The Fireside Inn (3 page)

His rust-colored brows arched up in surprise. “I’m a little old for a schoolboy, don’t you think?”

He seemed to be a bit obsessed with age. Funny, considering he couldn’t be much older than thirty-five. “My Master’s program was full of students of all ages,” Serena told him. “There’s no such thing as being too old to keep learning.”

A spasm of darkness flickered across his handsome face. The way he’d tilted his head down threw shadows across his sharp cheekbones and elegant jawline, and the sweep of his lashes was like a fan of cinnamon against his fair English complexion. “What a pretty thought.”

Trying not to bristle at his casual dismissal of one of the most deeply held convictions of her life, Serena kept her voice neutral. “I’m full of pretty thoughts. But I’m afraid we’re too pressed for time for me to share more of them—I’ll have to open the library soon, and my first appointment of the day is with a group of patrons who do not like to be kept waiting.”

It was absolutely true—the five-year-olds who had storytime on Tuesdays hadn’t learned patience yet. They were liable to stage a riot if she wasn’t ready and waiting with the next chapter of
Charlotte’s Web
.

“Forgive me.” Leo inclined his head and leaned one insouciant elbow on her desk. “The assignment is neither for work nor study—it’s for a wedding.”

Serena blinked at her screen, fingers poised above her keyboard. “What?”

“A friend of mine is getting married on this island: Miles Harrington. Perhaps you know him?”

“Everyone knows the Harringtons,” she said, mind racing. “The family has owned a big chunk of the island for generations.”

And until recently, the three heirs to the Harrington fortune had never set foot on Sanctuary. Then, last summer they’d arrived one by one, each handsomer than the last, and set the town gossip machine to buzzing. Serena wasn’t a big fan of gossip, and as a relative newcomer to the island, she didn’t have a ton of friends, but even she’d heard all about how the Harrington brothers had swooped in and swept three lucky ladies off their feet and into the lap of luxury.

What she wouldn’t give to have half an hour with a Harrington—any of them!—to tell them why they should pour just a tiny portion of their billions into sponsoring the local library.

“My friend, Miles, is the eldest,” Leo explained. “And from what I’ve seen since I arrived, he’s fallen arse over teakettle for his bride-to-be. He wants everything about their whirlwind wedding to be perfect, and of course, as his friend, I’m eager to oblige.”

A tiny thrill of excitement rippled over Serena. Who didn’t like a wedding? “I’m happy to help, if I can.”

“Oh, you can.” Leo smiled right into her eyes, his voice dropping into the thick tension between them like stones into a river. “You see, I’ve been tasked with choosing a love poem to read aloud during the ceremony. And I’m certain you’ll be able to find me the perfect one.”

A switch clicked in Serena’s head, flipping through her mental files faster than her fingers could type in the search parameters for the card catalogue. “Absolutely, Mr. Strathairn. Let me just pull up a few anthologies and poetry collections, and you can start reading through them. Were you thinking modern poetry or classical? English or translations? Our poetry collection is small, but well curated.”

Leo surprised her by reaching across the desk to still her typing fingers with a touch. Freezing, Serena looked up into his gray eyes. “Actually, love, I had something else in mind.”

She swallowed, vividly aware that the jump of her pulse was probably visible at the base of her neck. “Oh?”

Another brilliant smile. “I was thinking that you could go ahead and simply choose a poem for me.”

Serena felt the flush of heat in her cheeks the moment before she consciously understood what he was asking.

It was like high school all over again, the hot jock flirting just to get her to do his homework for him. And it hadn’t ended there.

Sick to her stomach at the memory of the last time she’d fallen for a persuasive man who only wanted to use her for her brain, Serena’s voice shook with anger. “You want me to choose the poem you’ll read at your friend’s wedding for you. Why, because you’re too busy and important and…and…
British
to do the work yourself?”

Surprise widened his eyes. Geez, when was the last time anyone had said “no” to this guy?

“I beg your pardon,” Leo said stiffly. “I was under the impression that you’re a research librarian at a public library. Isn’t it your job to…well, research?”

“Research? Yes. Perform an incredibly personal and important service that ought to be between you and your friend, the groom, with zero help or input from you? You must be out of your mind.”

