceptable term to Americans.

“Actually, Beryl,” Devin said politely, “I was born here, but moved to the States when I was two. My dad was an American, my mother’s a Kiwi.”

Beryl looked from Devin to Rachel. “And now you’re repeating history. How romantic.”

“We’re not—” Rachel began.

“She’s my little ray of Kiwi sunshine,” Devin interrupted.

Rachel said dryly, “And he’s the rain on my Fourth of July parade.”

Devin chuckled. Beryl murmured, “Lovely.”

Her husband eyed Devin from under beetled brows. “What do you do for a crust?”

He looked to Rachel for a translation. “Job,” she said.

“Student,” said Devin, after a moment’s hesitation.

“You’re a bit old, aren’t you?” New Zealand country folk were only polite when they didn’t like you. Rachel hoped Devin understood that, but the way his jaw tightened suggested otherwise.

“Changing careers,” he answered shortly.

“From?” Kev prompted.

“Musician.”

“How lovely,” Beryl enthused. Rachel suspected she often took a peacekeeper’s role. “Would we know any of your songs?”

Devin’s smile was dangerous as he turned to the older woman. “Ho in Heels?” He started to sing in a husky baritone. “Take me, baby, deep…”

“Oh, Kev,” Beryl clapped her hands in delight. “Don’t you remember? Billy—that’s the agricultural student who worked for us over Christmas—played it in the milking shed.”

“Cows bloody loved it,” said Kev. “Let down the milk quicker.”

Rachel looked at Devin’s stunned expression and had to bite her cheek. “Was it a ballad by any chance?” Her voice was unsteady.

“Slow? Yeah, not that the other bloody rubbish…sorry, mate.”

Devin began to laugh.

“Did you know,” Rachel said, fighting the urge to join him—one of them had to keep it together, “there was a study done at Leicester University that found farmers could increase their milk yield by playing cows soothing music.”

“Is that bloody right?” marveled Kev.

Devin laughed harder.

Kev and Beryl looked to Rachel for an explanation and she dug her nails into Devin’s thigh to stop him. It didn’t. “Conversely,” she said, hoping the effort not to laugh was the cause of her breathlessness, and not the warm unyielding muscle under her fingers, “Friesians provided
less
milk when they listen to rock music.”

“Well, I never.” Beryl smiled indulgently at Devin, who was wiping his eyes with a napkin. “You Yanks have a different sense of humor from us, have you noticed?”

Devin bought the restaurant’s best bottle of vintage Bollinger for Beryl and Kev, who insisted that Rachel accepted half a glass for the toast.

Devin explained to the old farmer that even a sip of alcohol would kill him, then gave Beryl a ghoulish description of how his pancreas had almost exploded.

Rachel thought he was laying it on a bit thick, and told him so while Beryl and Kev debated the menu. He looked at her with a gleam in his eye. “You see right through me, don’t you, Heartbreaker?”

“Heartbreaker yourself,” she said tartly, but somehow it came out as a compliment.

“Frenzied Friesians,” he murmured, and Rachel gave in to a fit of the giggles.

D
EVIN SAT BACK
and admired her. Laughter lightened Rachel’s seriousness, made her accessible. He was pretty cheerful himself. For the first time in New Zealand he didn’t feel like an outsider.

However weird his life had been as a rock star, it had nothing on Beryl and Kev and the obscure facts that popped out of Rachel’s luscious mouth. There was something appealing in the librarian’s quirky nerdiness. She didn’t give a damn about his fame or his opinion and Devin wanted her.

In a corner of the restaurant, a guitarist propped himself on a bar stool and started strumming on a Lucida. The playing was average but his voice was true enough for the flamenco ballads.

Kev thought Sinatra would be nice and requested “Blue Moon,” then sang along in a surprisingly good tenor. “Played the captain in the local production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s
H.M.S. Pinafore
last year,” he confided to Devin. “Bloody great night this, mate. All it needs is dancing.”

