For Jillian, the next week passed in a flurry of activities and another dusting of snow. The girls had a lot of schoolwork as well as another scheduled phone call with their father. Jillian dug deeper into the task of organizing at work between student visits to the infirmary, and the little house on Fox Hollow Road began to transform.
She had expected that the work Tripp planned to do would probably take a few months. But now that she saw how thorough he was, she realized it might be a very long time before he was able to complete every task he had jotted down in that notebook.
It was nice to have him around though.
So far, Tripp and a friend had dug into the second-floor hall bathroom. Though there certainly wasn’t room in that small space for a third person, Jillian enjoyed being downstairs and hearing snippets of Tripp and Ned Bunting laughing and talking while they worked.
She made sure to have a pitcher of iced tea in thefridge and snacks ready for them when they took a quick break.
Ned always hurried home for dinner and Tripp usually left shortly after. But on Wednesday, Tripp had agreed to stay, and they had all eaten buttered green beans with thick slices of ham and dinner rolls, and talked about all the events coming up in town.
“You know Jason Hayes is back in town for the holidays,” Tripp shared.
“Is that the actor?” Gram asked him.
“Sure is,” Tripp said. “He was ahead of us in school, but it’s still pretty cool. He was a legend.”
“They’ve still got his photo up on the wall outside the auditorium,” Jillian said with a smile.
“We do have our share of famous people around here these days,” Grampy said. “Your own brother included, Tripp.”
“It’s so good to have him back in town,” Gram added.
Tripp’s brother Cash was a famous rock star. He’d spent a lot of time on the road, but Sugarville Grove was his home base now, which seemed to make Tripp’s whole family really happy.
Jillian envied their close relationships. She couldn’t imagine how nice it would be to have her parents and sister nearby. As things were, she felt luckier every day to be living with Gram and Grampy.
She had told Tripp so in one of their nightly texts, and he’d told her that he knew they felt the same about having her and the girls home.
Texting with Tripp before bed had become one of her favorite moments of the day. Even though their nightlychats weren’t exactly romantic, she felt like she was getting to know him when he shared what he was thinking about at the end of the day. He told her the funniest stories about the farm and his nieces and nephews, and asked her all kinds of questions about school and the girls.
She had always thought he was a bit of a troublemaker, but Tripp really was a family man at heart. It was more and more surprising to her that he didn’t have a family of his own by now.
On Thursday, Tripp pulled her aside before he headed home for the evening.
“Hey,” he murmured. “I wanted to ask you for two dates, if that’s not too forward.”
“Okay,” she said, feeling oddly relieved. It had been five days since she’d told himyes. And while they had talked and seen each other casually, there had been no mention of dating.
“I want to take you out tomorrow night,” he said. “Just the two of us, if your grandparents don’t mind staying with the girls. Or my niece Olivia can come by to babysit, if that’s better.”
“That sounds good,” she told him. “And I’ll ask, but I’ll bet Gram and Grampy won’t mind watching the girls at all.”
“And then Saturday is the town snowball fight, then the tree lighting at night,” he said. “I was hoping we could spend the day in town with the girls again.”
The Sugarville Grove tree lighting ceremony was really special. Jillian had fond thoughts of watching the tree light up back as far as she couldremember.
She had pictured being there with a husband and children of her own one day. And while she might not have a husband anymore, she had her girls. And handsome, generous Tripp Lawrence would be right there beside them. The idea put a lump in her throat.
“That sounds perfect,” she told him, trying to keep the emotion from her voice.
“We won’t work on the house tomorrow then,” Tripp said, his own voice a little husky. “I’ll just come by and pick you up.”
“I can’t wait,” she told him.
But she wasa little nervous anyway, and not even about the date itself yet.
That night when she tucked the girls into bed, she gathered her courage and decided to be simple and direct.
