Kellyjean tittered as Will laid a hand on one of my bare arms.
Will Price was touching me. Why was Will Price touching me? Why was I enjoying the fact that Will Price was touching me?
“If you don’t mind,” he said to Kellyjean, “we need to take our seats. I know the caterer’s anxious that we get through the salad course so they can begin serving the main while it’s hot.”
“Oh, of course!” Kellyjean began to back away. “But I’m going to take you up on that invitation for a swim!”
“Sure,” Will said. “Anytime.”
Then he began steering me toward our table, speaking to me in that same low, intense voice he’d used before.
“Look,” he said. “I know I’m not in much of a position to ask favors from you. But I’m going to ask one of you anyway: accept my apology. If you can’t, I’ll totally understand, but please at least try to pretend to get along with me for this weekend, which I and many others have worked hard to make as enjoyable as possible for you. If you can’t do it for me, do it for my sister’s sake. She’s been through a lot—more than you can imagine—and she loves you and your books so much.”
I stared straight ahead as these last few words sunk in.
What the whiskers? What had just happened? Will Price had apologized, and I’d let him? I’d actually let him, just because his sister had had a bad time (and so had he) and, also, she liked my books?
Apparently, I had.
Because now I was letting him take me to our table, and pull out my chair for me, and sit down next to me, and hand me my napkin, and make polite small talk with the other people at our table, who turned out to be Molly and her sheriff husband, Mrs. Tifton and her dog, some friends of Mrs. Tifton’s, and Saul and Frannie.
And now I was letting him pour more wine into my glass, and ask if I’d prefer vinaigrette or blue cheese dressing on my salad (there were small serving pitchers of both on the table).
“Uh, vinaigrette is fine,” I heard myself murmur.
Then he poured the vinaigrette on my salad. Like he was my waiter!
And I sat there with my fork in my hand, thinking, Should I just go ahead and start eating? Or grab my bag and run for my life?
Because this was not the natural order of things. Will Price turning out to be a kind person who actually cared about my feelings—or anyone else’s—was not something I’d ever considered remotely possible.
There seemed to be only one reasonable course of action under the circumstances, and that was to drink as much wine as possible.
The Moment by Will Price
I finally convinced her to let me take her out for a meal. But as the waiter set course after course down in front of me, I tasted none of it. She was my meal. My eyes feasted on her whenever I thought she wouldn’t catch me looking.
What was even more amazing was that she seemed to like me, too. She laughed at my jokes, her smile radiating across the table like a second sun. Even when she wasn’t laughing, her face was still alive with animation, her every mood flickering across those lovely blue eyes like goldfish in a pool.
I wasn’t the only one looking at her. Every head in the place turned to admire her as I helped her into her coat, male as well as female. I thought I might burst with pride at the fact that she was there with me.
The only problem was how—and when—to tell her how I felt.
CHAPTER TEN
The wine was a bad idea.
I managed to keep it together through the salad course and the “mains”—a choice of grilled vegetables, yellowtail, or beef tenderloin. (Saul and I had the yellowtail, Frannie the tenderloin.)
I kept silent while Will stood up and welcomed all of us and thanked us for being there. I maintained an appropriate level of dignity during dessert (key lime pie), not asking everyone at the table who didn’t eat theirs if I could have their slices.
I even made it onto the author bus (this time it wasn’t the sheriff or Molly who drove, but a male librarian named Henry) without falling over or otherwise disgracing myself.
But when we got to the hotel and Saul insisted we all have a nightcap (his favorite: Baileys on ice), I lost it.
“Okay, everyone take out your phones,” I said as we sat down with our cool, deliciously creamy drinks and dipped our bare feet into the pool. “You’re all great writers and incredible researchers. So I need you to help me research what horrible tragedy happened to Will Price and his sister approximately a year and a half to two years ago.”
Saul had already passed out on one of the chaise lounges, his drink untouched in his hand, and Garrett had retired to his room with the excuse that he needed to get more work done—not on his book, it turned out, but on the big magic trick he was planning to perform on Saturday night, the one I had absolutely no intention of watching.
But Kellyjean was sitting with us, even though she didn’t drink. She said she’d wanted to stay up to watch a meteor shower one of her sons had told her was supposed to be visible in the Florida Keys this weekend.
The moment she heard what I wanted her to look up on her phone, however, she turned her head away from the night sky. “What makes you think something tragic happened to Will Price and his sister?”
“Because he said so. Both he and his sister said something about it. My books apparently helped her through one of the worst times in her life, and around the same time, Will said he was going through such a difficult period that he lost his head and bad-mouthed me to the New York Times.”
“I don’t understand,” Kellyjean said. “Why not just ask Will?”
“I did,” I said. “He doesn’t want to talk about it. Apparently he’s very protective of his privacy.”
“Well, there you go, then.” Kellyjean turned her gaze back toward the stars. “You shouldn’t pry. Everyone deserves their privacy.”
“Um, excuse me.” I really should have stopped at one glass of wine after all the screwdrivers I’d had on the plane, and then the margarita in the pool, and of course I should have said no to the Baileys now. But I had not. I had had two or three—or four—glasses of California’s finest Pinot Noir, and it had all gone straight to my head. “But are you saying I don’t deserve an explanation for why Will Price dragged my good name through the mud?”
“He told you,” Kellyjean said. “Something so deeply tragic happened to him that he doesn’t want to talk about it, and it made him behave badly.”
“If it were only his sister we were talking about, I would fully respect her right to privacy. But it isn’t. I have the right to know why Will said what he did.”
“Did he say he was sorry?”
“Well, yes. But I still need to know.”
“For heaven’s sakes, why?”
“Because, Kellyjean, I’m a writer! I’m curious about people and what motivates them.”
“Well, I’m a writer, too, and I say butt out.”
“Maybe because it wasn’t your good name that he trashed.”
“I think there’s more to it than that,” Kellyjean said primly.
“Oh, really? Like what?”
“Like you’re in love with him.”