On the quiet, Devin handed over some bills to the management and a few now-empty tables were cleared away. Delighted, Kev and Beryl did an anniversary waltz, moving lightly around the floor. One number led to another.
Touched by the elderly couple’s obvious nostalgia, other diners joined them.

The effects of champagne still sparkled in Rachel’s eyes. Devin held out a hand. “Shall we?”

“I haven’t danced for years…you okay with a shuffle?”

She did better than that. As long as Devin distracted her with conversation, her body moved with his in perfect rhythm. She only stumbled when she concentrated on the steps. Which was unfortunate, because Devin didn’t want to talk—he wanted to savor the softness of Ms. Rachel Robinson.

So he encouraged her to expand on her theory of why musicians were so often good at math. “They’re both about playing with nonverbal patterns so there’s a lot of commonality there.”

As she warmed to her subject Devin found he could get away with an “Mmm” and a “Really?” Gradually he drew her closer, until her body was right where he wanted it.

“Mmm.”

T
HERE WAS SOMETHING
in that last “Mmm” that jolted Rachel into awareness that she was dirty dancing with Devin Freedman.

One of his muscular thighs cleaved snugly between hers, his chest was a wall of hot muscle against her breasts and his “Mmm” still vibrated on the top of her head, where he’d been resting his chin.

And the hand supposed to be around her waist was caressing the upper curve of her bottom. About to protest, she became conscious that both her hands were in exactly the same position on
his
anatomy. She jerked back. “Excuse me a minute.”

In the bathroom she splashed her face with cold water
and sprinkled a few drops down her neckline, appalled and ashamed. Obviously, three sips of five-hundred-dollar champagne was an aphrodisiac. Why hadn’t there been a warning on the bottle?

“Remember you’re here to assess his character,” she admonished her guilty reflection.

Rachel put her hair up in the tight ponytail Devin hated. She’d outgrown her partiality for bad boys after the last one got her pregnant.

Back in the main restaurant, the music had stopped and a small group—which included Kev and Beryl, diners and kitchen staff—milled around Devin, who stood with his arms folded, scowling. The dragon on his forearm was a guardian across his chest.

Kev caught sight of Rachel. “Talk him into it, love…all we want is that song the cows like.”

One glance at Devin, and Rachel knew not to try. “We don’t have that kind of relationship,” she said quietly, hoping to remind people of their own tenuous connection to him.

“We weren’t trying to be pushy or anything, mate,” Kev assured Devin, who raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“Of course you weren’t, Kev,” Rachel answered. She took Devin’s arm, unconsciously patting the dragon. His hand closed firmly over hers. “I imagine if Devin picks up a guitar in public the media will start hounding him.”

“I’m not going to give up my privacy.” Under her hand, the muscle relaxed. “But I could have explained it better.” His thumb began a gentle circuit of her knuckles. “I’m sorry for being so defensive.”

Everyone apologized then, with back slaps and handshakes all around. Devin signed autographs, a camera was produced and he stood patiently while everyone had their
photo taken with him. Rachel shook her head when he held out a hand for her to join them. She needed to reestablish some distance.

He closed it and her pulse sped up at the heat in his eyes. “Shall we go?”

“No,” she said firmly, practicing the word. “I promised Kev a dance.” Satisfied that Devin had got the message, Rachel dragged the bemused farmer to the dance floor.

S
HE WANTED HIM
.

That was all Devin needed to know to be patient. While Beryl went off to get a recipe from the chef, he sat at their table and ordered coffee, watching Rachel on the dance floor. In one date, he’d gone from indifference to fascination. He wasn’t used to challenge in his relationships with women. He decided he liked it.

He cast his mind back to his two marriages, the first in his late teens, to an indie rock chick in an all-female band. He’d wanted a port in the storm, but Jax had proved to be as angry offstage as she was on it.

