Page 37 of Sweet Trouble
Not at her.
At him.
She remembered him trying to catch her eye in the hall in the days after, and her marching past without giving him asecond glance.
Did he think I was disgusted, that I was the one who thought I was too good for him?
She shut him down in front of his friends and then refused to even acknowledge him. It would sure look that way from the outside. And now Allie was telling her that he’d never gotten over it.
Surely, that couldn’t be true. Who would hold onto something for that long?
I would.
“Mama,” Posey said, running up again. “Can we go now? Gram said we could make cookies today.”
“Sure,” Jillian told her, trying to focus on the present instead of the past again. “Go find your sister and we’ll head out.”
“It was good to see you, Jillian,” Allie said thoughtfully.
“Thank you,” Jillian said, meaning it. “Thank you so much for what you just told me.”
“Are you going to talk to Tripp?” Allie asked her.
“As soon as I get him alone,” Jillian promised.
“Good,” Allie said. “He deserves to know what really happened, and so do you.”
Posey and Mari ran up just as Allie headed off to break up two little boys whose roughhousing was getting a little too rough.
“Let’s go,” Posey said, grabbing Jillian’s hand.
Jillian let the girls lead her to the car as her mind got lost in the conversation she had ahead of her with Tripp Lawrence.
The restof the afternoon passed quickly.
When she got home, Tripp was already out front, tearing the rotten treads off the porch stairs.
It might have been the perfect opportunity to get him alone, except that Gram was making cookies with the girls and Grampy asked if she would mind helping out with dinner.
Of course she couldn’t say no, so she changed clothes quickly and headed down to chop veggies for the red sauce and keep her grandfather company while he made his famous meatballs.
By the time that was done, the girls were happily covered in flour. So she ushered them upstairs for early showers, her heart still pounding and her mind scrambling about how to talk to Tripp.
When the girls were dressed again and everyone gathered at the table for supper, she could ask Tripp to stay a bit and talk with him then.
But by the time that happened, he had already headed back to his parents’ place to help out with the evening milking.
I’ll talk to him tomorrow,she told herself.It will be good for me to have a little time to think about what to say.
But she was filled with nervous energy all evening, and almost forgot to prepare and pack up the girls’ snacks and lunches for the next day. At least they were already bathed and they’d had an incredible spaghetti and meatball dinner.
“Everything okay?” Gram asked, coming over to pat Jillian’s back as she sliced up apples to put in the girls’snack bags.
“Yes,” Jillian said. “I’m so sorry. I’m just a little out of it today.”
“You’ve been so worried about the girls’ transition,” Gram said. “But this is a big transition for you too.”
“It’s a good one though,” Jillian said, setting down the knife to turn to her grandmother. “We’re going to be so happy here, and it’s all thanks to the two of you.”
