around, all the rooms looked warm and inviting.
“Here we have the ivory room.” She snapped several pictures with her phone from all angles.
While she moved to the next doorway, he followed her. “And now you have the green room.”
She shot two or three pictures. “Later we’ll give our website a personal touch with pictures of the owners. This is the sage room,” she corrected him. “It sounds so much more inviting than ‘green room.’”
Keeping up a running monologue, she moved to the next room. “And this is my favorite, the rose room. Hey, we might even get audio on the website. No, that’s too cheesy. We’ll just use the pictures. But honestly, Tucker, they’re too pretty to rent out. Maybe we should just make the inn into a museum.”
“We’d never make any money that way,” he chuckled. “What are these other three going to be called?”
“The sunshine room, which will be pale yellow. I’ve decided on a pale blue like that highlight color in the leaves for one of the other ones, and then we have one left. What do you think?”
He stepped into the room so he could see the border better. “See that light tan in the top of the border? That would be nice for a groom’s room if we ever get to do a wedding here.”
“Perfect,” she said. “Now what do we name the blue room?”
It would be worth giving up drinking to see her this happy all the time.
“The summer room, because it looks like a summer sky,” he suggested.
“I love it. Now come up with something for the brown one, and we’ll have it all done.”
He chuckled again. “I hope when and if I ever have kids, it’s this easy to name them.” Had he really said that out loud? He and Melanie had wanted kids, but did he want them with another woman? Would he ever be ready for that?
“You want kids?” she asked.
“Oh, yeah, someday, if I’m not too old when that day comes. Do you want children?” He backed out of the room and rolled the kinks out of his neck.
“Yes, I do want kids. I always wanted a sibling,” she answered. “And this is changing the subject, but I forgot to tell you, Lucy said that she’d picked up two little chest of drawer–type things that might work for vanities. We could go look at them today.”
“What do you have to do to get ready?” he asked.
“Just got to pick up my purse.” She hurried off down the stairs.
She’d be good for you. Melanie’s voice popped into his head so quick that it shocked him. He waited for a full minute, but she didn’t say anything else, so he went down to the foyer and got his jacket.
Jolene slipped her arms into an oversize cardigan. “It’s fairly nice out today. No rain in sight. Maybe we’ll have an early spring.”
Tucker held the door for her. “My grandpa always said not to think spring was here until after Easter, and that’s not until the end of April this year.”
“The Easter snap.” Jolene nodded. “That’s what Uncle Jasper called it.”
“Yep, my grandpa said the same thing.”
The trip to Jefferson took only a few minutes, but Tucker kept thinking about what Melanie had said. Would Jolene be good for him? Here lately, he really had felt a lot less guilty every time he thought about how cute she was with paint smeared on her face or how gorgeous she was when she got all cleaned up for Sunday dinner.
“The work is coming along faster than I thought possible,” Jolene said when they parked outside the antique shop. “And I love the way it looks. Do you think we’ll have the rest of the upstairs done by the end of February?”
“Yes, ma’am, and then we’ll have March to work on the downstairs renovations,” he answered. “There’s not as much actual work there, mainly just deciding how on earth to get a little office space and some basic cosmetic help.”
Her finger shot past his nose. “Look at that, Tucker.”
A whitetail doe and her fawn stood right inside a barbed-wire fence at the edge of the road. It was one of those Kodak moments, but neither of them had their phones ready, so they didn’t catch the picture.
“Ah, man, that was postcard pretty,” Jolene said.
“If we ever see any around the inn, we’ll have to take pictures to go on your website. You are going to keep it updated by seasons, right?”
She leaned forward, no doubt