Ten years later he’d hooked up with a Swedish actress during one of his frequent blackouts. It had been a trophy marriage on both sides, the mirror over the bed reflecting two clichés going through the motions of intimacy. They’d separated after three months.

There was no point regretting a past he couldn’t change; still, Devin couldn’t help wincing.

He heard a muffled ringing and tracked it to a cell phone in Rachel’s bag. It wasn’t a model he was familiar with and a text message flashed up when he tried to answer the phone.

Dnt blow chnce 2 screw a rck str. Trix

He stared at the message, then replied, Nt tht kd of grl?

A few minutes passed. R now, rmber our tlk!

Grimly, Devin returned the cell to Rachel’s bag. He was a trophy date, and the librarian was only acting hard to get. Increase her chances of banging a celebrity, he guessed. The fact that it had nearly worked infuriated him.

When Rachel arrived back at the table five minutes later, he regarded her coldly. “I’ve settled the bill.”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to contribute?”

“Let’s not spoil a great evening.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” He pulled himself together—never let them know you care—and steered her toward Beryl and Kev. They left with a promise to visit if they ever got to Matamata. Wherever the hell that was.

“Close to Hamilton, where I grew up,” said Rachel. She filled the silence on the way home with Wikipedia trivia. If Devin hadn’t known better he’d have said she was nervous.

But he did know better. His anger grew hotter, barely contained. Outside her house, he handed over the car keys, shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans and turned away. “Good night.”

“I said I’d lend you that book on music and math. Wait, I’ll run and get it.”

Another ploy. Damn, this woman needed a lesson. “Sure,” he drawled.

He undressed her with his eyes as she led the way to the house. Rachel opened the door and started groping for the light switch. “It won’t take me long to find it.”

Devin cut the game short. “I’ll bet.” He stepped inside and spun her around to face him.

“Wha—”

In the darkness, he found her mouth. She wrenched away from him. “What on—”

“Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about doing this?”

She hesitated too long.

He kissed her again, pulling her close, cupping the nape of her neck with one hand. With a moan, she settled into him and he forgot everything but exploring that incredible mouth—moist, full, bitable.

Following her lead, he kept it tender, reveling in the contrast between her tentative tongue and the unconscious pressing of those lush breasts against his chest.

They came up for air.

“Do you always kiss like that?” she gasped, and he struggled to remember she was using him. And then felt disgusted all over again.

“Why, are you taking notes?” Backing her up against the wall, he nudged her thighs apart and ground his erection against her. “If you want to screw a rock star, this is how we do it, babe—standing up, right here, right—Owww!” He reeled backward from a knee to the groin.

“You narcissistic bastard!”

“Okay, I get it.” Devin groped for the wall behind him. “You changed your mind.”

“Changed my—” The light snapped on and Rachel advanced on him. “I was never going to sleep with you!”

“Take a look at the text messages on your mobile and let’s cut the crap.”

“What?” Frowning, she pulled the phone out of her handbag and checked it, then looked up, exasperated. “So one of Trixie’s stupid jokes allows you to treat me like a groupie, is that it?”

Devin eyed her closely. “Was it a joke? Or something to boast about?” He’d been caught before.

She drew herself straighter. “I’ve never met anyone with such a high opinion of himself. What gave you the idea I was even interested?”

“Oh, I don’t know…. Maybe it was when your hands were on my butt.” When she blushed, he folded his arms. “Quit acting coy. I even asked you if you’d thought about it.”

Her mouth tightened. “Kissing you. That’s
all
.”

“Kissing?” Devin stared at her incredulously. “When a grown woman tells a guy she’s thinking about it, Heartbreaker, he’s not imagining kissing.”

“I didn’t give you permission to imagine anything, mate. And if you’ve ever dated a grown woman I’d be very much surprised.” Color high in her cheeks, she opened the front door. “Now, please leave!”

