The Most Wonderful Time

by Fern Michaels

  “He was a fool, I don’t mind you sayin’ so. But the Communists came in, and the first thing they wanted to do was change the name of the town. The people left weren’t in a position to put up much of a fight, but they weren’t quite ready to support it.”

  “How’d they just change the name?”

  “One morning we all woke up, and all of the signs had an extra letter. At that point, the folks who were left were no fan of the coal companies, though they wouldn’t say so out loud. So they figured they’d just let it be. And now we’re Coral Bottom.”

  “Which makes no sense at all,” Abe pointed out.

  “No, it doesn’t,” Granny said with a proud smile.

  “Coral Bottom, Communist enclave,” Emma said in wonder.

  “Oh, no, they drove the Communists out by the end of the fifties. But the coal companies never came back, so the new name stuck.”

  Emma sat back. “This might be the most amazing place I’ve ever been.”

  Granny Sue laughed and patted her knee. “Oh, these hills are full of stories like that. You stick around awhile, you’ll see.”

  Hmm, she thought. Stick around awhile.

  “There’s a saying around here,” Abe said, pulling in front of a tall carriage house. “‘Never let the truth stand in the way of a good story.’”

  “Wait,” Emma said. “So it’s not true?”

  “We’re here!” Granny Sue said, getting out of the truck. “Welcome to the Coral Bottom Public Library.”

  Chapter Ten

  The placard outside the library indicated that the Coral Bottom Public Library building was once the carriage house attached to the coal baron’s mansion that now served as town hall. In 1946, the Communists, with the help of the local Boy Scouts, converted the house into the library. A small addition was added in the 1980s, but other than that, the building was historically accurate.

  It was also historically adorable. The trees outside were covered in colorful lights. Inside, it was warm and it smelled like books and firewood and trees.

  The tree smell came from the large, decorated tree in the corner, decked out with lights and tinsel and paper flags. Granny pulled one off. “This is a wishin’ tree. Lots of folks in need around here, but we take care of each other.”

  Emma turned one of the flags over: WARM SOCKS, MY LITTLE PONY, HARRY POTTER.

  “Folks take one, then wrap the presents and leave them here with the tag. There’s no shame in asking for help, but some people don’t like to.”

  “And everyone just takes their own presents?”

  Granny Sue shrugged. “Haven’t had a problem yet, and we’ve been doing them for twenty years.”

  Emma saw Abe flip over a few flags. He pulled off two of them and put them in his pocket. He caught her looking and gave her a wink.

  “Well, come on in. Abe, you show her around, I’ve got to get those books for Elsa Mae.”

  Emma followed Abe to the middle of the high-ceilinged room. “Well,” he said, stretching out his hands, “here’s the Coral Bottom Library.”

  “Impressive.”

  “You have very low standards.”

  Emma leaned in to Abe to give him a playful shove that had nothing at all to do with reacquainting herself with the muscles in his arm.

  “I spent a lot of time here as a kid. Mostly when I got in trouble. Instead of detention, the principal’d call Granny Sue and I’d have to sit in here after school. Almost made me wish I could have real detention.”

  Just then Granny Sue returned. “Okay, see you kids back at the lodge.”

  “What? You’re not going back with us?” Abe asked.

  Granny Sue just started shuffling a pile of books. “I need to get Elsa Mae her books. Edna and the girls are too busy here to do it.”

  Edna and “the girls” were old enough to be Granny Sue’s mother, and he knew that they could run this library with their eyes closed.

  Granny Sue was up to something.

  Granny Sue was matchmaking.

  She was notorious for saying that what “you young people do is none of my business,” then going ahead and making it her business. She might claim innocence, but she was responsible for half the marriages in Coral Bottom. She was always nudging the most unexpected people together in a way that was only subtle to her unsuspecting victims. “Oh, you like Dune? You know, Carrie told me she’s been a fan of Dune since she was in high school.” “Oh, you’re training to be a firefighter? Well, Janice has always had a thing for firefighters.” “Oh, you’re going to WVU? My nephew Dale lives in Morgantown—he’d be glad to show you around.”

