I nodded to him and made my way to Miss Turnbuckle. It took some time to cut through the crowd now that the event was over.

The seat beside her was open and I settled into it, taking off my hat. “Looking forward to our date, but remember, I’m an impressionable young man, Miss T. I need to be home by ten or Alice will ground me.”

She tipped her head back and laughed. I always liked the woman. I’d actually enjoyed going to the library with my mother when I was little. Still did. Unlike Sawyer and Huck, I liked to read and spent the long winters in the overstuffed chair by my fireplace with a good book. Miss Turnbuckle often set aside something she thought I would enjoy, and she was usually right.

“No doubt.” She looked up at a someone who passed and gave her a wave, then returned her attention to me.

“If I were fifty years younger, Thatcher Manning,” she began, reaching out to give my hand a pat. “We’d go to Lake Delta and do some things that would frighten the fish.”

I felt my cheeks heat as I ran a hand over the back of my neck.

“Don’t scare him, Aunt Jean.” A woman came around behind me, leaned down and kissed Miss Turnbuckle on the cheek. My gaze ran over her. Average height. Brown hair that was pulled back into a thick braid down her back. She had on jeans and a white and blue striped shirt. While the outfit was far from memorable, I couldn’t miss the way the horizontal lines accentuated the full swells of her breasts.

And I was a breast man, for fucking sure. I guessed hers were more than a handful. Two lush mounds to get lost between.

She settled into the seat on the other side of her aunt and pushed a pair of thick glasses up her nose. I hadn’t known Miss Turnbuckle had any relatives. As I thought about it, I had no idea where she lived. In fact, I just assumed she lived at the library.

“He’s thirty years old. He should be past frightening,” Miss Turnbuckle countered.

How she knew my exact age, I’d never know. Another one of the things she filed away in that brain of hers.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” she said, offering me, then her aunt a smile. “God, I hate being late, but the Pardue wedding was relocated at the last minute and no one told me. I barely got the cake there in time.”

“This is my great-niece, Astrid,” Miss Turnbuckle said, then tipped her head toward me. “Astrid, Thatcher Manning. I hooked him into reading with the Hardy Boys series when he was seven and has been reading mysteries ever since.”