“What genre?”
His mouth bent down at the corners. “To be honest, I have no idea. I can’t say I’ve ever read a book in its entirety. I don’t really read.”
Sarah seemed more startled by that information than she had been by Lance’s sudden appearance moments earlier. “You don’t read?”
“Does the ESPN app count?”
She blew out a slow sigh, fingers drumming on the counter. “Well, any type of reading is good in my book.” She gave him a little grace. “But what about in school? Didn’t you read for your English classes?”
He shook his head.
“Romeo and Juliet?” Lance’s head swung in a ‘no’ once more. Sarah openly grimaced. “The Great Gatsby?”
“The Great what?”
With her eyes snapped shut for a beat, Sarah swallowed thickly before moving around the counter that separated them. When she took him by the elbow, Lance had to muster all his strength to keep his knees from buckling. The last thing he needed was for them to give out on him, causing a whole new injury of an entirely different kind.
“We’re going to teach you how to read, Lance.”
“It’s not that I don’t knowhowto read.” He chuckled. “It’s that I don’t like to.”
“But you just admitted that you’ve never even read a full book. How do you know you don’t like something if you haven’t tried it?”
Fair point, he supposed.
She smiled, that brilliant, radiant grin that left Lance wondering how he’d ever viewed Sarah as anything but someone he could wholeheartedly fall for.
Suddenly, Dr. Franklin’s prescription seemed far less about Lance’s mending knee, and far more about opening up his heart. He just wasn’t sure he was strong enough to take that first step.
CHAPTER 3
“Why didn’t you tell him?”
Sarah caught the banana slice in her palm before it hit the checkered floor of the Cornerstone Café. Since her return, she and her brother, Holden, had reinstated their weekly sibling breakfasts, but truth be told, she was ready to cancel on him out of sheer frustration.
Holden busied Laney with a red coloring crayon that looked like it had been chewed on by its previous user. “I didn’t think it was my place to say anything.” He slid the paper menu toward Laney even though they both knew full well the toddler wouldn’t be able to stay within the lines of the snowman drawing.
“I feel like it was totally your place to say something. He’s your best friend.”
“He’s your friend, too,” Holden countered. “You could have told him yourself.”
She didn’t want to take ownership over that, partly because they hadn’t officially ended things. When she’d returned to the city all that time ago, it was an unspoken agreement that they were no longer seeing one another, or whatever it was that they had been doing in the first place. Still, it would have been kindforsomeoneto give Lance a heads up. The poor guy had looked equal parts stricken and stunned.
“What’s going on with you two, anyway?” Holden peered over the rim of his orange juice glass to scrutinize his older sister with a questioning look.
“Nothing is going on. Maybe something was starting between us at one point.” She flapped her hand in a wave. “But that was over a year ago.”
“But you like him, right?”
Did she like Lance? Sure, she’d always been fond of him. But if her brother was asking if she had feelings for the man, she wasn’t certain she could give an honest answer. Motherhood was Sarah’s main focus. That, and building her career at the library. It was only a part-time position at the moment, but she hoped she could prove her worth and secure more hours and increased responsibilities. If she ever wanted to be able to move out of her parents’ cabin and afford her own place, she’d need a heftier paycheck.
“Lance is a great guy,” she finally answered. “I just feel bad that he was so startled to see me behind the desk when he walked into the library yesterday.”
Orange juice nearly sprayed out of Holden’s mouth. With a fist thrust to his chest, he coughed to regain his composure. “Lance was at the library? That’s not a phrase I thought I’d ever hear.”
“Dr. Franklin told him he needs to carve out some intentional downtime in his days, and that the best way to do that is to curl up with a good book.”
Holden’s shoulders wobbled. “I can’t say I disagree. I’m just shocked it’s advice Lance actually took.”
