Page 30 of Always You (A Lilac Bay Novel)

“We won’t make our final decisions until the first site visit,” she said. “Which we would like to do in the next week.”

The next week? Holy shit. My mind was already spinning. They were going to come here? In a week? I hadn’t even told the mayor yet.

But Gina was still talking. “We’re obviously on quite a tight schedule. We’ll come out with a film crew so the producers can talk to you, get a tour. Nothing very formal. They’ll want to get some shots of the island, of course, and meet the committee. And then we’ll go from there. Does that work for you?”

“Of course,” I said quickly.Take a deep breath, Riley,I told myself.Keep it together.“That would work just fine for us.”

“I’m going to email you the information about what we’re looking for in the committee,” she said. “There’s a bunch of legal things in the packet as well, releases to sign, that kind of thing. You’ll want to go over it with your city’s lawyer.”

“Of course.”

“I’ll give you some time to look through it. Can we be in touch on Monday?”

“Monday should be plenty of time.”

“Great. Keep a list of any questions that come up and we can discuss those as well.”

I was definitely having trouble breathing now. This was actually happening.

“I’ll do that.”

“Wonderful. That’s all I have for now. Go through the packet. I’ll be in touch.”

“Thank you so much. This—wow. This is a great opportunity for our town. Everyone will be so excited.”

Her voice was warm when she responded. “We’re excited as well. Thanks for applying.”

After I hung up the phone I just sat there at my desk, unable to process that this was actually, really real. They wanted to send producers—a film crew!—out to Lilac Bay to meet with us. They thought we—what had she said?Captured the small town feel they were hoping to find. Holy crap.

“What’s the matter with you?” I looked up to see Millie in front of my desk, glaring at me.

“Nothing,” I said, too shocked to even be annoyed at her presence.

“You were fifteen minutes late this morning,” she snapped. “And now you’re just sitting here staring into space? Do you have plans to work at any point this morning?”

The Heather Dale Show was sending a film crew and producers to our island. We might be on national television. All that exposure. Grants and reward money, funding for the library and the school and the rec league and the senior center—

“Are you even listening to me?” Millie snapped.

I looked up at her, grinning from ear to ear, and her eyes widened—I’d probably never looked quite so happy to see her before—as her frown depend.

“What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I was just thinking what a nice day it is,” I said, struggling not to burst into hysterical laughter. I had to tell the mayor. I had to tell Andrew!

“This is nice?” she asked, wrinkling her nose as she looked out the far window into the gray gloom, the waves of Lilac Bay crashing in the distance. The damn island had never looked so beautiful to me in my life.

“Very nice,” I said, laughing now. “Don’t you think?”

“Riley James—” she started, then gasped when I stood, walking away from the desk in the middle of her sentence. “Where do you think you’re going?”

I didn’t bother to answer. From here I could see that Andrew was on the phone now, his brow furrowed as he looked at his computer. He looked up and saw me approaching and I could see his face register that something was going on, something big.

“Can I call you back?” he said to whoever was on the other line, hanging up the phone and standing as I reached him. “What? What is it?”

“We did it,” I told him, laughing again. I felt like screaming, like jumping up and down. In the end, I threw my arms around him, kicking up my feet a little when he caught me. I could feel every eye in the office on us, but I didn’t care.We did it!

“What did we do?” he asked, his voice sounding both bemused and pleased, his arms automatically coming up around me to hug me back.