  And it always worked. Carrie and Stephen, Janice and Elmer, Loretta and Dale—they’d all gotten married and most of them had a bunch of grandbabies for Granny Sue.

  She’d even nudged Daniel in Kevin’s direction, all the way out in California.

  Come to think of it, she’d never gotten involved in Abe’s love life.

  So maybe he was wrong. Maybe she really did need to get the books she was holding to Elsa Mae.

  Matchmaking or not (because what did he and Emma even have in common? She was getting her PhD, he could barely make rent), there was no arguing with Granny Sue once she’d said her piece. So they said good-bye and he opened the truck for Emma, and they headed back to the lodge.

  She was awful quiet in the front seat. She didn’t strike him as much of a talker, but the way she’d been asking questions back there in the library, he had a feeling that her still waters ran deep.

  “What’re you thinking?”

  “Oh, nothing.”

  Oh yeah, real deep.

  “I think I’m having an existential crisis,” she blurted out.

  “What now?”

  “You grew up going to that library?”

  Abe thought he might get whiplash from the twists and turns this girl’s brain was making.

  “Yeah. When I was a kid. When I got older, only in the summer. Or whenever Granny Sue dragged me in to be cheap labor.”

  “What was it like?”

  “It was like it is now. Lots of books all over the place, lots of people reading to their kids. Usually there was someone asking Granny for help with property line problems or medical symptoms.”

  “She told you that?”

  “No, only what I would overhear. Granny said she was like a priest, and what people asked her in the library was as secret as confession. Of course, if people asked her at the grocery store or in town, that was fair game.”

  “But the library was sacred.”

  “Sure, I guess.”

  “The sacred reference question. Do you have a piece of paper?”

  He reached over and opened the glove box and handed her a napkin from Tudor’s Biscuit World. She picked up the pen that fell to the floor and started scribbling and muttering to herself.

  “You need a second napkin?”

  She didn’t say anything, just shook her head.

  After a minute, she came up for air. Whatever inspiration had just struck her, it didn’t seem to ease her existential crisis any.

  “I get that, sometimes,” he said.

  “Get what?”

  “An idea. Something’ll just strike me and a song will pop into my head. I’ve learned that if I don’t write it down right away, it’ll be gone.”

  “You write songs? I thought you just played.”

  “Hey, now. I’m not one of those pretty-boy fiddlers who’s just there to look good.”

  “Do they have those?”

  “Nashville’s lousy with ’em.”

  “You know, I’ve been to Nashville. I don’t remember that.”

  “Oh, what’d you do in Nashville?”

  “I went for the Southern Festival of Books.”

  “Of course.”

  “And to tour the library.”

  “Busman’s holiday.”

  “I wish.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m not really a librarian. I mean, I
have my degree, and soon I’ll have a doctorate, but I’m not an actual librarian.”

  “You’re a fake librarian?”

  “It feels that way.”

  “So that’s the existential crisis.”

  “Yes. What makes you a librarian? Is it the degree or the work?”

  “Or both?”

  “That’s what I think. Becky and Liam and Bernie and Kevin, they all got their degrees and now they’re doing things.”

  “Aren’t you doing things?”

  She sighed. “You’re right. Scholarship is a thing. It’s important. It keeps the field going.”

  “Say it one more time with feeling.”

  She smiled at him, all crooked and cute.

  “So what’s the crisis? You’re doing important work, but you’re mad that you’re not a librarian?”

  “I’m not mad, I’m just . . . disappointed, I guess.”

  That gave him massive flashbacks to his misspent youth. It was always worse when his mama would say, “I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed.” He came to learn that disappointed was way worse than mad. Come to think of it, his mama probably learned that from Granny Sue.

