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voice and a clipped way of speaking that made him sound younger than his seventy-odd years.
    “I have.”
    “Good. Then I don’t have to give you all the details.” I could hear papers being moved and I guessed that he was in his office just up the hill from Maggie’s studio in the River Arts Center. “I’ve talked to everyone and the library board is fully behind using the building and the grounds to help make this festival a success. Wouldn’t hurt to bring some tourist dollars to town this time of year.”
    “I’ll help in any way I can,” I said, picking gray cat hair off my gray trousers, proof that Owen had been sitting in the bedroom chair on top of the pants while I’d been brushing my teeth.
    “I knew I could count on you, Kathleen. Thank you.”
    “You’re welcome,” I said. “Abigail’s already talking about using the new gazebo as a stage.”
    He laughed. “That idea came from Rebecca.”
    I really wasn’t surprised. Rebecca, my backyard neighbor and Everett’s soon-to-be wife, was a very creative person and she was usually involved in whatever was happening around town in one way or the other.
    “How are the wedding plans coming?” I asked.
    “I think we have a date . . . maybe.”
    “You could always run off to Las Vegas and get married by an Elvis impersonator.”
    Everett laughed. “You’ve been talking to Rebecca. She’s the only woman I’ve ever come across who’s getting married but doesn’t care about the details.”
    “All Rebecca wants is to be married to you.” The edge of my desk wasn’t made for sitting on in any kind of comfort so I stood up and turned to look out the window. The clouds were clearing away. It was going to be a nice afternoon.
    “I want that, too,” he said. “I’ve wanted it for a long time.”
    “I’ll see if I can put in a good word for you,” I said.
    “I appreciate that.” His tone turned serious. “Kathleen, with Abigail working on the theater festival for the next couple of weeks, you’re going to be stretched a little thin. Why don’t we put off our conversation about your future here until it’s over?”
    “That’s fine with me, Everett,” I said. He reminded me, as he always did, to call Lita if I needed anything and we said good-bye. I hung up the phone and went to sit in my desk chair.
    Having a couple of extra weeks to decide whether I was going to stay in Mayville Heights was just what I needed. It gave me time to figure things out with Marcus.
    I reached for the photo that Lise had taken when I’d been back in Boston over the summer, the day that Andrew had seen us in the park. My mother was laughing, leaning back against Dad’s shoulder. When they were working on a play together they tended to get a little too caught up in their characters, which meant things could get decidedly odd around the house, but they were crazy about each other, even when they drove each other crazy. Always had been, which was why they’d been married twice—to each other.
    Marcus made me crazy sometimes. I liked him—a lot more than I’d been willing to admit to anyone, especially myself. Well, Owen and Hercules appeared to have figured it out. But we always seemed to bang heads over his cases. Being a police officer was more than Marcus’s job; it was part of who he was. Just the way wanting to help the people I cared about was part of who I was. Were we crazy enough about each other to work through the things that made us crazy? I wasn’t sure.
    I rubbed the space between my eyebrows with the heel of my hand. What had Maggie said to me?
What’s meant to be always finds a way to be
. Maybe what I needed to do was take a step back and let whatever was meant to be just happen. I just wasn’t very good at that.
    It was late morning and I had my head in the book drop—literally—trying to figure out why it kept jamming when it was half full of books, when I heard a group of people come into the library. I straightened up to find a tall