Hitting the Books (A Library Lover's Mystery, Band 9) - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Former librarian Jenn McKinlay is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Bluff Point Romances, including Every Dog Has His Day, Barking Up the Wrong Tree, and About a Dog, as well as the Library Lover’s Mysteries, the Cupcake Bakery Mysteries, and the Hat Shop Mysteries. Jenn lives in sunny Arizona in a house that is overrun with kids, pets, and her husband’s guitars.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

***This excerpt is from an advance uncorrected copy proof***

Copyright © 2018 Jenn McKinlay

Chapter One

He was whistling. At five o’clock in the morning, the man was whistling. Lindsey Norris grabbed an extra pillow and plopped it over her face, making a sandwich out of her head. It blocked out the chipper sound coming from the bathroom, but it also made breathing a challenge. She shifted and tried to make an air duct for her nose and mouth without letting in any sound. Sucking in a breath of cool early morning air, she tried to get back to her blissful unconscious state.

Her brain refused to be lulled. It was too busy being irritated. What sort of person whistled first thing in the morning? Her boyfriend, Captain Mike Sullivan, that’s who. The man woke up before the sun rose every day, even on days he didn’t have to. It was positively unnatural. Lindsey had moved into Sully’s house several months ago, and while she loved him and she loved living with him, there were just a few things that made living together a bit tense, not the least of which was Sully’s egregious habit of greeting every day whistling like a songbird at sunrise.

A former navy man who owned his own boat touring and water taxi company, Sully was used to being up and out before anyone else. Lindsey was not. She was the library director for their small town of Briar Creek, and as a public servant, she kept bankers’ hours, with an evening and rotating weekends thrown in just to keep it interesting.

Great, now her mind was on work. Lindsey did a quick mental rundown of her day, hoping that by thinking it through, she could put it aside and fall back to sleep. She had a meeting at nine o’clock with the library board, which had been in transition since its last president had been murdered. She hadn’t yet gotten a read on the new members and what their expectations of the library were. Mostly, they seemed relieved after every meeting to still be alive. She wasn’t sure what that said about her as a library director. She decided to bring muffins and hope that relaxed them a bit. After all, everyone liked muffins.

At lunch, she had a crafternoon scheduled. This was a weekly Thursday meeting where they shared lunch, did a craft, and talked about a book. Lindsey wasn’t a crafty sort, so this week’s string bracelets were not really her thing, but her library assistant, who was in charge of the craft, assured her that the worst that could happen would be that she’d suffer a small burn. Lindsey made a mental note to put some antibiotic pain-relief ointment in her purse.

Lastly, she had a late meeting with the mayor to discuss making the library a more environmentally friendly space by changing out the current lighting with more energy-efficient LEDs. The mayor was all about the bottom line and never welcomed ideas, even good ones, that would cost money in the immediate election cycle. His ideas for the future didn’t run much past getting reelected. She was going to have to come up with a compelling reason for the change to get him to listen to her. Maybe she could convince him that this would get him the youth vote in the next election.

Today was definitely a “look professional” day. Pity. She would have preferred to wear her book-lover pajamas to work, comfy flannel pj’s covered in a repeating pattern of eyeglasses and flying books. It was April in Connecticut, still on the chilly side in the morning, but the afternoon would be warmer. Her navy blue business suit with the pencil skirt and tailored jacket would work. She wondered whether she’d gotten her jade green blouse back from the dry cleaners—that would lighten up the severity of the suit but still give her executive polish.

How much time had passed since the whistling started? Why hadn’t she fallen back to sleep? Could she fall back to sleep now? Lindsey tried to gauge her level of tiredness. Her brain was fully engaged; sleep was going to remain a memory for the rest of the day. Darn it.

Her nose twitched. What was that smell? Mmm. Coffee. She peeked one eye out from under her pillow. Freshly showered and shaved, Sully was approaching with a steaming mug of coffee in one hand. He carefully put it on her nightstand. The man brought her coffee; that was the definition of true love in Lindsey’s book. His unfortunate whistling was immediately forgiven.

She reached out from under the covers and grabbed his hand before he could escape. He allowed her to pull him down, and he crouched beside the bed and peered under the pillow.

“You awake in there?” he asked.

Lindsey tossed the pillow aside. “Good morning.”

Sully studied her with a small smile on his lips. “Good morning. I can’t believe you’re awake.”

“Really?” she asked. She didn’t mention the whistling.

“What time did you finally put the book down last night?”

Lindsey glanced at the floor, where the book she’d been reading had landed when she’d fallen asleep. “One thirty, maybe two.”

“In the morning?” Sully asked. He ran a hand through his reddish brown hair, making the curly waves stand on end.

“I was suffering from OMC syndrome,” she said.

“OMC, is that some sort of insomnia?”

“Sort of. It stands for one more chapter.”

“Book nerd,” Sully teased. Then he leaned forward and kissed her on the nose before standing up.

Lindsey yawned. “Yes, I am, and I have no read-grets, not even for missed sleep. The book was that good.”

“Is that another made-up word?” he asked. Lindsey nodded. “Fine, then here’s one for you. If you don’t get moving, you’re going to have to break the read-o-meter to get to work on time. It’s already eight fifteen.”

“What! I thought it was five. You always get up at five.”

“Not today,” he said. “I have a late boat tour, plus I was tired because somebody keeps their light on into the wee hours of the morning.”

“Gah!” Lindsey lurched from the bed, dislodging her dog, Heathcliff, from where he was resting his head on her knee. She grabbed the hot mug of coffee and slurped some as she hurried into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.

“You look awful, like someone left you out in the rain, tossed you on the floor of their car, where you were stepped on for a few months, and then they stuffed you in the book drop and pretended they had no idea how you got into such bad shape,” Beth Barker said. She stared down at Lindsey, who was sprawled on the couch in the crafternoon room at the back of the library.

“Gee, thanks,” Lindsey said. She opened her eyes and glanced at her best friend, who was also the children’s librarian. “That means so much coming from a woman who is dressed like a pigeon.”

Wearing an oversize gray sweatshirt that had big, round eyes and a beak sewn onto the hood, Beth flapped her arms, which had been fashioned into wings, and then clasped them in front of her in a begging pose. “Please, can I drive the bus? I’ll be your best friend.”

Lindsey snorted. No one could act out Mo Willems’s Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! better than Beth.

“You’re already my best friend,” she said. “Which is why I forgive you for saying I look awful.”

“It’s a book hangover, isn’t it?” Paula Turner entered the room, pushing a cart full of craft materials. “Was it A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,...