  And being disappointed in yourself? Yeah, he could relate to that. He’d gone to Nashville with big dreams, like an idiot kid, and now all he was doing was playing on other people’s records and getting bitter at other people’s success.

  It was an ugly feeling. He didn’t like it.

  But his truck could only hold one existential crisis at a time.

  “If you could do anything with your life, what would it be?”

  “Anything?”

  “Anything.”

  She looked thoughtful, then answered. “I should probably say save the world or something. But the truth is, I’d be Granny Sue.”

  Just when he was starting to get a crush on her.

  “I mean, I’m not Granny Sue, but I would do what she does. Run a small library like that. That’s the kind of library I grew up in, too, but in Indiana. I mean, it looked a lot different. Flat and stuff.”

  “Sure. Indiana is like that.”

  “But it had a similar feeling. Like everybody used it, even though the collection was small and crappy and the computers were outdated. We all went there after school to do homework and did the summer reading club. My mom would check out these giant historical novels, and sometimes Ms. Glassmeyer—that was the librarian—would set books aside that she thought my mom would like. I think that might be the only time I ever thought my mom was cool, when I discovered she had an in with the librarian.”

  He glanced over at her. “You know, your whole face changed when you told me that story.”

  She put her hands up to her cheeks. “Did it?”

  “Your existential crisis was gone. Wait—now it’s back.”

  “Well, I can’t do that job.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’ve come too far to turn back now.”

  “How far are you?”

  “ABD. All But Dissertation.”

  “So write your dissertation and then go work at a tiny, sad library like the Coral Bottom one.”

  “Ha-ha. I wish it were that easy.”

  “If it were easy, they wouldn’t give you that fancy piece of paper for it.”

  She leaned her head back on the headrest and let out the saddest sigh he’d ever heard. She had the face of a woman who was starring in her own country song. “The Saddest Librarian in Coral Bottom.”

  Even he probably couldn’t make that work.

  “You’re so lucky that you grew up here.”

  He wasn’t sure he had ever heard it expressed quite that way. More like, “You grew up HERE?”

  “It’s so beautiful. And peaceful.”

  “And boring.”

  “You think it’s boring?”

  “No, but I grew up here. I have fond memories and all that junk.”

  “So why’d you leave?”

  “You can’t make a living making music in Coral Bottom. Or Froggy Rock or any of these places.”

  “Can’t you?”

  “If I could, I never would have left.”

  “Even with the Internet? Can’t you just, like, make a YouTube video and go viral?”

  He was about to launch into his speech about how it wasn’t that easy, you had to pay your dues, never mind that no matter how many dues he paid, the price always seemed to go up. And never mind that there were kids who did that, who just got famous like it was easy. He didn’t even want to be famous, not really. He just wanted to make a living and get some respect. Not necessarily in that order. If it was easy, he would have done it by now.

  But when he looked over at her, he saw that her grin was mischievous. So she wasn’t an idiot. That was good.

  “I ain’t pretty enough for YouTube.”

  “Oh, you’re pretty.”

  And now she looked red as a beet.

  “I mean—”

  “No, I heard you. You think I’m pretty. You can’t take it back.”

  “I don’t think you’re pretty! You’re . . . you’re handsome.”

  He snorted.

  “You are! In a rugged kind of way. With your beard and your plaid and stuff.”

  * * *

  Well, now she had a crush on the Night Fiddler. First she has an existential crisis brought on by a small, well-loved library, then she met a thoughtful, funny, charming musician with a great smile upon whom she made a terrible first impression.

  What did it matter? Her life was meaningless! Hopeless! She’d never finish her dissertation and she’d be alone forever! She wouldn’t even be able to fulfill any meaningful stereotypes because she wasn’t even a real librarian! And Kevin and Daniel were going to be happy forever and then Becky and Bernie and Liam would go home to their fulfilling library careers and she would just rot in her crappy apartment in Indiana and stare at her thesis, which still had not managed to write itself!

  “Is it really that painful to admit that I’m ruggedly handsome?”

