No Words: A Novel (Little Bridge Island Book 3)

LITTLE BRIDGE BOOK FESTIVAL ITINERARY FOR: JO WRIGHT

Saturday, January 4, 1:00 p.m.–2:00 p.m.

Book Signing

With Clive Dean, Jerome Jarvis, Victoria Maynard, Garrett Newcombe, Will Price, Jo Wright, and Bernadette Zhang

All of Little Bridge Island turned out for the book signing.

Or at least it seemed that way. The line of people with books in their hands seemed to stretch endlessly.

Not that I was complaining! Hadn’t this been my dream when I was secretly writing Kitty Katz, Kitten Sitter #1: Kitty to the Rescue in between shifts as a server in one of New York City’s many, many beer ’n’ burger joints, certain the book would never get published, yet also hoping against hope that it would? To be faced with a line of people who, in this day and age, actually read books—and not just any books, but my books?

It was like I’d died and gone to heaven.

Or at least it would have been, if I hadn’t ended up being seated next to Will.

This time it wasn’t his choice, though. The festival seated its authors alphabetically by last name.

So I found myself at my own little white-cloth-covered folding table with Will to my right and Bernadette to my left.

At first this was fine. I’d done so many signings with Bernadette, I knew exactly what to expect from her: she was warm with readers, but never phony; signed quickly but not like she was in any big rush (which, of course, we were, because of Chloe’s dire warning about the conch chowder); she allowed fans to take selfies, letting them come behind her signing table to snap a quick photo, and even allowing them to come back for a retake if someone’s eyes turned out to be closed or they didn’t like their smile.

This was pretty much standard signing procedure. Bernadette and I always tried to be pleasant so no one ever felt slighted, but quick. We couldn’t afford to stop to chat too long (like Jerome, Kellyjean, and Saul) or draw an elaborate illustration next to our signatures (like Garrett), because if we did, we’d never get through everyone in line, and then the worst would happen: some adorable child or teen would walk away disappointed, their book unsigned.

Will, on the other hand, didn’t seem to care about any of these things. He hardly lifted his dark head from the books he was signing, barely stopping to smile or say hello to his die-hard fans—some of whom were so moved by the experience of meeting him at last that they’d begun to weep in line before even getting to his table, working themselves into sobs by the time they reached him. He was in such a rush to get through the line that he didn’t, I noted, even respect his readers enough to sign his entire name, just his initials, WP, with a swoosh.

This was appalling, especially since his name was already so short—no longer than mine, and I always wrote out the entire thing. I felt it was the least I could do, even for readers who weren’t purchasing any of my books new at the event, only bringing along copies from home.

I totally understood that an author like Saul, who’d been in the business long enough to have published hundreds—literally hundreds—of short story collections, novellas, and even entire series of novels under multiple pen names might put a limit to the number of books he’d sign for his fans at one event. His line would never end if he agreed to sign every single thing he’d ever written for every single Clive Dean fan who showed up, although he was always so tickled to see some of his very old books—from the seventies!—that he’d sometimes sit and chuckle over them, asking the fan where he or she had gotten it, how they’d managed to hold on to it so long, and whether or not they liked it as much as his new work, that his line would be held up even more.

It was Frannie who’d finally put her foot down. Three books per fan. Three books per fan—more if the fan bought the books new at the event—was all Saul was allowed to sign, or they’d be at every signing forever, and Frannie would never get back to the hotel for lunch or dinner.

But how could I apply the same rules to some sweet, adorable kid who’d brought along all of her tattered but much treasured editions of Kitty Katz, Kitten Sitter, the pages soft as velvet from being so well thumbed, smelling delightfully of vanilla, the scent of old paperbacks? Especially when they said, as they often did, that mine was the first chapter book they’d ever read, or it had come as a gift from Grandma, or gotten them through a difficult time?

I couldn’t be so hard-hearted.

Instead, each got a personalization, a You’re Purr-fect! or Thanks Furr Reading! and an XOXO Jo Wright, even if the book was clearly stamped as having been purchased secondhand at a used bookstore or library sale and there was no possible way I’d ever earn a cent of royalties from the sale. If someone—especially a child—was taking the time to come to a book event, that meant I needed to make the experience as special and memorable as possible, so that child would stay a reader forever. It wasn’t just my responsibility: it was my duty.

