Something Unexpected Read Free

Above his ambivalence about his life and the path that awaited him.
    He wanted to remain where he was, sharing a long mutual stare, even if it went no further than that.
    But she surprised him.
    Raising a loose fist, she briefly rested her knuckles against her mouth, then unfurled her index finger, crooked it, and beckoned him over.
    Instantly, Dean knew: though Tavern on the Highway was not a place he frequented, and although he believed much more in free will than manifest destiny, he—pragmatic, levelheaded Dean Kingsley—knew that for perhaps the first time in his life he was in exactly the right place at exactly the right time.

Chapter Two
    Honeyford, Oregon
March
    â€œH ere you are, Mrs. Bowman. One copy of What to Expect in the First Year .” Rosemary twinkled at her heavily pregnant customer. “Just in the nick of time, by the looks of it.”
    Elliana Bowman placed her canvas book bag atop the checkout desk of The Honeyford Public Library and slid the parenting tome carefully inside. “Two more weeks,” she told Rosemary, her handsome, bespectacled face as giddy and enchanted as a child’s. “I meant to order the book online months ago. Ordinarily I’m highly organized, but ever since I met my husband, I’m very…distractible.”
    Her high cheeks turned furiously red, and Rosemary smiled. She hadn’t known Elliana at all prior to the other woman’s marriage to Dan Bowman, Honeyford’s resident mechanic, but she’d been told that although Dan and Ellianahad lived in Honeyford all their lives, they hadn’t hooked up until they were solidly in their thirties. Now they were expecting their first child.
    Rosemary waited for the pangs of envy she used to feel when confronted with another woman’s pregnancy. Through her teens and her twenties, she’d been certain that motherhood was her mission.
    Not anymore. Her mission now was her work, and the residents of this darling town she’d been fortunate enough to find were becoming her makeshift family.
    â€œI’m going to make myself a note,” she told Elliana, “to renew that book for you automatically if you don’t return it on time. You just enjoy your pregnancy and don’t worry about a thing.”
    Elliana beamed, waving goodbye as she left, and Rosemary told herself once again how lucky she was.
    â€œPlug your nose! Incoming!”
    Rosemary turned to see her assistant, Abby, a twentysomething library clerk who wore shoulder pads and had a predilection for World War II novels, approach the circulation desk. In one hand, Abby held a book as far from her body as possible. With the thumb and forefinger of her other hand, she pinched her nostrils shut.
    â€œBrady Silva just upchucked on Captain Underpants, ” Abby announced nasally. “His mother’s in the bathroom, cleaning him up.”
    â€œOh, dear.”
    Glancing at the grandfather clock that, Rosemary was told, had graced the entrance of the Honeyford Public Library for more than fifty years, she felt a rush of relief when she saw there were only seventeen minutes left to closing time. Since beginning her job as head librarian here, she’d stayed late more nights than not, finding any number of delightful tasks to perform. In two months, she had implemented a new literacyprogram benefiting local youth and had several more programs planned. She didn’t mind staying late.
    Her sole motivation for wanting to leave on time tonight was the flu that had been snaking through Honeyford like one of the evil Dementors in Harry Potter. Because she’d felt funky on and off since morning, Rosemary feared she, too, might be coming down with the bug. Brady Silva’s accident with the book made her more than a little queasy.
    â€œNot to worry.” Rosemary reached for one of the used plastic shopping bags she kept beneath the desk, shook it open and had Abby drop the book inside.
    â€œWe’ll