Once everything in the room was clean and neat, she pulled everything down again and started a full reorganization.
There was something satisfying about having a whole station all to herself. Working at the hospital, she’d had to do everything according to a very strict protocol, including organizational strategies that she was pretty sure had never been run past a working nurse.
Running the school infirmary gave her more leeway to place commonly needed items in easy to reach spots, choose how to label each shelf and section, and even track which supplies she should prioritize ordering with the annual budget next year.
After two concentrated hours, the supply room was spotless and well-organized, with fresh labels on all the shelves. She just needed to transfer her inventory notes onto the computer, which she planned to do over the course of the school day tomorrow, if there weren’t too many student emergencies.
She headed back to her office and grabbed her insulated water bottle out of her bag.
The bottle was a luxury from her old life, before Alan left. It was a birthday gift that had probably cost a fortune, but it kept her water ice-cold all day and she loved it. A pattern of wildflowers decorated the outside.
He loved me once,she reminded herself.
Jillian had put her whole heart into her family. She had taken good care of Alan and the girls, worked hard, and tried to be the best wife and mother she could be.
Even after Alan left, she kept trying to improve herself, losing the last five pounds she had never managed to take off after Posey was born, and even taking a cooking class and painting the foyer of their condo while the girls were at summer camp, all in the hopes that he would forget the other woman and be happy when he came back to the life they had built around his dreams.
Of course she was humiliated, but in Jillian’s heart, a promise was a promise. She couldn’t imagine that Alan wouldn’t come to his senses eventually.
“Why would you evenwanthim to?” her sister would ask her on the phone, sounding horrified. “He’s never been a nice guy, but what he did to you and the girls is unforgivable.”
But Amberlee wasn’t a mom yet, so she didn’t understand. Children needed loving grownups and they needed structure.
Now that they were going to be settling in Sugarville Grove, Jillian was building a new version of structure with her grandparents’ help. And that was something to feel hopeful about, even if things weren’t perfect yet.
She popped off the cap of the bottle and took a deep pull of cold, refreshing water.
Tonight would bring a whole new set of challenges, so it was nice to take a breath now, in between work and home.
Gram and Grampy’s house was a mess. Upstairs was worse than downstairs, and Jillian was pretty sure it would take almost everything she had just to bring it back to goodcondition.
For now, she and the girls were sharing the large spare bedroom. In spite of its peeling wallpaper and threadbare carpet, it was clean and dry, thank goodness.
There was a junk room between that room and the one Gram and Grampy shared, a room they wouldn’t even let her see. Maybe at some point it would get cleaned out and the girls could move into it, but she didn’t want to bring up the idea since she sensed her grandparents were already a little embarrassed about how bad the house had gotten.
They also thought she was still planning to put on an addition. She had no idea how she was going to tell them that she would rather fix up the existing house.
But she was going to have to find a way, and soon. The general contractor from Burlington she had planned to work with for the addition wanted to come out and see the place in the next few days.
I’ll worry about it when it’s time to worry about it,she told herself.For now, we’ll focus on enjoying time together, so it stings less when the time comes.
She was just recapping her water bottle when she heard the unmistakable sound of someone shuffling around in the supply room.
“What on earth?” she murmured to herself as she hopped up from her desk and headed down the hallway.
Sure enough, a big, dark-haired man in a gray sweatshirt was digging through her beautifully organized boxes, letting a box of gauze pads fall to the countertop willy-nilly.
“Excuse me,” she said in her sternest voice.
“Oh sorry,” he said without turning around, his deepvoice oddly familiar. “Kowalski’s a bleeder. Where is everything anyway?”
“I just reorganized it,” she said, stepping into the room.
The man stopped suddenly, probably realizing from her voice that she wasn’t the usual school nurse.
When he spun around, Jillian nearly let out an audible gasp.
Tripp Lawrence.What are the chances?