Will Price apparently did not share this belief, however. He didn’t even have qualms about denying his fans selfies, giving them a crisp British, “I wish I could, but I’m a bit pressed for time today,” before turning to the next person in line.

I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t witnessed it for myself—and if he hadn’t confessed to me earlier his fear of public speaking.

I knew I shouldn’t judge him too harshly. Maybe, I told myself as I smiled for selfie after selfie—my readers, most teenagers and older now, were as obsessed with getting the perfect shot as Bernadette’s—Will’s rudeness to his fans had something to do with whatever had happened to him and his sister back when he’d been so rude about me at Novel Con.

Maybe when I finally found out what it was, I could make Kitty discover that the same thing had happened to Raul Wolf, and that’s why he was such an arrogant jerk—albeit one who was a teenaged wolf instead of a grown man who really should have known better than to take his problems out on his fans and innocent female authors.

That would only work, of course, if whatever had happened to Will wasn’t too dark for Kitty Katz readers. My audience expected a certain amount of humor from my books, as shown by the fact that I couldn’t get anyone in publishing interested in my books about the apocalyptic Marianne Dashwood and Colonel Brandon or the girl with the dying mother and broke musician dad.

It was toward the end of the signing—or at least the end for Will, because he’d whipped through his line so fast—that I began to notice something:

He kept glancing my way.

Not staring at me like he had during our panel, but darting little looks, like he was watching what I was doing.

Then, as Will watched me, little by little, he started to . . . there’s no other way to describe it:

Copy me.

He began actually to put on the brakes, look up at his readers, and smile at them. He even agreed to pose for the selfies they kept begging him to allow them—though I noticed he kept his arms at his sides and his hands on the table, obeying the Never Touch a Reader rule.

It was amazing. It was like watching an alien learn to adapt to life on our planet. Will was learning. Learning how to be human!

I couldn’t help feel like I was doing this. I was teaching Will how to act like a human being . . . or at least a professional writer in the twenty-first century.

But how had he never learned before? He was my age and had been doing signings for at least as long as I had. Had no one ever told him that he was being rude?

Actually, it was possible. This was occasionally the case with famous authors: No one at their publishing house wanted to insult their highest grossing author by suggesting that their writing (or behavior) needed improvement. The author could be so angry, they might flee to another publishing house.

But hadn’t anyone in Will’s family ever noticed his bad manners before? Or had he been raised by actual wolves, like Raul?

When I got a break in my line, I turned my head to see if Bernadette had noticed any of what had been going on beside me.

She had. She was watching Will with raised eyebrows—and also hadn’t missed how Garrett, one table over from Will, was doing the complete opposite: he kept draping his arms all over any reader who asked for a photo, no matter what age, drawing them close to him and then “magically” drawing a commemorative guild coin from their ear, grinning up into the camera lens, and shouting “Dark Magic” at whoever was taking the picture.

None of his young readers’ parents objected, though. My free promotional bookmarks (DON’T FUR–GET: KK#27, COMING SOON!) weren’t nearly as big a hit. No one wanted a bit of colored cardboard when they could have an actual coin (especially one magically drawn from their ear).

I got distracted from Will a second later, however, when a familiar voice said, quite close to me, “Oh my God, you guys, I just can’t thank you enough for what you both said today!”

I looked up to see Lauren and her friends standing in front of both my table and Will’s. They were in full resort wear—sunglasses, wedge sandals, and ruffly rompers over which they’d thrown floaty kimonos. Lauren was lugging a wheelie suitcase behind her and had clearly waited until both my line and Will’s had died down enough so that she could be last and have a nice, long chat with us.

I knew what the wheelie suitcase contained, though I wasn’t certain Will did. Will did not seem to understand anything about being a living human being and not a wolf, which was why I took the initiative and replied, “It was our pleasure, Lauren. We’re so happy you could come.”

“Oh, Lauren wouldn’t have missed it for the world.” Jasmine was sucking coconut water from a straw out of an actual coconut while hugging a pile of brand-new copies of Will’s When the Heart Dies. Beside her, Cassidy was clutching a well-loved edition of The Moment as well as several new volumes she’d apparently purchased to give away to friends. “Lauren’s going to skip going to the beach with us this afternoon to stay in the hotel and write, she’s so inspired.”

