Songs Of Willow

The library door swung open, struck the brick wall, and refused to close.

Kelly caught it before the wind could fling it back. Cold air rushed around her ankles, carrying the sharp smell of thawing earth and spruce. Behind her, the reading hall had filled in less than ten minutes - families escaping the sudden rain, a pair of road workers shaking water from their jackets, two teenagers whispering over a board game.

“Stay open,” Kelly murmured, gripping the brass handle. “Just stay open.”

The door answered with a metallic click that wasn’t a latch at all. The little tongue inside the lock had slipped crooked, leaving the entrance gaping three inches wide. Kelly pushed harder. The frame shuddered. Nothing caught.

Across the lobby, a man in a soaked canvas coat stood beside the public computer station, staring at the dark windows as if the storm had followed him there. His backpack lay at his feet, one strap torn nearly through.

“Ma’am?” he called. “Do you know if there’s anywhere I can wait until morning?”

Kelly looked toward the clock. Four twenty-seven. The last bus from Willow had already gone, and the rain had turned to wet snow against the glass.

“Morning is a long time,” she said, keeping her voice gentle. “What happened?”

“My truck died past Houston. Phone’s dead. I walked from the highway.” He rubbed his hands together. “I thought I could get a room, but everything’s full because of the road crews.”

Kelly knew the problem. Willow’s small motels filled quickly in spring, when construction and fishing season overlapped. She also knew what it meant to stand outside a locked door with nowhere safe to go.

“You can stay here until we close,” she said. “After that, I’ll call the community shelter. They have cots.”

Relief loosened his face. “You’d do that?”

“It’s what the library is for.”

The words came out before she could soften them. The library was books, computers, warmth, and quiet. It was also the place where people came when the rest of town had run out of answers.

A gust shoved through the broken opening. Several patrons turned.

Kelly braced her shoulder against the door. “Everyone, please move away from the entrance while I get this secured.”

The road workers obeyed. The teenagers gathered their game pieces. The man with the torn backpack picked up his bag and moved toward the reading hall.

Then music drifted in from the sidewalk.

A guitar, bright and quick beneath the rain.

Kelly glanced through the gap. A man stood beneath the awning of the closed bakery next door, a battered acoustic guitar tucked against his chest. He wore a dark wool cap and a denim jacket gone darker at the shoulders. His voice carried through the open doorway, warm enough to make the wet afternoon seem less severe.

He wasn’t performing for the library. He was singing to the handful of people trapped beneath the awning, who had begun to gather around him.

One of the teenagers pressed her face to the glass. “That’s Zach Timbers.”

The singer looked over.

His gaze met Kelly’s through the narrow opening. He stopped singing mid-line.

For one awkward second, they simply watched each other: Kelly holding a door that would not latch, Zach holding a guitar that had drawn half the block toward her problem.

Then he lowered his pick. “Need a hand?”

“I need the door to close.”

“Those are different things.”

His mouth tilted when he said it, not quite a smile. Kelly should have found him irritating. Instead, she noticed the small scar at his chin and the way rain had gathered along his eyelashes.

“I’m aware,” she said. “Can you get people to stop crowding the entrance?”

“I can try.”

“That’s not the same as doing it.”

“No.” His eyes flicked to the swelling crowd. “But I’m better with a crowd than I am with doors.”

He stepped inside when she pulled the door wider, bringing the smell of rain, cedar, and something faintly smoky with him. The guitar’s polished wood gleamed beneath the fluorescent lights.

“Everybody back from the entrance,” he called. His voice was easy, carrying without strain. “The library’s not closing. The door’s just having a disagreement with itself.”

A few people laughed. The tension eased enough for movement. Zach guided the road workers toward the magazine shelves and sent the teenagers to the far tables with a nod.

Kelly watched him work. He didn’t bark instructions. He made them sound like invitations.

“You’re Zach,” she said.

“Usually.”

“Usually?”

“Sometimes I answer to ‘Hey, you,’ if the music’s loud enough.”

She crouched beside the latch. The metal was bent inward. When she touched it, the edge sliced her fingertip.

She hissed.

Zach dropped to one knee beside her. “You’re bleeding.”

“It’s a paper cut with better branding.”

“Let me see.”

Kelly pulled her hand back before he could take it. The movement was automatic, faster than thought. Zach noticed. His expression changed - not pity, not surprise exactly, but attention.

“I have a first-aid kit,” she said.

...