Nobody was that charming or handsome without also being an entitled jerk. Serena had learned her lesson early and well.

But as Leo Strathairn drew himself up to his full, impressive height and stared at her with the morning sun streaming over his perfect, striking features, Serena felt a coil of heat tighten low in her abdomen.

If anybody was handsome and charming enough to make her forget the past, it was this gorgeous Englishman.

Leo consciously relaxed his grip on the engraved mahogany handle of his umbrella and fought down a surge of panic. This wasn’t going at all well.

The adorable librarian glared at him over the tops of her little black-rimmed spectacles, her pointed chin quivering in outrage, lush cupid’s-bow lips parted to give him another dressing-down. And, God help him, Leo almost wanted to hear it. An enraged Serena Lightfoot, Head Librarian, was the most enticing thing he’d encountered in an age.

If the librarians at Westminster School had looked like her, Leo might not be in this mess.

But he
was
in this mess, for which he partly blamed that horrid public school that had educated countless generations of Earls of Rochester before him. If the headmaster hadn’t been so intent on forcing his pupils to memorize Shakespeare and Johnson, Miles would never have gotten the wrong end of the stick about which of his friends would make the best reader for his wedding.

What was Leo meant to say?
I can recite
Twelfth Night
backwards and forwards, but if you want me to read books of poetry to choose the best piece for your wedding, it’s going to have to be a very long engagement
.

Swallowing the acidic bile of shame with the ease of long practice, Leo stared down at the solution to all his problems. He’d made a hash of it thus far, and she’d need to be approached properly if he were to have any hope of success. If she wouldn’t simply hand him an appropriate poem on a silver charger, he’d have to try another tack.

“You’re quite right,” he admitted readily. “Damned impertinent of me. I daresay it’s too much to ask of anyone. But as I said before, I’m not much of one for libraries. The idea of being trapped here with all the old paper and dusty books, when the golden jewel box of this island is waiting to be opened… Damn. I’m sorry. I’m making a dog’s breakfast out of this.”

Leo grimaced and ran a hand through his hair, unable to resist peeking at Serena to see how she was taking the apology.

She wasn’t swooning off her chair or anything, but he thought he detected a minute softening in the line of her mouth and at the corners of her extraordinary dark eyes. The contrast between the bright blond cloud of hair covering her head and the dark slashes of her brows over deep, velvety brown eyes was uncommonly arresting. By all that was holy, Serena Lightfoot was striking.

“Look, I know libraries seem boring and stuffy,” she said, a hint of earnestness creeping into her tone. “But they don’t have to be! Don’t think of the books as two-dimensional pages of dry text—every book is a window to another time and place, a way to peer out at the world through someone else’s eyes and to experience life in a way you never expected. The entire universe, and all of its wonders and mysteries, is contained in these pages!”

She swept her arms out to her sides, enthusiasm and passion reverberating through the empty stacks and echoing in Leo’s chest. For a moment, a bare instant, he caught a glimpse of the endless possibilities Serena referred to, but as his gaze snagged on the brightly-colored banner hanging on the wall over her head, reality crashed over him once more.

He concentrated, suffused with a desperate longing he thought he’d conquered years ago, but the letters flipped and swam across the banner like a school of fish. The words flickered at the edge of his vision and darted away as soon as he focused on them, slippery and impossible.

Stop trying
, he told himself viciously.
It’s never going to happen
.

Struggling against the sucking quicksand of failure that wanted to drag him under, Leo grasped for the first conversational gambit that sprang to mind.

“You’re right, of course. Libraries aren’t boring.”

“They’re essential,” she insisted, dark eyes glittering with fervent belief. “Public libraries provide a service to the community that can’t be replicated any other way. People who can’t afford to buy every book that interests them can come to the library and discover new authors, new genres, whole new worlds of information and opportunity that—”

Serena cut off the flow of her impassioned speech like turning off a tap, vibrant color flooding her cheeks.

“Go on,” Leo encouraged, leaning over the desk and focusing intently on her. The way Serena lit up when talking about her library was entirely beguiling. She was nothing like the women of his set—neither the proper society ladies he’d left behind in London, nor the hard-partying models and actresses he’d casually dated in New York.