“Well,” Will said. I could tell by the way he was tugging at his shirt collar that he felt uncomfortable—as uncomfortable as he’d been at the airport yesterday morning, when he’d been swarmed by this same group of girls. “That’s the way to do it. Discipline. Stories don’t write themselves.”

I had to disagree—respectfully, of course. “I think it’s okay to skip writing for a day and go to the beach with your friends when you’re on Little Bridge Island for the first time.”

“No.” Will shook his head. “When inspiration hits, you have to take advantage of it.”

“Not when you’re her age.” I still hadn’t the foggiest notion how old Lauren and her friends were, but I knew they were way younger than I was. I also knew how many parties and trips to the beach I’d missed because I’d had to work to pay for things that other kids hadn’t, like my college tuition and our apartment’s electric bill. One of the reasons I wrote about cats instead of humans was because I had no idea what it was like to go to a high school dance or basketball game: I’d never been to one. I’d been too busy working. But no one knew what a cat high school dance or basketball game was like, so I couldn’t get them wrong. “She has plenty of time for writing. Right now she’s on vacation on a beautiful island with her friends. She should enjoy it.”

Will looked stern. “When inspiration strikes—”

“Oh, you two are so adorable together.” Kellyjean, who had finished up with her line, came sauntering over, her eyes sparking playfully over what she considered her brilliant witticism. “Ha-ha! Am I right? Aren’t these two always arguing just like an old married couple?”

I thought I might evaporate from embarrassment right there, and Will didn’t look particularly pleased, either, judging by the way he white-knuckled the pen he was holding.

“Oh, come on,” Kellyjean went on. She never knew when to quit. “You agree with me, right, Garrett?”

Garrett did not appear to appreciate Kellyjean’s comment any more than Will or I had. He was finishing up one last autograph—which of course included an elaborate Dark Magic School illustration—for an eager young fan. “Um, not really,” he said.

Lauren seemed to decide it was time to bring the subject back around to what mattered most: herself. She lifted her wheelie suitcase and placed it, with a thump, on my table, then opened it.

“I really hope you don’t mind,” she said, “but it’s always been my dream to get these signed by you.”

I watched as she began removing from the suitcase, one by one, all twenty-six books in the Kitty Katz, Kitten Sitter series, then stacking them in front of me.

“You don’t have to personalize them,” she said, apparently noticing my stunned expression. “But if you could sign them all, that would be great.”

“Of course I’ll personalize them.” I couldn’t quite believe what I was seeing. I’d suspected upon noticing the suitcase that she might have brought some of the Kitty Katz books with her, but not all of them. “You brought these all the way from Canada?”

“Not just these.” Lauren twinkled at Will, who was also watching her with disbelief as she dug more deeply into the suitcase. “I’ve got some for you, too, Will!” Out came every book that Will had ever written, as well, each almost as battered and well loved as the copies of Kitty Katz. “Your books mean so much to me. Kitty Katz made me want to be a writer, but your books, Will, taught me what it means to be a woman.”

Oh. No.

“Well, thank you.” Will began scribbling away. “It means so much to me to hear you say that.”

Which was exactly what I’d been saying to every reader who’d come up to my table in response to their telling me that a Kitty book had meant something to them. Was it possible that Will was doing the one thing so many of my girlfriends had assured me that Justin—or any man—would never, ever do: change?

No. It couldn’t be.

Except it did happen sometimes . . . but usually only in books. In The Moment, for instance, Johnny Kane was turning from a lawless criminal into a tender lover for Melanie West.

“You’re very welcome,” I said to Lauren, practically hurling her books back to her as I signed each one, I was so eager to get out of there and tell Bernadette what had happened. Because of course Bernadette, finished with her signing line, had wandered away to order a drink from the cocktail wagon. (Yes! The Little Bridge Book Festival had a cocktail wagon that served alcoholic beverages to festival attendees, right there in the parking lot.) “Am I, uh, going to see you later?” I couldn’t just take off and run when this girl had been such an awesome fan and bought so many of my books (in the past, not new at this event—not that I had any new books for her to buy). “Maybe tonight, at the banquet?”

“I’ll be there.” Jasmine was sucking noisily on the remnants of her coconut water. “I don’t know about Lauren. She’s going to be too busy writing.”

