Free The Mountain Between Us by Cindy Myers Page A

think so.”
    The smug look on his face infuriated her, which was, of course, the whole idea. A bit of payback, perhaps, for her turning down his proposal? Though she still didn’t believe he’d actually wanted to marry her, she could believe his pride had been hurt, just a little. “So you really aren’t going to let me see the ring?”
    â€œMaybe one day, when you change your mind about marrying me.” He bent and kissed her cheek, then walked out, leaving her to fume and to wonder. He’d sounded awfully certain, as if she really would change her mind. Or as if he really wanted her to.
    Â 
    â€œExcuse me, I’m looking for Miss Wynock?” Olivia’s voice sounded too loud in the hushed confines of Eureka Library. Everything smelled of old paper and furniture polish, and had the air of a place long shut off from the world, like a mausoleum or a seldom visited museum. Olivia herself hadn’t been in a library since high school, though Lucas spent hours in them, in every city in which they’d lived.
    The woman behind the front desk stared at her, round-eyed behind thick glasses. “Cassie’s in the back,” she said in a normal tone of voice. She pointed a finger toward the back of the room. “Over in periodicals.”
    Olivia tiptoed between low display shelves filled with fossils and old mining tools, past a bank of personal computers and shelves filled with videos and books, to an open section of armchairs and rotating magazine racks. A thin, gray-haired woman dressed in a gray skirt and a white blouse looked up at her approach. “Miss Wynock?” Olivia asked.
    â€œYes?”
    â€œI’m Olivia Theriot. Lucas’s mother.”
    â€œIf he’s done something wrong, I certainly had nothing to do with it,” Cassie snapped. “The boy’s too smart for his own good.”
    The woman’s instant recognition of Lucas’s name surprised Olivia, even though Lucas had said they were friends. She had a hard time picturing her sweet, curious son and this dried prune of a woman together. “Lucas hasn’t done anything wrong. He . . . I need to do some research on the history of Eureka. He gave me a list of books to read. And he said I should talk to you.”
    â€œOh, he did, did he?” Cassie drew herself up taller, looking pleased. She adjusted her glasses on her nose. “Let me see the list.”
    Olivia handed over the sheet of paper covered in Lucas’s boyish scrawl. Cassie scanned the list, then raised her gaze to Olivia once more. “Why are you so interested in Eureka’s history?”
    â€œJanelle and Danielle at the Last Dollar have hired me to paint a mural on the back wall of the café. They want something with scenes from Eureka’s history.”
    â€œThey stole the idea from my Founders’ Pageant at Hard Rock Days. Those two were certainly never interested in local history before. “
    â€œI don’t know what inspired them.” She was not going to get in the middle of a feud between the librarian and the café owners. “Can you help me with these books?”
    Cassie looked her up and down. Olivia fought the urge to fidget, like a girl called into the principal’s office. If this project hadn’t been so important, and if she could think of any other way to get the information she needed, she’d have turned on her heels and left Cassie Wynock to stew in her own superior attitude.
    â€œCome with me.” Cassie motioned for Olivia to follow and set off at a brisk walk back toward the front desk. She breezed past the woman behind the counter and into an office with glass on two sides, which allowed the occupant to look out over the library. “Sit down.” Cassie indicated the chair across from the desk.
    Olivia sat. Cassie took the chair behind the desk and pulled out a thick brown photo album—the kind where all the photographs are held in