He laughed, the sound echoing through the building. “Nice try. Rose said I have to share, which means you have to share, too.”
“Fine. I set you guys up at the big tables in the reference section. You’ll have to go in the break room to get coffee, though. This building suffers from a serious lack of electrical outlets.”
It had taken her two years to get the okay to have some electrical work done and the amount they’d approved was ridiculously low. She’d settled for upgrading the outlets they used for the computers and adding outlets to the seating areas where people liked to plug their chargers in.
She realized the hot guy in the game warden uniform was staring at her, but kids started arriving with their parents in tow and she was too busy getting everybody settled in to make eye contact with him.
Even during regular business hours, the noise level wouldn’t have bothered her. They’d quiet down a little once the actual education part of the class started, and she usually put a notice in the weekly paper and always put a sign on the door. If you were looking for quiet time at the library, the hour two dozen preschoolers were watching a story time puppet show wasn’t it.
Once the library officially opened at ten, she knew Josh would try to keep the kids down to a dull roar, and she might have to hand out some sympathetic, if not entirely sincere, apologies to patrons who missed the sign, but it was one day. Everybody would survive.
When the game warden bent over to pull the handbooks out of a cardboard box and his uniform stretched over his back and behind, she decided to give him a hand.
“I’ll help you pass those around,” she said, holding out her hand for a stack. He smelled delicious and she moved a little closer.
“Thanks. If you don’t mind, there’s a box of Warden Service pencils there, too. If you could make sure each kid has one, that would be great.”
“Not a problem.”
His voice certainly tickled her very-much-still-ticklish fancy, and Hailey frowned as she moved around the tables, passing out workbooks and pencils. There was something about his voice that seemed familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it.
She snuck a few more looks at him, but she would remember that jaw if she’d seen it. And that mouth.
“Hey,” Josh said, “Matt marked a few of those workbooks as instructors’ copies because they have the answers in them. Did you see them anywhere?”
“You afraid you’ll flunk ATV Riding 101 without a cheat sheet, Kowalski?” Dave Camden asked, smirking.
Hailey frowned. “Matt?”
“Yeah, Matt Barnett. The game warden?”
She turned to face the guy with the smooth jaw and crisp uniform. “His name is Matt?”
It clicked. The lines of his back. The ass. The voice. He saw her staring and stared back. With those light brown eyes framed by dark, full lashes.
Wow. Tori was never going to believe this. And she was never, ever going to let Hailey live this one down.
*
MATT WAS GLAD he hadn’t seen the town’s librarian until after he’d introduced himself to the other guys because he’d been struck speechless when he realized this Hailey was, in fact, the same Hailey he’d helped find her way out of the woods. He wasn’t sure what the chances were of that happening, but he felt like he should buy a lottery ticket or bet on a horse race.
She looked different today. Her hair was in a ponytail again and she had makeup on, but just a touch and it was accenting her pretty face rather than making her look like a raccoon. Her T-shirt had something to do with some computer game all the kids, including his niece and nephews, were playing, and jeans. And she had on sneakers. She didn’t really look like a lot of librarians he’d known, which might go a long way toward explaining why the kids were so comfortable there.
He’d had some reservations when the police chief told them they’d be holding the class in a library, but Hailey didn’t seem to mind the noise or the banana bread crumbs coating the tables.
She minded him, though. He wasn’t used to women not being happy to see him, and he wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. It’s not like he’d deliberately disguised himself to fool her into believing he was some kind of forest hermit.
He suspected he knew what her problem was. She’d been checking him out since he walked into the building, and finding out he was the same guy she’d turned her nose up at in the woods had thrown her for a loop.
It was too bad, really. Hailey the librarian might rev his engine, but he didn’t need to get sprayed by a skunk to know she wasn’t for him.