Their other friend, Cassidy, who’d been watching Will sign the half dozen copies of The Moment she was buying for her friends, apparently having decided against the chest-signing request, looked up and said, “Oh my God, yes. On TripAdvisor it says that Cracked, where they’re having the party, has like the freshest seafood on the whole island.”

“You really ought to come tonight, Lauren.” Garrett was still working on his drawing for a young fan, a small boy in an actual wizard cape whose father looked as thrilled to be receiving a Garrett Newcombe original as he did. “I agree with Jo that you should take all the advantage you can of being in such a beautiful place. It will definitely give you something to write about when you get home to Canada.”

Lauren raised her perfectly plucked—or possibly waxed or threaded—eyebrows. “Do you really think so?”

“Oh, definitely.” Garrett examined his drawing, then, apparently dissatisfied with his work, bent to add a finishing touch. “I know Will here thinks the way a book gets written is with discipline, and of course that’s true. But you’ll never be able to write anything if you haven’t experienced anything to write about.”

I was a little irritated to hear Garrett “You Are My Sunshine” Newcombe, of all people, so perfectly sum up my own thoughts on the matter.

But I was less irritated when I saw how much it made Will frown . . . especially when Lauren beamed at Garrett and asked, “You really think so?”

“Oh, I know so. Plus, I’m going to be performing an act of dematerialization at the dinner that you aren’t going to want to miss. It’ll be an experience I suspect you’ll want to write about.”

“Dematerialization?” Lauren glanced at her friends, who were giggling at each other, most likely because of the number of times the word “dematerialize” had been used. “Okay, cool. I’ll be there.”

Garrett smiled at Lauren like a kindly uncle, then handed the kid in the wizard cape the book he’d been drawing in. “Here you go, Dylan. And here’s an official Dark Magic School number eleven commemorative guild piece to go with it.”

“Gee, thanks!” Dylan—and his appreciative father—looked ecstatic.

It was at that moment that Chloe came bouncing over. She’d been working with the other Snappettes at managing the line, putting Post-it notes on the covers of all the readers’ books so we’d be sure to spell their names rights (it was important, if someone had a name like Michelle or Alyssa, that we knew how many l’s or s’s it had).

But now that almost everyone had departed for the scheduled conch chowder luncheon, she was leading around a dark-haired boy who wore an expensive-looking Leica camera around his neck.

“Miss Wright, this is Elijah.” Chloe pointed at the boy. “He’s the festival’s official photographer.”

Elijah nodded at me coolly. “Hey,” he said.

“Would it be all right if he got a few pics of you and Will in action, signing some books?” Chloe asked.

“Absolutely.” I posed with my pen hovering over the last of Lauren’s books, while Will did the same. Elijah began snapping away in a manner that really did seem quite professional.

“How’s Molly doing, Elijah?” Will asked.

“Good, I think,” Elijah replied, as his camera clicked. “Katie called a little while ago from the hospital, and said Miss Molly—I mean, Miz Hartwell—is four centimeters dilated, whatever that means.”

I heard all the mothers left in the tent—Frannie, Kellyjean, and Bernadette, as well as a few others—make sympathetic sounds.

“Is it a boy or a girl?” Kellyjean asked. These kinds of things were important to her. In the Salem Prairie series, werewolves were always getting witches pregnant, and vice versa. Birth control did not exist in Victoria Maynard’s supernatural universe.

“They want it to be a surprise. I mean, to everybody else. They know. I know, because Katie told me.” Elijah was evidently someone important in the lives of Molly and the sheriff and his daughter. “But I’m not supposed to say. So, uh, Miss Wright, if you wouldn’t mind scooting your chair a little closer to Mr. Price’s—” To my dismay, he walked over and moved my signing table a few inches nearer to Will’s. “And, Mr. Price, if you could scoot closer to Miss Wright so I could get both of you in one shot . . . that’s right—”

Will obligingly moved closer to me. So close that I could smell his cologne, which had a fresh, clean, citrus scent, and feel his body heat against mine. So close that I could see that he’d already begun to grow a five o’clock shadow even though it was nowhere near five o’clock. So close that I spied a few dark chest hairs curling out from the opening of his shirt.

