I cut her off. “We’re not going to worry about it.”

The unspoken question chewed at both of us. If Graydon wanted more stops on the route, we’d need more bookmobile staff. And that meant . . . well, I wasn’t sure what it meant, exactly. But it would certainly mean changes for us and for our patrons, which meant there would be issues to deal with, both foreseen and unforeseen.

The foreseen things we could take care of. It was those sneaky unforeseen things that could throw the whole program into disarray and chaos and start it sliding into a downhill trajectory that ended in a quick sale of the bookmobile to the highest bidder, who I was already envisioning would be a local plumber, and I’d have to spend the next twenty years of my life watching it haul pipe.

“I thought you said we weren’t going to worry.” Julia was looking at me, doing the one-eyebrow thing. “No saying you weren’t, because that little vertical line between your eyebrows is telling the truth.”

My right hand went to my face and felt around. Sure enough. I scrubbed at my eyebrows with my palm. “Ta-da! All gone, see?” I turned to show her.

Gasping, she pointed at the windshield.

I whipped around to face front. Though the bookmobile hadn’t strayed a millimeter from the center of our lane during my second and a half of inattention, during that brief period of time, an oncoming car had zoomed into view.

Its headlights pierced the dusk and flared bright into my eyes. I immediately did as I’d been trained and looked down and right to watch the white line at the edge of the asphalt. But since we were on a back road there was no white line, so I trained my gaze on the edge of the crumbling asphalt.

From the angle of the approaching vehicle’s headlights, I could tell that it was encroaching into our lane. Careful, oh so carefully, I edged the bookmobile as far right as possible. On this road, falling off the pavement could mean a drop into soft soil. With the bookmobile’s weight, that could mean a sudden shift in center of gravity and a rollover, something I desperately wanted to avoid.

“He’s going to hit us,” Julia said in a high voice.

My attention was focused entirely on keeping us on the far edge of the road. “It’ll be fine,” I said calmly. “I got this.”

“He’s going to—”

The vehicle zoomed past in a quick swoosh and was already out of view when I glanced in the side mirror.

“Well.” I realized there was no air in my lungs, so I pulled in a deep breath and let it out. Wherever the driver was going in such a hurry, I hoped he or she got there without hitting anyone or anything. “That was interesting. Eddie, are you okay?”

“Mrr.”