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“Great. I’ll be sure to guard it with my life. So, what else did you two talk about besides dessert?”
“Oh, a little of this, a little of that.”
Mia’s eyes narrowed. “Uh-huh.”
“I also asked him the one question you didn’t.”
Oh lord. “Which was?”
“If he’d do a signing at our store instead of Books-A-Plenty.”
Okay, that wasn’t where she thought this was going. “No kidding? What’d he say?”
“Alex seemed fine with it, but he said he’d have to run it by his agent. She sounded a little controlling.”
“Wow, that’d be great. But don’t you think B-A-P will be mad?”
“A better question would be, do I care?” Del snorted. “They stole our ornament idea no matter what Aunt Faye says, and that’s not cool. Those kids at Riley need our hats and books.”
Mia held her tongue as she rose to grab dessert plates and extra forks. It wasn’t that she disagreed with Del, but sometimes her sister charged ahead with ideas like a bull in a china shop. The last thing their aunt would want was a war brewing with another independent bookstore. Also, wasn’t Alex supposedly on his way to B-A-P tonight to meet with them about this signing? What did he plan to tell them,I’m having second thoughts?
Del’s cell phone launched into whatever country lyrics were her current ringtone—they could thank Brooklyn for teaching her that—and she pulled it from her back pocket.
“Speak of the devil.” She tapped its screen to answer the call. “Hey there, your agent working late tonight or what?”
Mia turned with plates in hand and saw Delaney’s smile falter.
“Wait, what? Hang on, the reception sucks in here.”
Which, sadly, was true. Brooklyn complained about it often. Del made for the front room, leaving Mia and her daughter to exchange shrugs.
“You know,” she said as she dished up the cobbler, “Alex was good friends with Mr. Owens back in college. In fact, that’s how Robyn and her hubby met. The education department put on a volunteer Christmas gift-wrapping event to help raise money for a local literacy program in exchange for the gift wrapping. Alex showed up with Drew, and Robyn with me. Crazy, huh?”
“Yeah,” Brooklyn said. “I’m just trying to picture Mr. Owens actually talking and stuff.”
Mia chuckled. Drew Owens had always been a soft-spoken guy. His wife, on the other hand, had no trouble speaking her mind. It was one of the things Mia admired most about her best friend: having the courage to tell people like it was.
“Oh, he was quiet, even back then. Maybe that’s why he and Robyn have been so happy together. They balance each other out.”
“Did you and Alex date, too, or were you already seeing Dad?” Brooklyn asked.
“Oh no, we never dated. I started seeing your dad when I was still in high school.”
The night of the gift-wrapping event, though, was the first time she’d silently wondered if the long-distance dating thing with Greg was really such a good idea. Robyn had tried to convince her to hit the pause button before leaving Bourbon Falls for school, but Mia had stubbornly remained committed to their relationship. She took pride in making it work, and talked on the phone most nights with Greg.
In fact, the first night they didn’t talk was the night of their volunteering event. Mia chose to call him the next morning instead, too exhausted to stay up for a late-night chat. Which, in all fairness, was true. But there had been more to her not wanting to call, some guilt she’d been wrestling with.
Even now, she could still remember lying in the top bunk of her and Robyn’s shared dorm room, staring up at the ceiling and replaying the day with her new friends. Drew, the softspoken accounting major and expert wrapper. Alex, the outgoing business major who’d never wrapped a gift in his life. Several others who’d snipped and taped and laughed the afternoon away. She was thrilled to have made more friends that day, but for some reason her thoughts kept returning to Alex—the first guy she’d ever met who found wrapping gifts as magical as she did.
Did he still, or had adulthood taken the magic out of the season for him like it had so many others?
“Well, that was Alex,” Del said, walking back into the kitchen. “He can’t seem to get out of town tonight.”
“Why is that?”
“Apparently, he hit a deer on 331 just north of town.”
Mia dropped her cobbler spoon. “Oh my gosh, is he okay?”
