Page 39 of The Library of Borrowed Hearts

Zach paused to look at me. “I thought he loved that girl from your book.”

“Her name is Catherine.” As I said her name out loud, my heart gave a small pang. Of sympathy, maybe. Or possibly just sadness. “At least, that’s what I assume from some of the things she wrote. And hedidlove her—I’m sure of it. That’s why I’m so determined to figure out what happened. Somewhere along the way, something terrible happened to tear them apart. It’s what turned him into such a sour, miserable old man.”

“And you want to fix it? To fixhim?”

This time, the answer was much slower in coming. Mostly because I didn’t know this man well enough to admit the truth. Pepper knew, though. She might have been the only person in the world who did.

The truth was that Jasper Holmes wasn’t the only one who held people at bay. I hadn’t lost a grand romance the way he had, but Ihadlost out on a dream. To make something of myself and get out of this town, to build a life that extended beyond the mountains that ringed our little patch of God’s green earth. Sure, I could go back to college again, or maybe even take a few online classes, but it wouldn’t be the same. Every day that passed with my hands in a sink full of dirty dishes and my bank account in the red brought me one step closer to the inevitable.

Growing old in a place like this, using my youthful disappointments as a reason to hide. Turning into a sour, miserable old woman whose only solace could be found between the pages of a book—or a garden like this one.

Solving the mystery of Jasper’s misery was as close as I could come to solving my own.

“I just want to know the truth,” I said. It was as good as I could doin the current situation. “Look, if you don’t want to help, I won’t hold you to it.”

“Oh, no you don’t.” He brought his hands up in a gesture of surrender, his grin as easy and effortless as it always was. “You’re not robbing me of my adventure now. I need this.”

“Your whole life is an adventure,” I pointed out. “You literally kill things with your bare hands and then eat them.”

“Yeah, but that’s just action-flick levels of adventure. This is intrigue. This is mystery.” He waggled his eyebrows at me. “This isromance.”

The fluttering of my heart recognized this ploy for what it was, but something about the way he spoke sparked a memory—two of them, actually, both of which tied up together in a realization that made my heart flutter even more.

The first was that in the pages of my Hemingway, Catherine had accused Jasper of being a romantic. Considering the rollout of their courtship thus far, I felt deep in my bones that she was right. Only a romantic would take the time to get to know a girl in the pages of a book before he made a single move, and then continue flirting with her through that medium for as long as possible.

The second was that when I’d walked into the backyard to find Noodle and Jasper together that first day, he’d been reading a copy ofNorth and South. That book was arguably one of the best pieces of romantic fiction to have emerged from the nineteenth century (with all apologies to Jane Austen and the Brontës, of course), but it wasn’t exactly topping the required reading list at the library. Anyone relaxing with a copy of that was doing it for pleasure, pure and simple.

These clues could only mean one thing: Jasper loved love. Somewhere underneath those deep frown lines and angry mutterings lay a man whose heart was as fragile and delicate as glass.

“I think I know how to play this,” I said suddenly.

“Really?” Zach cracked his knuckles. “Please tell me it involvesscaling that back wall. I’ve been itching to show off ever since we got here.”

I snorted but refused to let myself be charmed any further than that. “I think I’m just going come out and ask Jasper the truth.”

“Wait.” His arms dropped to his sides. “Just like that?”

“Why not?” I turned to study the house and its gardens anew. Instead of seeing his home as the wide-eyed child who’d grown up next to it, fearing the angry giant atop the beanstalk, I imagined it as the quiet oasis of a man who was clinging desperately to the one thing of beauty remaining in his life.

“I’m pretty sure he already knows I’m on to him,” I said. “We could spend weeks tiptoeing around and planning heists, or I could roll up to his front porch and put it all out there.” I nodded and took a step forward, my decision made. “You know what? I’m going in. What’s the worst he can do to me? Shut the door in my face? Throw books at me? Refuse to babysit Noodle?”

That last one actually did have the potential to derail me, but I didn’t let it weigh on my decision. I marched forward instead, only pausing to look back when it appeared that Zach wasn’t following.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. Zach hadn’t moved from his spot under the trellis, though he’d narrowed his eyes to watch my progress across the lawn. “Scared of what he might do to you? Don’t worry. I’ll protect you.”

“You have no idea, do you?” he asked.

I blinked. The total summation of all the things I didn’t know in this world would have filled the Library of Alexandria. “Know what?”

“How many women—how manypeople—would just walk up to someone and ask a question like that? ‘Excuse me, sir, but did you once love a young woman named Catherine so much that you wrote messages to her in the margins of a library book? If so, would you be willing to let me read any of the other books the two of you wrote in?’”

I felt a flush of color touch my cheeks. “You think it’s too much?”

He released a long, silent laugh that left me feeling dizzy. The feeling didn’t abate when he crossed toward me in three easy strides.

“I think it’s exactly the right amount. And I think you’re exactly the person to do it. Let’s go put it all out there and see what happens.”

“What do you mean, you found this on the shelf? Thelibraryshelf?”