But when he reached the door to the supply room, he heard Jillian speaking. The pitch of her voice made him think something was wrong, and he stopped in his tracks.
“I understand,” she was saying. “I completely understand and I’m very sorry. But I had no idea how bad things were when I?—”
There was a pause, and he realized that she must be on the phone, and the other person had cut her off.
“Yes,” she said after a moment, her voice flat. “Yes, I get it. I hope you can book something else.”
Tripp frowned, wondering what was being booked.
But there was only silence now. Whoever she’d been talking to must have hung up.
Tripp knew he should turn around and leave her alone. Jillian had never liked him, and she wasn’t going to like him any better now that he was popping up in her driveway and then the infirmary for the second afternoon in a row.
But he couldn’t stand to hear her voice like that. The Jillian Johnson he remembered had never faced a challenge she couldn’t handle. It was awful to hear a note of surrender in her voice.
“Hey,” he heard himself say as he tapped lightly on the frame of her office door.
“Oh, um, hi,” Jillian said, turning from him, but not before he caught that her green eyes sparkled with unshed tears.
“I know it’s none of my business,” Tripp said. “But that sounded like a bad phone call. Do you want to talk about it?”
He was pretty sure she was going to say no.
“That was my general contractor,” she said. “He’s really good. I did my homework.”
“I’ll bet you did,” Tripp said. No one was better at homework than Jillian.
“Anyway, he was going to put an addition on my grandparents’ place,” she said. “And once I saw the house, well, I realized what they really need is a renovation.”
Good luck getting them to agree to that,Tripp wanted to say.
“Can you swing both?” he asked instead, feeling like he already knew the answer.
“I can afford one or the other,” she admitted. “But the house needs repairs and maintenance more than the girls and I need privacy. I thought maybe the contractor would be willing to just change the project.”
Tripp nodded, not wanting to comment. Building an addition from scratch probably seemedeasy compared to trying to renovate a house with five people living in it.
“He was so angry,” Jillian said, her eyes focused on something far away. “And now I’ll never find anyone to start before the holidays. The house is in shambles, and the girls and I will probably be sharing a room until they grow up and move away.”
“The three of you are in one room?” Tripp asked.
“It’s not as bad as it sounds,” she said right away. “It’s a nice big room, and we get along just fine. I just hoped that the transition would be a little less… extreme for the girls.”
She blew out a sigh and then plastered a brave smile on her face.
Tripp felt the cost of that smile like it was scraping a layer off his own soul. Surely, there was a solution to all of this.
“What about the attic?” he asked her.
“Oh, I’m sure it needs work too,” Jillian said. “But I probably don’t have the budget to tackle the attic or the basement, just the two main floors.”
“No,” Tripp said. “I mean the attic is in great shape. I was up there when your grandfather was having the roof put on. It’s a huge space, as big as the whole second floor if you don’t mind a sloped ceiling.”
“Like for the girls and me?” Jillian asked.
“Yes,” Tripp said, starting to get excited. “You could probably do two bedrooms and a bathroom up there, maybe even a small sitting area.”
“Wow,” Jillian said, brightening. “I never would have thought of that.”
