Page 30 of The Library of Borrowed Hearts

I don’t know… What’s your favorite book?

Right now? Guess.

Pride and Prejudice?

Ew. Be serious.

Fine. Mysteries of Udolpho.

Getting warmer. I’ve always loved a good Gothic…Bonus points if it’s modern. Horror is so much scarier when it has a possibility of being real. SJ, forexample, knows how to strike the fear of God in a girl.

Oh, geez. I’m not reading that one. It’s too scary.

Did you guess? Good boy. But I should warn you ahead of time…it’s not scary. It’s terrifying.

Wait. Why aren’t you saying anything?

J? J???

Fine. You win. Let’s read the terrifying one.

But I thought you didn’t like terrifying things?

…I’m starting to change my mind.

And that was where it ended. No more messages, no more literary criticisms, no more developments about Jasper’s blue shirt and how it brought out the color in his eyes. Since I’d seen the messages inTropic of Cancer, I knew that things between them must have progressed to the point where they started meeting in public and—1960s sensibilities notwithstanding—discussed things like love and lice and lying down in bed together.

I wanted to fill in those gaps. Ineededit. More than a blank check. More than all the casseroles Babs could muster. More, even, than a faded phone number I didn’t have the nerve to call.

“This is really important to you, isn’t it?” Pepper asked me, her head tilted as she watched me sigh and clutch the book to my chest. Needless to say, I wouldn’t be putting this back on the library shelf—not thatanyone would miss it. I’d tried scanning the book to get a glimpse of its checkout history, but for some reason, the battered barcode wasn’t in our system.

“I have to know what happened,” I said.

She pursed her lips. “He won’t like it.”

I didn’t have to ask who she meant. “I’ll give Jasper the whole collection when I’m done gathering it. Word of a Sampson.”

“He won’t like that, either. He’ll know you read everything.”

“Then I’ll hide it from him and spend the rest of my life making sure it stays hidden from everyone else in existence, too.”

“Fine,” she said. “I’ll help you.”

I was so relieved to hear those words from Pepper’s mouth that I failed to note the way she held up her one hand in warning.

“But only if you fill out that check for the full five thousand dollars and take it to the bank during your lunch break.”

As if I could do thatnow. “Pepper, that’s not fair! I just told you that Jasper offered to babysit Noodle for as long as I need him. I can’t accept both his generosity and his money. It’s too much.”

Her lips pursed even tighter. “Then you have to let me call in sick or sign over some of my vacation days to pitch in.”

I shook my head, feeling my heart sink with each twist and turn. I knew that look on Pepper’s face. That was her determined face, her I-will-not-be-crossed face.

“You need those days for your grandmother,” I insisted.

“You have to give mesomething, Chloe,” Pepper said. “I’m getting exhausted just watching you try to carry the whole weight of the world on your shoulders. Isn’t there anyone you can call to lend you a helping hand? Some unknown hero waiting in the wings?”

Something about her phrasing—that unknown hero, a man just waiting for me to send out a call—caused me to fire up. My instinct was to ignore that warm, liquidy sensation, to push it down until my stomachacid consumed it, but I didn’t. How could I, when I was clutching a bona fide romance to my chest? I didn’t believe in True Love™, and if I had anything to say about it, I never would, but even my cold dead heart felt a pitter-pattering starting to take flight behind my rib cage.