“It’s a terrible age,” Victoria said. It was heartening to see another side of the man who rattled her with his charm. Underneath that façade, he was insecure about caring for a child. “They’re so doubtful at that age; too caught up with what everyone thinks of them.”

“I tried to tell her as much, last night. There’s a tiny part of her that’s still willing to listen, but I don’t know... Hollingsworth Academy is beyond my control.”

“It helps if she has people in her corner when she gets home from that place,” Victoria said with a grin. “Keep listening to her without too much judgement, and she might continue to talk to you.”

John set the photos down on his desk and tossed a few of the empty coffee cups in a wastebasket. “Thank you. That’s sound advice, Dr. Reese,” he said, maneuvering around his desk. “Now let’s get you in the stacks.”

Just when she thought it was safe to lower her guard and talk about something else, he was switching gears again. He moved swiftly, brushing against her as he exited the office. An electric charge traveled swiftly up her arms and to her heart. With a deep breath, Victoria set down her purse and followed him.

Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight

“Are you familiar with the Dewey Decimal System?” John asked.

Victoria struggled with the stack of books balanced against her jutting hip. “Of course,” she said as she stopped the top book from sliding off. He carried a stack of ten books with the ease of a seasoned cocktail waitress.

“Good, which books are located in the eight-hundreds?” he asked, watching her shift her stack around.

“Easy, literature.”

“Okay, how about the four-hundreds?”

Victoria searched her mind for that area of the library. Four-hundreds are... “I don’t know,” she finally admitted.

“You’re standing next to the four-hundreds,” he said.

She frowned before looking at the books around her. “Languages? I’m not in this area often.”

“That’s fair, but your students are going to have to study all of these areas if they want to shelve correctly.”

Victoria, a former straight A student, was strangely disappointed that she didn’t know every square inch of the nonfiction section. “Right.”

“And the books you’re holding?”

She craned to check the spines of her books, tipping them to the side. “These are nine-hundreds. History, I’m assuming?”

“Yep, go ahead and shelve those while I work on biographies.”

Victoria shifted the books to her other hip as she followed him towards a more secluded spot in the non-fiction area. Near the back, there were two unoccupied study rooms with the lights switched off. When she found her assigned section, she propped her books on an empty space and shook out her arms. They were already shaking under the weight. Behind her, John had already set out to do his work.