Page 218 of Just One More Thing

Charlie nods once. That’s all he needs.

Across the lawn, a woman I recognize from Dog Days is talking to Lainey and Bethany. The same one I saw with Charlie that night. She’s swaying a little to the music, and when the band shifts into something slower, Charlie’s eyes slide back to her for half a second before returning to me.

“Who’s that?” I ask.

“Dr. Harper Hill,” Charlie says. “New vet. Took over the clinic when Doc Perkins retired.”

“How do I not know any of this?”

Charlie gives me a look. “Jake. You’ve been a little preoccupied this summer.”

Fair.

“She’s good with animals. Hank would like her.”

“Is that so,” I say. “How about you?”

Charlie looks down at his coffee.

“Just an observation.”

“Mm-hm.”

Across The Green, Dr. Hill says something to Bethany and Lainey that gets all three of them laughing. Ryan glances over at the sound, then looks away.

Seems like love is in the air today.

I find Willard on his bench at the edge of everything and somehow still right in the middle of it.

The party swirls around him—music, laughter, Wayne retelling the French Fry incident to anyone who’ll listen.

I sit down beside him.

He doesn’t say anything right away. Just watches the town with that calm look of his, like he knew how this would end long before any of us did.

After a minute, he says, “You did good, Jake.”

It lands where it’s meant to because I know what he means. Not the proposal. All of it. The waiting. The not pushing. Loving her long enough to let her get here in her own time.

“Thank you, Willard.”

“She’s a good one.”

“Yes. She is.”

Chip scampers out from under the bench, and Willard reaches into his bag, pulls out a peanut, and hands it to him.

“You just had to be patient enough to let her figure out what you already knew.”

I glance at the brass plate on the bench with his wife’s name on it.

“She would’ve loved today,” he says quietly.

“Yeah?”

Willard smiles to himself. “She was a fool for a good love story. Believed everybody had a happy ending waiting on them.”

Mo appears beside the bench.