Lib Novel Page 18
“Oh, hi, I’m Lucy,” his sister said as she jogged for the stairs, clutching her baby monitor. “My daughter just woke up, but we’ll get to know each other once I’ve got her downstairs.”
“Nice to meet you,” Cora called after her. “She seems so familiar.”
“She works at the Co-op Grocer’s,” Jared said. “If you shop there, you’ve probably seen her.”
“Oh, of course,” Cora said, smiling. “She offered to show us around the store on our first visit.”
“That’s my sister,” he said, shaking his head. “She was always the sweetest thing, and we were all so protective of her. It’s strange to think of her as a wife and a mom.”
Jared closed his mouth, wondering why he had told her all that. He wasn’t normally so sentimental about his siblings.
“It must be so wonderful to have brothers and sisters,” Cora said, not seeming to think it was the least bit strange that he had shared with her. “My older sister was so much older that she was practically out of the house by the time I was old enough to appreciate her. I always wished my parents had been blessed with more kids. My mom wanted it too, I think. But they spoil Sylvester rotten now when they see him.”
A cloud moved across her face at the mention of her parents.
“You miss them,” he guessed.
“I do,” she admitted. “I think they always wished I’d move back home to Ohio, but coming here to Ginny felt right.”
“Maybe they’ll move here one day,” he offered.
“You know what’s funny?” she asked, her eyes flashing up to his again. “My mom started looking at houses online with me when I was looking for a place here. And she just sent me one last night, a little two-bedroom house near the village. I almost fainted. I can’t imagine them leaving Ohio, but my grandparents are gone now, and I guess maybe they could sell the house and come out this way. It’s a little more expensive here, but they don’t need a big house anymore, and my sister never had kids… sorry. Now who’s going on and on?”
“I love hearing about your family,” Jared told her honestly. “Do you really think they might come to Trinity Falls?”
“Who knows?” she said. “But with Sylvester here, and both of us so happy, it could happen.”
“You’re happy here?” he asked her, stepping closer again without meaning to.
“I don’t know,” she said softly. “It just feels like home.”
Something was buzzing between them again. He felt a pull in his chest like the one he’d felt that first night he passed her house and seen the warmth of the lights in the windows.
She gazed up at him, those pretty gray eyes wide, as if she were feeling the same mysterious pull he was.
“Here we go, Kaylee,” Lucy’s voice floated down the stairs. “Let’s go decorate the tree.”
Jared stepped back quickly, feeling grateful for his little sister. He had no idea what kept coming over him. He definitely didn’t have feelings for Cora. It was just that he seemed to go a little hazy when he got too close to her.
“Want to see the tree?” he asked her without risking eye contact again.
“Of course,” she told him. “Lead the way.”
He headed back to the living room, where his dad was just starting up the little motor on the tree stand.
“What’s that?” Cora asked, instantly fascinated.
“Oh, it’s just a fun little contraption I put together when the kids were little,” Dad told her with a fond smile. “I’ve improved on the model a few times since then.”
“What does it do?” she asked.
“Hopefully, it will slowly rotate the tree, so that all the decorations show,” he told her. “Most of our decorations were made by our kids and grandkids. And it hardly seems fair for anyone’s beautiful creations to be on the back of the tree. This will let us show off all the decorations.”
“Amazing,” Cora said, immediately crouching down to have a look at it. “Where did you come up with the idea?”
Dad shot Jared a look and Jared shrugged. She was a schoolteacher, of course she wanted to know how everything worked.
Derek wandered in as Dad talked with Cora about the various prototypes, including the early one that spun the tree so fast the ornaments started flying off. Derek elbowed Jared, and when he looked over, his brother was holding an oatmeal cookie out to him that he must have swiped off the cooling racks.