Taking the Heat

He hadn’t dated much in the past couple of years. He’d spent his days off camping and exploring the hills south of Cincinnati. But in Wyoming, the wilderness was right here, and the town was full of women who spent more time outside than Gabe did. His dating pool was wide-open. Maybe he’d make that count, too.

Not that he’d meet anyone at the martini bar tonight, he thought as he eyed the sign ahead with disdain. The Three Martini Ranch. Popular with the ski crowd, no doubt. People from the big city. People like Veronica. She might have been from Wyoming originally, but she was all Manhattan now. Styled hair and big sunglasses and high heels, all for a trip to the library. Wow.

The funny thing was that he liked Lauren a lot. She seemed down-to-earth and smart as hell. Not the kind of woman to put up with bullshit. So why was she friends with a high-maintenance girl like Veronica Chandler?

A mystery he wouldn’t put much time into. He’d keep his head down tonight, try to have a good time with the other librarians and deny any connection to New York if it would keep Lauren from trying to hook him up with a city girl.

He took a deep breath and opened the door of the bar, noticing that the door handle was a metal sculpture of a toothpick with an olive on the end. “Cute,” he muttered.

The noise of the place hit him as soon as he stepped in. Gabe was shocked. He’d been to Jackson often enough in the past few years to know that the high-end places were dead empty during the off-season, and he would’ve expected this to be one of them. But almost every table was full and people were gathered around a small stand at the front, stuffing notes into a blue vase. Free Advice! read the sign in front of the vase. Submit Your Dear Veronica Questions Here!

That part might be entertaining, at least. Gabe spotted the table of his new coworkers but was surprised to also see two people he knew at another table. The man and woman were both rock-climbing guides. He gave them a wave as he passed on his way toward Lauren.

“Gabe!” Lauren called as he drew closer. She seemed happy to see him, at least. He’d been the only male librarian around in most of the positions he’d held since grad school, and it wasn’t always a comfortable fit. At his first job, he’d been tempted to have the word interloper tattooed on his forehead.

“You made it,” Lauren said. “I wasn’t sure you’d be up for hanging around a bunch of strange ladies at a bar.”

“What can I say? I’m down with strange ladies.”

“Then you came to the right spot.”

He nodded to the other two women, both of whom he’d met today during his training. The library director wasn’t around, and Gabe felt no surprise at that. He could already tell she was the type of boss who stayed holed up in the office with the door closed as often as possible.

Gabe was a little relieved that, so far, none of his new coworkers were part of his dating pool. He’d fallen head over heels for a coworker a few years ago, and that had ended badly. Not with spectacular fireworks but with a simmering, drawn-out death that had made work a misery for six months until he’d finally taken another job.

After that he’d instituted a no-dating-at-work rule that had felt a little unnatural for a while. As the only single male student in his MLIS class, he’d spent a lot of time dating peers. But he’d also been young and dumb. At thirty-one, he was marginally smarter, but he was relieved that his coworkers were all either in relationships or members of AARP.

“So what did you think of your first day?” Lauren asked.

“The library is great. You’ve made efficient use of the space, but it’s still welcoming. It’s amazing to be working in a small community library again.”

Lauren smiled. “It’s a big change from the main branch of the Cincinnati Public Library, I’m sure.”

“It’ll be a relief not to be in touch with social services for a while. You wouldn’t believe how often we had to try to find help for people using the library as a shelter.”

“Just because this is a small town doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen here.”

“Right,” he corrected himself. “Of course.”

“Not on a daily basis, though.” She watched him for a moment. “How old are you, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Thirty-one.”

“That’s a relief. I was afraid that beard was hiding a baby face. Did you concentrate on digital lending in Cincinnati?”

“I didn’t spearhead it there, but I worked on it from planning through implementation. Have you guys been looking at it long?”

She shrugged. “We’ve talked about it. We checked it out last year, but we really needed to invest in our Spanish-language section. And personally, I think an e-reader is cost prohibitive for the members of the community who need the library most.”

“I know exactly what you mean, but you have to keep in mind that a huge percentage of the community has at least a smartphone, and these—”

“Hold on,” Lauren interrupted, and Gabe worried that he’d misstepped, already talking up his plans on the first day, but then he realized she was pulling a phone from her pocket. “Hey, Jake,” she said, covering her other ear as she stood. “Just a second. I can’t hear anything in here.”

She’d taken only one step away when Gabe heard her name being called. Lauren kept moving toward the door, a hand still pressed to her free ear. Gabe looked toward the sound of a woman calling out “Lauren!” one more time.

It was Veronica Chandler, standing in the opening of a hallway that he assumed led to the bathrooms and the office of the bar. She stood up on tiptoe and waved toward Lauren, then lowered herself again, her face falling from hope to disappointment.

Her blond hair still looked the same, some sort of angled, stylish cut that would look at home in any big city, but her face looked younger without the sunglasses. In fact, Gabe was a little surprised at how young she looked. He’d placed Lauren somewhere around forty, but Veronica looked more like twenty now that he could see her wide blue eyes and round cheeks. She bit her lip and her worried gaze swept the room as if she were lost.

Shit. Gabe glanced toward the door, but Lauren was nowhere to be seen. Veronica crossed her arms and stared at the door as if her only hope had disappeared. Gabe excused himself from the table and wound his way through the crowd.

She was still frowning toward the doorway and didn’t notice him until he stopped in front of her. “Jesus!” she gasped, slapping a hand to her chest.

“Sorry,” Gabe said. “I didn’t mean to startle you. Lauren got a phone call. She should be back any second.”

“Oh. Okay.” She crossed her arms again and stepped farther back into the hallway, then raised a thumb to her mouth to chew at the nail. He noticed that despite her smoky eye makeup and glossy lips, her nails were bare and cut short.

“Is there something I can do for you?” he asked.

When she finally gave up her vigil and looked right at him, Gabe was a little shocked by the vivid blue of her eyes. But he was the only one who felt that jolt, apparently, because her frown was decidedly suspicious.

“I’m Gabe,” he offered. “We met today at the library.”

“I remember,” she said.

“Is something wrong?” Gabe asked. “Do you want me to grab Lauren for you? She’s probably right outside.”

She sighed and shook her head. “No, it’s okay. I just need a drink, and I was hoping not to mingle.” She waved toward the bar, and Gabe winced at the casual gesture. She really was a bit of a diva. Still, that didn’t mean he couldn’t be a gentleman.

“I’m happy to grab something for you. What do you drink?”

He expected a complicated order, but she shrugged. “I don’t know. Just a cosmo, I guess?”

It came out as a question, but he nodded. “A cosmo. You got it. I’ll be right back.”

“Could you bring it to the office? I have to go through these questions. And I really need a drink.”

He headed toward the bar, deciding he’d need a drink to get through this evening, too. Just as he got the bartender’s attention and ordered a beer and a cosmo, a loud, friendly voice rang out over the PA system.

“Hello, locals!” the warm voice called.

He turned and was shocked to see that it was Veronica, holding a microphone, her arm draped over the big blue vase.

“I’m Dear Veronica, in the flesh!”

The crowd cheered and hooted as she laughed. Her face looked transformed again. Neither cool and haughty nor young and uncertain, her round face now held a friendly, open warmth and a wide smile.

She waved at the whole crowd. “It’s great to finally meet you in person!”