Page 24 of The Lonely Hearts Book Club

“Oho, so you’re a doctor as well as a librarian?”

“I can read a label. It doesn’t require a medical degree to know you should be taking things easy.” She set the tray aside and started clearing a spot for Arthur. “Now sit down and stay there. I don’t want to have to tie you to this sofa.”

“You and what army?” he countered, but he sat down—and without any physical restraints needed.

A sudden burst of inspiration struck me. They do that sometimes, not like a bolt of lightning, but like a baseball bat to the head.

“Well, that settles it,” I said.

“Settles what?” they both asked. The fact that they glanced at me with the same tilt to their heads, the same surprise widening their eyes, confirmed my decision. Two more perfect people for each other had never existed.

“Sloane is going to be your new nurse.” Before either of them could protest—a thing Iknewwas coming from the way they both opened their mouths to speak at the same time—I did the one thing I was best at. Talking.

“You probably haven’t heard yet, but you got Sloane fired from the library today,” I told Arthur. Sloane tried shooting me a warning glance but I pretended not to see her. “She doesn’t have a job anymore, and there’s no one to blame for it but you.”

“That’s not quite how it—” Sloane began, but I was ready for her.

“And Arthur has thrown a temper tantrum with every single person who’s been inside this house for the past week. If I hadn’t walked in next to you, he’d have probably thrown that vase at my head.”

“That vase is an heirloom. I’d have thrown the coatrack.”

Sloane’s lips twitched as she struggled to suppress a laugh. I saw my advantage and pressed it.

“See what I mean?Someoneneeds to be here to make sure Mr. McLachlan takes his medication on time and doesn’t hurt himself at meals. And Sloane can’t pay her bills without some means of financial support. It’s the perfect solution. You owe it to each other.”

I didn’t actually know if any of this was true. That young man in the Tesla looked as though he could pick up the tab for several of Sloane’s bills, and Arthur McLachlan could have woken up tomorrow morning in perfect health, but telling people what they wanted to hear was my superpower.

Arthur was the first to speak. “The last thing I need is some dewy-eyed dreamer trying to tell me how to run my household.”

I winced at the harsh words, but Sloane seemed to grow a little taller under them. “And the last thingIneed is to play nursemaid to a bitter old man who doesn’t know how to say thank you.”

For a moment, I feared I’d lost them. They glared at each other in a way that seemed to kindle the air, both of them ready to run at the first sign of fire. But then Arthur did it again.

“Of course, if you wanted to stay and catalog my books, then you might actually be of use to me,” he said.

“You want me to catalog your books? Really?” Sloane cast a quick, eager look around the living room, where books of all shapes and sizes practically spilled from the seams. My ex used to do that with vinyl records. Half of them were for bands no one had ever heard of, but he’d hoarded those dratted things like they were pieces of eight.

Considering what they won him in the end, he wasn’t wrong.

“You’re a librarian, aren’t you?” Arthur demanded. “What else are you going to do all day? Read me fairy tales?”

Sloane shot me a helpless look, but I busied myself pouring coffee and biting down on the tip of my tongue. The last thing these two needed was the benefit of my advice. It wasgoodadvice, and it was killing me not to offer it, but some situations called for restraint.

“You do seem to have an awful lot of books lying haphazardly about,” Sloane said. “I’m assuming upstairs is more of the same?”

“Is that a hint to go poking around the rest of my house?”

“If I’m going to handle your personal library, I’ll have to dosomepoking. Since you’ve already started dividing out a Modernist section, we’ll have to figure out what kind of taxonomy you’d prefer. Genre and surname might work in a smaller personal library, but with something of this size, we’re looking at more niche classifications.” She picked up a book from the top of a stack and started rifling through it. I didn’t understand half of what she’d just said, but Arthur seemed impressed.

“I can’t stay hereallthe time,” she said, once again looking to me for assistance. I offered an encouraging nod, so she continued. “But maybe for tonight, I can sleep over so we can go over a few things. Then I can come back for regular shifts throughout the week…”

I handed her a cup of coffee before preparing one for Arthur. He took one look at the white cream swirling in the center and sneered at me. “Youwouldput cream in it,” he said, as if two-thirds of the population didn’t drink their coffee that way. Then he ignored me to focus on Sloane. “I’m not paying you a penny above minimum wage, mind. And I know exactly which books are the most valuable, so if you try to run off with one…”

Instead of being insulted by this—an emotion she would be fully justified to feel—Sloane laughed. “I wouldn’t dare, Mr. McLachlan. The librarian code of honor forbids it.”

I knew it was a done deal when that cranky old toad set his coffee down and fixed his hard gray eyes on the younger woman. He was susceptible to that sweet laugh of hers, too. I just knew it.

“Call me Arthur,” he said, and so gruffly we had to lean in to hear the words. “If you’re going to be lurking all over my house, rifling through my personal belongings, I won’t have you Mr. McLachlaning me this and Mr. McLachlaning me that.”