“Happy to,” Devin said grimly. Didn’t she know how many women wanted to sleep with him? “Frankly, I’m amazed I hit on a cardigan-wearing, pass-on-the-butter, book nerd anyway.”

As he walked out, he caught his shin on the serrated pedal of the mountain bike. “Sh—”

The rest of the expletive was cut off as Rachel slammed the door behind him.

Dammit, that gave her the last word.

M
ARK WAITED ALL MORNING
for Devin to notice he had hurt feelings. By lunchtime he gave up.

Walking to the cafeteria between classes with Devin, he stopped abruptly. “I waited for you an hour at the ferry terminal last night.” It was two hours but he didn’t want to seem that much of a loser.

Devin looked at him blankly and Mark’s sense of grievance grew.

“You invited me for a jam session, remember?”

“Did I? Sorry, buddy, I forgot.” Devin continued walking, as distracted as he’d been all morning.

Mark’s hurt smoldered into active resentment. “You know what?” he said to Devin’s back. “Since you obviously don’t even notice I’m around, I’m gonna skip lunch and catch up on some homework in the library.”

Turning impatiently, Devin scowled at the last word, and Mark immediately regretted his temper. “I’m sorry, okay?” he said. The last thing he needed to do was piss off one of his few friends here. “It was just…well…never mind.” He’d had a frustrating few days piecing together a staff list from old yearbooks and faculty newsletters, but it wasn’t comprehensive or age-specific. He’d have to visually scan every female staffer on campus and confront anyone who seemed the right age.

“What? I’m not mad at you.” Devin walked back to him and Mark avoided his eyes. Sometimes the musician saw too much. “Why don’t we get food to go and I’ll give you that guitar session I promised you now?” They were blocking the path through the quadrangle and Devin steered him to one side. “I’ve got an apartment in town and our next class isn’t for a couple of hours.”

“You have another place?” Mark was impressed.

“Yeah, I bought it to stay in the city during week, but found I prefer going back to Waiheke. Mom uses it more than I do.” Devin hesitated. “Do me a favor? A textbook I need has come into the library. Go pick it up while I get the food?” He handed over his library card.

“Is it because you don’t want to see her?”

Devin said evenly, “What makes you say that?”

Immediately, Mark knew he’d said the wrong thing. “Um, because she told me you were a bad influence? Except that…I mean…she said she was going to apologize.”

“She did. Everything’s sweet.”

It didn’t
sound
sweet. And the guy’s scowl had come back. “So you don’t think she’s—”

“I don’t think of her at all,” Devin interrupted. “Let’s meet back here in ten minutes, okay?”

“Okay.”

He started walking to the library, then hurried back, scrambling in his pocket for change. “Dev…let me give you some money.” He didn’t want the rocker to think he was a leech.

For the first time that day Devin’s expression softened. “My treat.”

Rachel was behind the counter when Mark walked into the library, and her face lit up when she saw him. She always looked so pleased to see him that it made him feel slightly awkward. But he guessed being cool wasn’t in a librarian’s DNA.

Then he caught sight of Trixie in a black leather dress and kick-ass boots and revised his opinion. She’d told him she’d toned down her look for the library job…only one pair of earrings and her most conservative nose stud.

He kind of had a crush on her even though she was three years older and scary. She was dealing with someone but called out, “Have you been to that vegetarian café I recommended?”

He nodded. In the farming community he came from, everyone ate meat. But you didn’t argue with a militant vegetarian, you meekly ate your lentil stew and tried not to be on a bus when the gas hit.

“So you like vegetarian food?” said Rachel. She always sounded like she was filing away information for the FBI.

“Love it,” he lied, and handed over Devin’s card to collect the reserved book. Rachel looked at the name and her smile faded.

“Devin said it was okay for me to collect it,” Mark stated. Maybe they had a policy or something.

“That’s fine.”

She found the book. “He told me what you did,” Mark added, and she froze with the book over the scanner. Gray eyes lifted to his.