Chapter Thirty
Recreating the flower garden at the fair was an all day endeavor.
J.P. had lost count of the number of times he’d shuttled back and forth to pack the wooden blooms into his truck bed. He could only fit two at a time when he arranged them on their sides, and even with a lighter load, he traveled at least ten miles under the speed limit to ensure the props stayed securely in place.
Thankfully, they had been assigned a shaded portion of the fairgrounds to set up their booth. Past years had dictated that children held up better in cooler temperatures, resulting in fewer meltdowns and, as a serendipitous outcome, happier parents. Happy parents tended to stay at the festival longer, which contributed to more tickets, wares, and food consumed, ultimately leading to more money raised for charity, the endgame of it all.
The summer festival planners had figured it all out.
J.P. smiled inwardly, feeling like he’d finally figured things out too.
Late last night, Scarlett had texted with the best news imaginable: the fire hadn’t been due to J.P.’s negligence, nor Nora’s forgetfulness. It hadn’t even been started by a person at all. As fate would have it, the bees weren’t the only unwanted intruders on the property. A family of squirrels had happily made the vacant home their nesting grounds, and their incessant chewing on the electrical wires in the attic created a fire hazard, which ultimately took down the dilapidated structure.
J.P. felt bad for the innocent critters just trying to make a home in a place not meant for them. Like the mama rabbit and her bunnies in the community garden, they could thrive in the right setting, but could be potentially destructive in the wrong one.
The irony wasn’t lost on J.P. as he reflected on his own path leading to Harmony Ridge. Maybe there was a reason things hadn’t worked out until now. He just hadn’t landed in the spot where he was meant to be.
But he’d found that here in this small town with this incredible woman by his side. Warmth raked through him from head to toe. The sweltering August heat shouldered some of the blame for that, but the rest was born from absolute contentment, the kind that made you melt in the best way possible.
“Penny for your thoughts?”
Nora lined up the face paints on the small folding table beside the sunflower seat. She had already arranged the brushes from biggest to smallest, but fiddled with their lineup again while they waited for the fair to open and for the first troop of kids to come through.
“I was just thinking about how happy I am,” J.P. said wistfully.
He came behind her to slink his arms around her waist and she spun around in his embrace, hopeful eyes latching onto his. He couldn’t keep from meeting her lips in a quick, stolen kiss.
“We’ll see how happy you are after you’ve painted the sticky faces of a dozen rambunctious kiddos,” she teased.
“I don’t think anything could sour my mood.”
As if on cue, Kenzie and Dylan strode by, making their way to their dunk tank station across the lawn at the far end of the fairgrounds. Something flickered brilliantly in J.P.’s periphery as Kenzie’s left hand came to curl an errant hair around the shell of her ear.
A ring.
Maybe last month this would have been enough to send J.P. into a jealous tailspin, but the reality of his estranged older brother marrying Kenzie didn’t usher in feelings of envy or spite. No, J.P.’s own happiness was too full and too pure to allow any unwanted emotions to edge their way in. He didn’t have room for that type of pettiness in his life anymore.
All he had room for was love, and that could grow in infinite measure, never running out of space to bloom.
Nora slipped out from his arms and took up a brush. “I think we should get in a little more practice before our first customers arrive. What do you say?”
J.P. reclined on his sunflower masterpiece. “I’m all yours.”
“I like the sound of that,” she said coyly before directing her focus to the face painting assignment. She tapped the end of the brush to her lips in thought. “What’ll it be? Any special requests?”
“How about we start with something simple, like a balloon?”
“Easy enough. Any preference on color?”
“Blue,” J.P. supplied. “My favorite.”
Nora leaned back on a folding chair beside J.P. and gave him a look. “I didn’t know blue was your favorite color.”
“There’s a lot you still don’t know about me, Nora Paisley.”
“Like your first name,” she snickered. “Jack…”
He cocked his head.