  In all of her angsting, she’d forgotten that she was still in the truck with Abe. And that her anxious inner monologue was causing her to miss out on the beautiful scenery.

  And now it was snowing.

  “Oh,” she said as fat, white flakes dotted the road in front of them.

  Abe flicked the wipers on.

  “Don’t worry, we’re almost there.”

  “I’m not worried, it’s just—it’s kind of magical, isn’t it?”

  He looked over at her and smiled. She was surprised the snow didn’t melt.

  “Wait till you see it in the morning when it’s covering the trees.”

  “I bet it’s a winter wonderland.”

  “It is. It’s a daggun winter wonderland.”

  She giggled, because now she was the kind of person who giggled in the presence of a hot man with a snow-melting smile.

  All too soon, he pulled into the parking lot in front of the lodge. “Wait here,” he said, and hopped out of the truck and jogged around to her door. He started to pull it open and then—

  “Oof,” she heard from outside her door as Abe disappeared. Then she heard some other words.

  People around here sure knew some very creative curses.

  She pushed the door open just as Abe was standing up. “Are you okay?”

  “Fine,” he said, brushing off the seat of his pants. “Mostly hurt my pride. Careful, it’s slippery.”

  “I see that,” she said with a laugh, and set her feet on the ground.

  Which promptly slid out from underneath her.

  She grabbed onto the door for purchase, but she needn’t have bothered, as Abe was right there, catching her by the elbow and holding her up.

  “Slippery,” she said, a little breathless from the fall. Not at all breathless from the smell of rugged man and woods and winter.

  “You’d better hold on until we get inside.”

  “Mmm-hmm,” she agreed, though they seemed to have park
ed on the only patch of black ice in the whole lot. Still, she had had enough falls today, both literal and figurative. It was better to play it safe. And if playing it safe meant Abe’s strong arms around her as she walked into the lodge, well, so be it.

  Chapter Eleven

  Kevin raised an eyebrow as Abe walked through the door, practically carrying Emma. She was fine—heck, he’d hit the ground harder than she did—but it felt so good to have her lean into him that he might have held her a little tighter than necessary. She smelled like cinnamon. He loved cinnamon.

  Thankfully, Kevin didn’t say anything, although that eyebrow said plenty. Abe knew Kevin well enough to know that he would be subject to an interrogation later, but maybe Kevin would be too busy to notice.

  And Marshall would beat WVU in the Friends of Coal Bowl.

  At least Daniel didn’t notice. He was too busy staring out the big picture window, his shoulders looking tense and worried. Abe wondered if this snow would ruin tomorrow’s wedding. Kevin didn’t seem worried, and if there was something to be worried about, Kevin was your man.

  “Thanks for the ride,” Emma said, not at all disengaging from his arms.

  “No problem. Glad I could help with your existential crisis.”

  “I’m not sure you helped. You might have made it worse.”

  “Well, then. Sorry about that.”

  She shrugged. “It’s okay.” Her eyes still looked guarded and worried, but at least she was smiling.

  “Emma! You’re back!” The blond one—Becky, he was pretty sure—skipped up to them. “I heard you got to visit a library!”

  And that was what got Emma out of his arms. She waved at him, then hustled off to talk to her friends about the Coral Bottom Public Library.

  If she wasn’t so cute, he would . . . well, he would probably like her anyway. Hard not to like someone with passion. Especially someone with a smile like that.

  * * *

  “And there’s a fireplace!”

  “In the library? That sounds dangerous.” Bernie was curled up on the edge of the couch with a mug of hot chocolate. Emma had barely unwrapped her scarf before she started telling them about her trip to Coral Bottom and the people and the library.

  “What happened to your pants?” Liam asked.

  “Oh.” Her jeans were still in the dryer at Granny Sue’s. She would definitely need those jeans before she left. But she wasn’t worried about it. She kind of liked having an excuse to go back to Coral Bottom.