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Brooklyn made ithome safe and sound just after lunch, allowing Mia to take her first full breath of the day. This was her daughter’s first winter driving, and she’d already proven this summer that she wasn’t the best at navigating slippery roads. But with every hour behind the wheel came more experience, and Brooklyn would continue to develop more confidence. That didn’t mean Mia wouldn’t have a head full of white hair by the time her daughter graduated high school.
“My suggestion? Find the biggest empty parking lot you have close by and get her to make the car slide. Then she can practice how to handle her car when it happens on the road,” Alex said when she called him before dinner. “Besides, Del has that giant four-by-four. If Brooklyn slides off the pavement, you’ll have a way to pull her back onto the road.”
Been there, done that. “Now that you mention it, I think our dad did that with each of us girls our first winter on the road. Thanks for the reminder.”
“You bet. If she’d been home this weekend, I could have taken her out in the Camaro and taught her how to make donuts. That’s definitely one of the perks to having rear-wheel drive in the snow. Of course, I spent my whole drive home tryingnotto do that on the highway.”
Mia shook her head. She was up in her craft room, testing out a few new felt snowman projects. So far, the glue wasn’t sticking well on any of them. Time to change mediums, it seemed.
“You know, if you’d waited another four or five hours, the roads probably would have been a lot cleaner for you.”
He sighed. “Yeah, I realized that later. Still, it was a huge relief to get here and know Mom was all right.”
She set down her glue bottle, wishing they’d invent a way to hug someone over the phone. “I can only imagine how difficult a drive that was, both physically and emotionally. How did everything go today with your family?”
“Good. Mom did a lot of resting. I think they have her on some good pain meds. Dad’s going to start weening her off the big stuff tomorrow, doctor said by the end of the week the pain should be much more manageable.”
“Oh, that’s great to hear. Maybe if it is, she and your dad can come up for your first book signing this weekend.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. “Wow, in all the commotion it had totally slipped my mind. I’m trying to think if there’s anything I need to do ahead of this weekend. The books were supposed to be shipped right to your store, so I won’t have to go digging through my house looking for extra copies. And I’ve got business cards, I guess. Is there anything else I should bring?”
“Nope, I think we’ve got everything else covered,” Mia said, glancing at her to-do list. She’d been touching it up all afternoon, to keep herself preoccupied from missing Alex. “We tracked down a Santa suit for Dad, have holiday plates and cups on order for the cookies and cocoa, and Aunt Faye ordered some really cool bookmarks to hand out at the signing table.”
“That all sounds great. Honestly, I don’t think I’d be much help if I were there right now. Too much going on between this and work and my writing. Hard to stay focused on anything.”
“I wish there was more that I could do for your family, Alex. Would you like me to drive down after work tomorrow and stay with your mom so you and your dad can have a break?”
“No! Uh, I mean, I wouldn’t chance it if I were you. With our luck, we’d get hit with another snowstorm or something.”
He laughed, but the sound was a little off. Mia tried not to think too much about it, but then her mind went back to that text. Was he really looking out for her or trying to keep her away?
“Ha, yeah, maybe so. Okay, well, if you change your mind, I’m happy to come down and help however I can.”
“I really appreciate it, Mia. We’ll be good for a while, with my aunt and uncle still being here. Once they go back is when things will get interesting.”
Oh, that’s right.She’d forgotten his relatives were in town.See?She was just being paranoid again. Mia shook her head and pushed the mystery girl from her mind. This trust thing was going to take practice. In the meantime, she would make sure that everything was set for his book signing this weekend in Bourbon Falls. Besides, if his parents did end up making the trip, she wanted everything to be as perfect as possible.
After all, she only had one chance to make a great first impression.
School resumed on Tuesday, and Mia had her hands full with a classroom of restless children longing to be outside playing in the snow that was quickly melting away. She opted not to do the snowman craft activity until the next day, hoping they would be a little less unruly by then.
Unfortunately, the delay wasn’t much help.
“Well?” her aunt asked as she arrived at Brooks Books to relieve her on Wednesday evening. “Did you have a room full of masterpieces or a floor full of glitter?”
Mia dropped her purse behind the checkout counter with a groan. “Let’s just say the janitor will be leaving me a fresh nastygram tonight.”
“That bad, huh?”
“Yeah, pretty much. And it was my fault, too. My mind was clearly elsewhere after lunch, and I forgot to tell the kids to put the glue down before applying the glitter and pom poms. So, they do all this work, get their creations looking the way they want, and it all fell off the minute they picked up their papers to hand them in. I can’t remember the last time I made so many kids cry.”
“Oh, sweetheart.” Aunt Faye pulled Mia into a gentle hug. “I’m sure they’ve already forgiven you.”
“Maybe. I did bribe them with a promise that we could try a different craft tomorrow. We never do two big projects in the same week. This time, I’ll make sure there’s no glitter involved.”
“And maybe keep yourself a little more focused this time, too.” Her aunt winked.
“I will. At least, I’ll try.” Mia shook her head. “I hate feeling so scatterbrained. I’m just so worried about Alex—he sounded pretty stressed out when I called him from the teacher’s lounge.”
