AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Great!”
“Just not to here.”
Of course not.Why would something actually go right for him this week?
“Oh shoot. Can you see where they’re at?”
“Yeah, are you ready for this?” Mia said. “They’re in South Bend, at Books-A-Plenty.”
Alex groaned. “You have got to be kidding. I swear I told her to change the delivery location. Do I need to run up there Saturday and grab them myself?”
“No, sweetheart, you’ve already got way too much on your plate. Besides, it’s not nearly as far for one of us to run and get it for you. But you might want to have your agent give them the heads-up that it’d been shipped there by mistake. I’d rather not get kicked out for walking in and demanding they hand over a bunch of books.”
“That probably wouldn’t go over too well, huh?” He sighed. “Okay, let me reach out to Sally. I know she’d already sent books there, but she’d promised to send a few dozen to Brooks Books as well.”
“Thank you, Alex. I’m so sorry to have to bother you with all of this.”
He insisted she stop apologizing, then asked her about her day. Listening to Mia tell the horrors of her classroom art project gone wrong soon had him laughing so hard he had tears in his eyes. This—this was why he needed her in his life. She was his sunshine, the warmth he’d been so long without. By the time they wished each other sweet dreams and disconnected, he felt a hundred times better than he had when he’d walked in the door that evening.
Wanting to end the day on a high note, he sent an email to Sally, asking what could be done about the book delivery mix-up, and then headed for bed. His thoughts still on Mia, he soon drifted off to a sound sleep.
Alex woke the next morning at five and went on a run before breakfast. It’d been days since he’d last stretched his legs, and the exercise helped to clear the morning fog from his mind. Fresh from the shower, he grabbed a cup of coffee and sat down at his laptop to check for a response from Sally. Sure enough, she’d written him back shortly after he’d fallen asleep.
Alex,
Please call me as soon as you’re able. Yes, my assistant misunderstood and sent more books to South Bend. When we called to alert them of the mix-up, though, the manager thanked me for sending more since you had apparently changed your mind and decided to do the signing after all. Are you telling me that is not the case? If so, I need to alert Books-A-Plenty ASAP. They seemed to think you were indeed coming, and that your family was providing cupcakes and punch to their event.
Best,
Sally
His family? Why had B-A-P brought them into the conversation? Sure, he’d mentioned the event to his parents during dinner a number of weeks back, but he’d told them since then that he’d moved the event to Bourbon Falls instead.
No, wait—it wasn’t his parents he’d told about the change. It was only his mother.
Oh no.
Alex lowered his coffee mug, empty stomach now filled with dread. His gaze shifted to the pile of mail he’d brought in last night but hadn’t had the energy to look through at the time. Poking out from the stack was a rectangular navy envelope, the corner of his parents’ unique return address sticker just visible. He fished it from the pile and tore it open to find it contained two items. The first was a short, handwritten note from his mother saying how proud they were of Alex, and that she couldn’t wait to stand in line at his first book signing. She had also gotten help from his niece to make invitations for all their friends and family to attend. The second paper was one such invitation, announcing his signing at Books-A-Plenty this coming Saturday from three to six p.m.
“Oh, Mom,” he whispered. “What have you done?”
Chapter Sixteen
“Are you sureyou don’t need a ladder?” Mia asked her sister, who was straddling a recliner in the readers’ section of Brooks Books.
It was Friday evening just after closing, and the Brooks family was working to get their store ready for tomorrow’s big event. She and Delaney were hanging holiday streamers along the tops of all their bookshelves, while Aunt Faye and Brooklyn rearranged furniture to make room for Alex’s book-signing table. Gina would deliver their cocoa in the morning, and The Sisters promised to have thawed cookies on site by eight a.m. Despite their early setbacks, everything was finally starting to fall into place.
“Pfft, ladders are for losers,” Del said, stretching to add tape to her section of streamers.
“Or for aunts trying to set good examples,” Mia answered in a singsong tone.
“Oh relax, will you? Besides, if we stop so you can run home to get a ladder, it’s going to slow us down. I thought you wanted to be done before Alex gets up here.”
Mia couldn’t help but smile.
“That’s what I thought,” Del said, grinning. “Now hand me another piece of tape.”
There was no use hiding her excitement over Alex’s expected arrival—everyone knew she was smitten, even Brooklyn. Mia had been trying to play it cool in front of her daughter, but by midweek Brooklyn confessed she’d already figured it out. Which was probably a good thing, since half the town was talking about it. Mia still hated being in the spotlight, but Del had reminded her that theirs was a small town—something else would come along soon enough to divert everyone’s attention.
