Um, no. No, it most certainly was not. Especially not after the love scene I’d read in his book last night.
“Wh-what?” I could find no words. “Wh-where’s Molly?”
The smile didn’t waver.
“Oh, she’s at the hospital.”
Frannie came squawking up behind me like one of the chickens we’d seen running around loose on the streets the night before. “What? Is she all right?”
“I think so,” he said. “It’s probably a false alarm—she’s not due for another two weeks. But, you know—” He shrugged. “Better to be safe than sorry, right?”
Frannie, Bernadette, and Kellyjean exchanged knowing glances. “First baby,” they all said in unison, members of a club I was relieved, at that particular moment, not to be a part of.
“Well, is the festival still going to go on?” I was hoping the answer was no—not because I wanted to deprive the people of Little Bridge Island of their first-ever book festival, but because I really didn’t want to have to spend any more time with Will than was strictly necessary. Even though I’d lose out on selling a lot of books (probably), I’d be fine with being as far away as possible from those eyes and those arms.
Unfortunately, the answer was not to my liking.
“Of course the festival is still going on.” Will was laying it on thick, giving us the hundred-watt smile I recognized from the red carpet photos at his many movie premieres. Not that I’d spent much time poring over them. Okay, maybe I had. “Molly always considered this a possibility since the festival was so close to her due date, so she made a backup plan. And this is it.” He gestured broadly at himself, which sadly only drew my attention once again to those wide shoulders and lean waist, which even his oh-so-casually-loose resort wear couldn’t hide. “I’m here to give you all a lift.”
Never in the history of time had there been such a good-looking—and well-dressed—bus driver.
This was a disaster.
No one else seemed to think so, however.
“Well, all right, then!” Frannie cried. “Saul? Saul, come on. Will’s driving.”
Then she and Saul climbed onto the bus, followed by Jerome (who at least murmured a polite “Excuse me” to me before he passed by), and then everyone else.
It was only when I was the last author standing on the sidewalk that Will said to me, conversationally, “Since Molly probably won’t be back in time, I’ll be giving the opening speech just before your panel in order to welcome everyone to the festival.”
What? Bernadette and I were going to have to follow an opening act by Will Price?
I thought of Lauren and her friends on the plane and how happy they were going to be about this, and felt a little queasy.
“Jo?” Will eyed me. I think he was wondering why I’d been standing for so long with my coffee and croissant held frozen in my hands. I’d stood there so long, in fact, that the hotel’s resident cat had walked up, butted its head against my bare leg, got tired of my lack of response, and moved on. When had I ever not leaned down to pet a cat that had head-butted me? Never, that’s when. And it was all Will’s fault. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.” No. No, I was not all right. I was never going to be all right. “Yes, I’m fine.”
He smiled again, not quite the hundred watter, but close. “Great! Well, you’ve already got quite a crowd gathered over at the library, so we better get going.”
Perfect. Just perfect.
Things only went downhill from there. The croissant, I soon realized, had been a poor choice, since I noticed after I took my seat that I had croissant flakes all down the front of my black dress.
Yes, I’d been talking to Will Price while covered in pastry crumbs.
Not only that, but the weather outside was so warm and sunny that it had seemingly attracted every tourist from every wintry corner of the globe. And all of them had emerged from their hotels at the exact same moment our bus left for the library, darting out into the street without looking (because apparently they thought downtown Little Bridge was like Main Street in Disney World, and not a real street with actual vehicular traffic that might run them over, so they could just wander out into the middle of it).
So Will kept throwing on the brakes to avoid hitting them, making the milky coffee and not-yet-digested chocolate croissant inside my stomach lurch.
But then, as if all of that wasn’t bad enough, for some inexplicable reason Garrett, who was sitting on the seat in front of me, decided to remove his ukulele from its case, turn around, and begin playing (and singing) the song “You Are My Sunshine.”
“‘You are my sunshine, my only sunshine,’” he sang, directly into my face. “‘You make me happy when skies are gray… .’”
For a few seconds, everyone on the bus, including me, sat in stunned silence.
Then, just when Garrett got to the part about “please don’t take my sunshine away,” I lost it.
“Garrett,” I snarled. “Stop it.”
Garrett did not stop.
“What’s the matter, sunshine?” he asked, continuing to strum away. “You don’t like fun? Hey, everybody: Jo Wright doesn’t like fun!”
What was wrong with this guy? I was ready to pour what was left of my coffee over his head.
“I like fun,” I snapped.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” Garrett said.
“I do. I do like fun. Just not someone singing in my face at eight-thirty in the morning.”
“Really, Garrett.” I was glad that Frannie felt compelled to intervene on my behalf. “It’s a bit much. Why don’t you save the song for the festival? I’m sure the children there will find it delightful.”
“Oh, come on.” Garrett continued to play. “Everyone loves this song. We’re all young at heart, aren’t we? Saul, I know you agree. Come on, everybody, let’s sing together!” Then he leaned halfway over the back of his seat and began strumming while singing even more loudly into my face. “‘You are my sunshine, my only sunshine—’”
It was right then that the bus lurched to an abrupt stop—abrupt enough that Garrett, who’d been sitting facing backward so he could sing to me, lurched heavily into the seat in front of him, losing the grip on his ukulele and causing the strings to clang tunelessly.
“Hey!” he called out in irritation to Will.
“Sorry,” Will said. But I could see his face in the rearview mirror above the driver’s seat, and he didn’t look sorry at all. He was wearing a little smirk. “But we’ve reached our destination.”
I turned my head. Out the window, I could see a large, graceful brick building surrounded by lovely thick-trunked banyan trees, with a full parking lot and a soaring porticoed entrance, below which hung a banner that read:
WELCOME TO THE 1ST ANNUAL LITTLE BRIDGE BOOK FESTIVAL
Above that, carved into the stone façade of the building, read the words, NORMAN J. TIFTON PUBLIC LIBRARY.
Festive helium balloons in multiple colors had been strung everywhere, and people were streaming into the many double doors leading into the library, all wearing happy expressions and carrying swag bags much like the ones we’d been given and that Garrett kept dragging around everywhere. I was relieved to see that the majority of the people were women and young girls, which meant that my panel with Bernadette was going to be well attended—although many of them, I was sure, were coming early to grab seats for Kellyjean and Garrett’s panel, or for Saul’s or Jerome’s, the final speakers of the day.