Serena Lightfoot cared, passionately, and she wasn’t afraid to show it. He had to admire the inner core of strength inside a person who hadn’t allowed life, with all its troubles and woes, to train her out of exposing her feelings.

“No.” Her voice was subdued, her whole manner a shadow of the exuberant vitality she’d displayed moments ago. “I don’t mean to go on and on. It’s just that public funding for libraries is at an all-time low, and I’m primed for any chance to climb up on my soapbox to convince people that they need to support us.”

Leo’s mind sharpened, honing in on the solution. Simple, elegant, easy—he couldn’t believe he hadn’t picked up on it when Serena perked up at the mere mention of the wealthy Harrington family. He was usually more perceptive than that—but then, he wasn’t usually faced with a woman as thoroughly distracting as Serena Lightfoot.

“You’re quite eloquent in your arguments,” he said slowly, shrugging out his coat and draping it over the research desk.

“What are you doing?” Serena gazed down at his discarded coat in alarm. “You’re not staying. I didn’t agree to help you shirk your responsibility to your friend!”

The grain of truth in that assessment stung, but Leo pressed on. There was no help for it. As much as he might wish to be the sort of man who could cull through hundreds of poems to find the very best one to suit the nuptials of one of his closest friends, it wasn’t to be.

Pulling out his very best seductive, sideways glance, Leo dropped his voice to a purr. “Oh, I think we can help one another.”

Serena’s eyes narrowed. “How?”

“You help me choose a poem to read at Miles Harrington’s wedding, and I’ll guarantee you a donation for the library.”

She swallowed audibly, her attention caught and held by his proposition. “How…how much are we talking?”

Leo shrugged. “Enough to cover the library’s expenses for the next fiscal year.”

“Do you have any idea how much money that is?” Serena pushed back from the desk so she could leap to her feet and pace. “It’s a huge amount. I couldn’t take that full amount from a single donor; there are rules, regulations, our tax status.…”

She was trying to talk herself out of this deal. Leo set his jaw as determination flooded him. “The money means nothing to me,” Leo said impatiently. “Come along, surely you realize we can work out the details.”

Serena paused, her arms wrapped around her midsection, and stared at him in bewilderment. “Why is this so important to you? I can’t be the only person on earth who could help you figure out what love poem to read.”

Set back on his heels, Leo considered the question. She was perfectly correct. He had friends he could ask for help, he had a valet and a personal assistant whose job it was to help him with whatever he required—and, indeed, they’d been his first strategy until he’d walked past the library and decided to try there on a whim.

But now that he’d met Serena? He wanted her, and no one else.

“Perhaps.” Leo shrugged, enjoying the way her eyes darkened as her gaze swept over his chest. “But perhaps the wedding reading is only part of my goal now.”

Her brow furrowed, the space between those dark slashes of eyebrows crinkling adorably. “What’s the rest of it?”

Leo grinned at the suspicion in her voice. He sauntered around the desk, carefully so as not to startle her with sudden movements, but she stood her ground. Even when she had to tilt her head back to be able to meet his eyes, she didn’t retreat.

Lifting one hand to the side of her fair, smooth neck, Leo touched a tender fingertip to the throb of her pulse in the hollow of her throat. Her breath fluttered out, hitching appealingly, and Leo went hard in an aching rush that left him light-headed.

“If I have to find a love poem,” he murmured, “I want you to be the one who reads them to me. I’m sure I could find, hire, or coerce someone else into doing this—but I want to spend more time with you, Serena Lightfoot. That’s why this matters so much to me.”

She opened her mouth— to object or argue some more, Leo didn’t know. He didn’t wait to find out, either. Instead, he bent his head and closed the distance between them, covering her delectable mouth in a soft, nuzzling exploration of a kiss.

***

Fireworks burst through the darkness of Serena’s closed eyelids. Her eyes had snapped shut instinctively the instant Leo Strathairn’s lips touched hers, and for a long, breathless moment, she couldn’t process anything but the heat of him, the fresh, spicy taste of his kiss, the lean strength of his body braced above her.