Page 32 of Candy Cane Dreams
"Yeah. It's an honor. And also a great boon for my business."
"I'm happy it happened for you."
"Same. I better get up to Lilly. Thank you again for being a little bit of brightness in my life. I had gotten some bad news with the suppliers and everything today, and you have me hopeful again."
"That makes me feel good. I'll see you tomorrow."
He lifted a hand in acknowledgment before Kate turned and gathered her things up to head back out of the shop. Her heart hummed a merry Christmas tune, and she couldn't keep thesmile that turned her lips up off her face. Suddenly, the future looked very, very bright.
Chapter Thirteen
Jack tore the plastic wrap off the roll and placed a candy cane on top of it, carefully folding the edges and bringing them together the way Lauren always had. She had made it look easy, and when he had first started trying to do it, he had ended up with crinkled balls of mess, but eventually, after he'd had to do it, he'd gotten fairly good at it. Sometimes he could even convince himself he enjoyed it.
He glanced over in the corner, where Kate sat with Lilly, earnestly pointing at something on a piece of paper in front of them and talking to Lilly, who nodded her head.
Lauren's old music box sat behind her on a shelf. He'd mentioned when they came in that he had put some things out that Lilly had enjoyed playing with. He hadn't mentioned that he'd put them away for a while because he thought the memories were probably too sad for both of them.
Lauren might not have been the love of his life, but they had spent a lot of time together, and he would be lying if he said he didn't miss her or didn't feel sad to think that she was gone.
But most of his emotions were wrapped up in Lilly and how devastated his daughter was.
Still, he had brought some things out of his bedroom that would work for them to play with in the candy shop, without bringing a whole bunch of Lilly's toys down from upstairs. He tried to keep the candy shop fairly clean and free of clutter. Not to mention it had to be sanitary as well.
He wrapped another candy cane, pulling the bow tight with a flourish and looking up as the bell jingled over a customer's head as someone walked in.
He smiled when he saw Summer McBride strolling in, a cowgirl hat on her head and boots on her feet.
She grinned at him. "Hey there, Jack. How's business?"
"It's going well. This is the best time of year," he said. He lifted his brows. "But I assume you're not in here to buy candy canes?"
"No. I came to talk to Kate. She had said something to one of the children about needing to talk to me, and I decided that instead of sending a message back through school, I would just try to find her in town. I asked at the feed store, and they pointed me here."
"Yeah. She's helping me with Lilly, and then in the shop some as well."
"I heard she's living in the old farmhouse. It's beautiful."
"Yeah. I'm a little jealous. She has a much better view than I do in the morning."
"I don't understand why you don't move back out there. You love it so much," Summer said, shaking her head.
He didn't have an answer for that. Why hadn't he moved back out? Lauren had wanted to move to the candy shop when they got married, and that just made sense, since that's where she worked every morning. And when there wasn't anything to do on the farm, he helped her as well. Eventually, the candy shop had taken over, and he left his brother with more and more work to do on his own.
"I'm sure they will be happy to see you," he said. Summer nodded and turned over to where Kate sat with Lilly.
As he expected, Kate looked up, saw that it was Summer, and then glanced over at him, her brows raised.
He nodded. He was pretty sure that she was asking if he could take Lilly for a little bit so Summer could talk. He was guessing, since Summer ran a counseling equine therapy program, that Kate was probably wanting to talk to her to see if there was anything that she could do for Lilly. Kate was diligent about doing her homework and leaving no stone unturned. It didn't surprise him at all that she might be talking to Summer.
A couple of minutes later, Lilly came over to him.
He smiled at his daughter and gave her some ribbon so she could tie a few bows onto the cellophane. His daughter had a natural knack for making things look pretty, very much like Lauren did. Lilly reminded him so much of Lauren in so many ways that sometimes he wondered if she was cloned, because he had trouble seeing anything of himself in her. Except for her honey blonde hair. It was just a shade or two lighter than his own and would probably darken to match his by the time she was an adult.
Regardless, she had her mother's eyes, her nose, her flair for making things beautiful, and she seemed to have a strong interest in the candy cane shop. But sometimes he wondered if that was just because it was what he did. His brother had suggested more than once that Lilly was interested in the candy cane shop because of Jack, not because of Lauren. Since kids had a tendency to be interested in what their parents were interested in, and since Jack was the only parent Lilly had, it was natural that she would be interested in his interests.
Bryan had said that perhaps if Jack had been farming, Lilly's interest would have been there.
Jack supposed Bryan had a point, but he hadn't been able to move himself out of the candy cane shop, just because... he supposed because Lauren was dead and couldn't talk to him about it. And he didn't want Lilly not to have a part of her heritage.
