Frannie shook her head, disgusted. “The least you could have done was shaved. Or grown a proper beard.”
“What’s going on in there?” I asked as Frannie gave the scarf a final flourishing touch.
“Well, there’s no moderator, since Molly’s at home with her baby, and Will was so late.” Frannie gave Will one final dirty look. “So Saul took over. Bernadette read from her latest, Crown of Stars and Mist, to the delight of everyone—”
“Aw.” I smiled at Bernadette. “I’m so sorry I missed it.”
Bernadette shrugged. “I know. I was awesome.”
“And Saul just read from his latest book, Hell Hound,” Frannie went on, “to the delight of only his most devoted fans, since he chose to read from the chapter where the hellhound gnaws off his owner’s leg and eats it.”
“Can’t say I’m sorry to have missed that,” Will quipped.
“It’s too soon for you to joke, young man.” Frannie shot him a narrow-eyed stare. “You’re still in my bad graces. Let’s see, what else? Oh, yes. Jerome read one of his latest poems, which was highly moving and probably the best thing any of us is going to hear all day, and now Kellyjean is about to read from the newest installment of her Salem Prairie series, which I’m sure will be edifying for all of us, especially the children in the audience, since it will probably feature graphic sex.” Frannie looked at Will and then me and then back again. “Wolf sex. Not the kind you two have clearly been having all night.”
“All right, Fran,” Bernadette said with a laugh, as she took Frannie by the shoulder and began to steer her back toward the auditorium doors. “You’ve had your fun with them for now. Why don’t we leave them alone?”
“Because,” Frannie said, “they so deserve it.”
The minute their backs were turned, Will reached out to take my hand. “Hey,” he said, giving my fingers a squeeze. “I’m sorry about whatever it is I did to you.”
I smiled and returned the squeeze. “It’s okay. I liked it.”
Just as Bernadette was about to open the doors to the auditorium, Will called to her, “Hey. What about Garrett?”
She glanced back at us, looking bemused. “Garrett? Didn’t you hear?”
“No.” Will’s grip on my hand tightened. “What about him?”
“Garrett’s not here. He’s been banned from the island.”
Will dropped my hand. “What?”
Frannie turned around, her face alight with joy. No one loved author gossip more than Frannie Coleman. “The sheriff came to the inn at breakfast and charged Garrett with culpable negligence, then permanently banned him from Little Bridge Island! Right now Garrett is on a flight back to New York.”
“Yeah, and not only that,” Bernadette added, “but Garret has to pay restitution for the search-and-rescue mission for his body—sixty-thousand dollars!”
“Sixty-thousand dollars!” I could hardly believe my ears. I’m not certain Will believed his, either.
But he didn’t look too unhappy about the turn of events.
“Well,” he said, taking my hand again. “All’s well that ends well, I suppose.”
“Yes,” I said. “For everyone but Garrett.”
“Don’t worry,” Bernadette said. “Saul told everyone in the audience that Garrett was back from the spirit world—only he couldn’t make it here this morning, due to a family emergency. Which it’s definitely going to be when Garrett gets home, because we found out: Garrett is married.”
“He’s what?” I was flabbergasted.
“Oh, yeah.” Bernadette smirked. “Only I would guess probably not for much longer after word of all this gets out.”
Then she opened the auditorium doors and, with Frannie, slipped inside.
Will pulled on my hand as I attempted to follow them. “Hey.”
I looked up at him questioningly.
“Speaking of flights,” he said, “what time is yours?”
“Oh.” This was the conversation I’d been hoping to avoid. “Later today. We’d better go in.”
“What time later today?”
“I don’t know. I hate itineraries. Hadn’t we better go in?”
He was grinning. “I know you hate itineraries. You’ve made that pretty clear by being late to every single event I’ve organized this entire weekend, including this one.”
“Hey, I resent that! You’re the one who wanted to—”
“I know, all right? I was just wondering if you wanted to think about possibly changing your flight? Not to spend time with me.” He held up his hand in a “stop” gesture. “I swear I’m not the crazy stalker type who’s going to ask you to move in with me after one night. I mean to look at houses for your dad. It’s high season here, which means there are a lot of places for sale, and it might not be the worst idea for you to take a little time to look around. You’re here anyway.”
I bit my lip. He wasn’t wrong. “I’ll think about it,” I said.
“Good.” He opened the doors to the auditorium, and we went in—quietly, because it was dark, and everyone’s attention was focused on Kellyjean, who had taken the stage in another one of her floaty maxi dresses, this one dark blue shot through with gold thread that shimmered under the stage lights.
“Thank you for that lovely introduction, Saul, I mean, Clive,” she was saying, as Will and I hurried to take the only two empty seats left in the house, near the front, in the section reserved for the day’s speakers.
Once we were seated and I had a chance to look around, I spied Lauren in the audience with her mother and friends, and, in the aisle, Chloe with her fellow dance team members, still doing duty as ushers. She noticed my glance and waved. I waved back at her.
“Y’all, I know I’m supposed to read something from my newest book today,” Kellyjean was going on, up at the podium onstage, “but I was so moved by Jerome’s poem, I thought I would do something a little different, and read a poem of my own.”
Oh, no. I saw Jerome drop his face into his hands. I didn’t blame him. This was not going to be pretty.
Apparently Kellyjean realized what some of us were thinking, since she hurried to add, “I know, I know. I’m a fiction writer and not a poet. There is a difference, for those of you who don’t know. But I’ve just been so moved by how magical and warm my stay here on this island has been, I had to write about it, and that writing just came out in the form of a poem. Has that ever happened to any of the rest of y’all?”
She looked out over the audience, many members of whom were murmuring in assent. I couldn’t help nodding. I wasn’t sure about magical, but my stay on Little Bridge had definitely been warm. Hot, even. I pressed my shoulder against Will’s, feeling what I told myself was only a companionable burst of dopamine toward him, nothing more. He pressed back against me, grinning.
“Anyway, this is what I came up with,” Kellyjean said, unfolding a piece of paper. I recognized it as Lazy Parrot Inn stationery. “Don’t be too hard on me, now, when you hear it.”