Page 19 of Owl’s Cherished Mate

Right now, they’d locked in on Lawson.

A fourteen-year-old kid whose mother had walked out, father was in prison, and sister had left for college only to come back carrying so much guilt she could barely stand under the weight of it. Lawson was hurt and angry and looking for someone to belong to, and Darren had positioned himself in that gap like he’d been waiting for it.

Maybe he had been.

Guys like Darren always were.

The knowledge twisted through me, but I couldn’t do a damn thing with it. I wasn’t Bonnie’s family. I wasn’t Lawson’s guardian. I was a guy who worked at the library and made her tea. A guy who bought her coffee and pie today.

That was it.

My owl disagreed.

Loudly.

I closed the book and set it on the table beside me, giving up on reading for the night, then leaned my head back against the chair and stared at the ceiling, trying to silence his shriek.

The next day, Bonnie came into the library. She sat at the same corner table and pulled out the same old laptop. There was one difference today, though. When I brought her tea over, she looked up. Not just a glance, but one with eye contact that lingered.

“Thanks,” she said. “For the tea. And for yesterday.”

“You’re welcome. How are you doing?”

She considered the question like she was deciding how honest to be. “Better than yesterday, but still worse than I’d like.”

I nodded. “Fair enough.”

Her gaze drifted to the front desk, where I’d been working on a book.

“What are you working on over there?”

“A rescue mission,” I said, heading back to the desk. She followed, which I wasn’t expecting. She leaned against the edge of the circulation counter and glanced at the book.

“What happened to it?” she asked.

“Water damage. Someone left it near an open window during a storm. Things warped, and the adhesive holding the cloth to the spine broke down.” I turned it so she could see what I was talking about. “I’m trying to save the original covering instead of replacing it.”

“Can you?”

“Depends on how much of the cloth is still intact underneath. Sometimes you peel it back and there’s enough to reattach. Sometimes it crumbles and you have to start over.”

She was quiet for a second, studying the book like she was actually thinking about what I’d said. “How long does something like this take?”

“Depends on the damage. This one, maybe another week. Some take longer.”

“Sounds like most things worth fixing,” she said.

Then she went back to her table and picked up where she’d left off.

I stared at the book for a long time after that. What she’d said was such a simple comment, but for whatever reason, it lodged itself inside my chest and stayed there.

The late afternoon settled into its usual rhythm after that. Bonnie studied. I worked more on restoring the old book. Mrs. Pike left at five with her usual arm pat and flashed me a knowing look. She’d caught me staring at Bonnie more than once in the last hour, and she’d been privy to the exchange between us earlier. By six, the library was empty except for the two of us, and by seven, I still hadn’t made the closing announcement. The light outside had gone dark, and I didn’t care.

At seven twenty, Bonnie stopped typing. Her head came up, her eyes went to the windows, and then straight to the clock.

“Oh no.” She was on her feet in an instant, shoving her laptop into her bag. “Not again. Gray, it’s past seven.”

“I know.”