And that wasn’t all that was happening, either. Something about the combination of his scent and how tantalizingly masculine those dark hairs looked was making me feel warm. Much warmer than I knew it was in the tent, since electric fans had been set up to cool off the area as we signed, even though the temperature was really quite pleasant.

Still, sweat was beginning to break out along the back of my neck and along the insides of my thighs beneath the skirt of my dress.

This was not a good situation. This was not a good situation at all.

“How are you?” Will asked.

I blinked at him, startled. “Who? Me?”

He grinned, not glancing away from the camera. “Yes, you. How are you doing? All right, then?”

“Er.” I was about to burst into flames, but other than that, fine. “Yes.”

“Now if you could just lean across the tables.” Elijah was talking to Lauren. “Like you’re asking them a question, the way I saw you doing a few minutes ago?”

“Me?” Lauren looked delighted. “Of course!”

Lauren leaned across the table, her long, straight hair sweeping across the white tablecloth, brushing my hand a little bit and enveloping both Will and I in the scent of her apple-blossom shampoo.

This was preferable to the scent of Will in which I’d been enveloped before, but was doing nothing for the heat I was feeling. Was he not feeling it? He didn’t appear to be, and neither did Lauren. They both looked cool as cucumbers, smiling away as Elijah clicked, clicked, clicked—

“Okay!” I sprang up from my chair and backed away from Will. Thankfully air rushed in and began to cool all the places that had begun to become slick with heat. “You have enough photos for now, right, Elijah?”

Elijah looked down at the screen on the back of his camera. “Uh . . . yes. Yeah, these are great. Thanks.”

“Great.” I grabbed my bag from beneath my signing table and darted away before anyone could think of some other reason to force me to sit back down next to the good-smelling nuclear reactor that was Will Price. “Well, I guess I’ll see you all at dinner—”

“Oh no you don’t, Miss Jo Wright.” Kellyjean was suddenly at my side, snaking an arm through mine. “We’re not letting you slink back to the hotel to work for the rest of this beautiful day.”

“Uh.” I had to lean my head to the side in order not to be struck by the rim of her enormous beach hat. “No, I really do need to get back to the hotel. I’m super behind on Kitty Katz number twenty-seven. I finally got a good idea for it, so I’m just going to go work on—”

“You’re not doing any such thing.” Kellyjean’s grip on my arm was surprisingly forceful. “You’re going to go out on Will’s boat with us this afternoon for lunch. Weren’t you the one telling that little girl over there that if she wants to be a good writer, she has to have experiences worth writing about?”

“Um.” I flung a desperate look in Bernadette’s direction for help, but she only grinned at me, evidently enjoying my discomfort. You did say that, she mouthed, and pointed finger guns at me. “Yes. But Lauren is twelve and a new writer, and I’m in my thirties and—”

“Hey!” Lauren had zipped up her suitcase and was now flinging me a disbelieving look. “I’m nineteen!”

“Oh, sorry, nineteen. But I’d really just like to—”

“No excuses.” Kellyjean’s hold on my arm had turned to a death grip. “You’re going to love it. We’re going to drink wine, and maybe do some sunbathing—”

“Oh, that’s too bad.” In spite of the strength of Kellyjean’s grip, I tugged to pull my arm free. “I didn’t bring my swimsuit.”

“I brought it.” Kellyjean patted her gigantic beach bag while keeping hold of my arm. “I took it out of your room last night while I was setting up my diffuser, since I knew you’d forget it. Wasn’t that smart of me? Now you have no excuse not to come with us.”

Bernadette, to whom I flung one last desperate glance for help, only smiled at me. “Sorry, Jo,” she said with a shrug. “It’s on the itinerary.”

I gave up. Kitty Katz knew when it was ungracious to turn down an invitation—even an invitation she was dreading—and so did I.

“Gee, great,” I said, faking an enormous smile. “I can’t wait.”

The Moment by Will Price

We made love on the floor in front of the fire. Our bodies met like long-lost friends, our limbs entwined, our lips clinging. Her hair hung around my face like a shimmering waterfall of liquid gold, the smell of her filling my senses like an opiate. For a while, I forgot what I had done.

Afterward, though, when she lay panting against my bare chest, and the flames in the fireplace had died to only a red glow, I remembered.