“Who’s there?” Jensen asked.
“Tank,”Willow replied.
“Tank who?” Jensen asked.
“You’re welcome,”Willow replied with a big smile.
Henry laughed and the sweet, happy sound filled Willow’s heart. It was so nice that he was feeling better.
“You used to love those jokes when you were a kid,” Jensen said fondly. “How do you remember so many of them?”
“My mom used to put one in my lunch bag every day,” she told him, touched that he remembered so many things about her. “It was kind of our thing. She must have done hundreds of them. You don’t forget the best ones.”
“Hey,” Jensen said suddenly. “What are you up to tomorrow?”
“Not much,” she said automatically. She honestly had no plans at all.
“Henry loved the trains today,” Jensen said. “River Young was telling me that there’s a train you can ride over at an arboretum about an hour and a half from here. I was thinking of taking him tomorrow. Would you want to go with us?”
She should say no.
“Yes,” she said immediately. “I’d love to.”
“Great,” he said. “We’ll pick you up around eight, if that’s okay?”
“Perfect,” she said.
Henry hopped off the bench and took off toward a little girl who was holding a big apple cider doughnut.
“That’s my cue,” Jensen laughed, getting up. “We’ll head home now, but see you tomorrow.”
“See you then,” she said, smiling as she watched him catch up to Henry, who was eyeing the little girl’s doughnut, but not grabbing for it.
Jensen waved to the girl’s mom, crouched to talk to Henry, then scooped him up and the two of them disappeared toward the front of the market.
We’re going on a day trip tomorrow,she thought to herself happily.
She felt a pang of guilt immediately afterward, but it was easy to push it aside. After all, they were traveling far outside of Trinity Falls. They were unlikely to bump into anyone they knew. And maybe they could talk during the drive about ways to get Jensen together with her brother.
The band onstage thanked the crowd and began carrying their instruments offstage. The radio came on just as “Jingle Bells” was winding down.
“Thanks for listening to WCCR,”the deejay said.“I’m Ho-ho-Hope Holiday and we’re playing all Christmas music, all the time, from November to New Year’s. We’ve got more Christmas classics coming right up. But first a word from one of our sponsors.”
The sound of sleigh bells on the radio was followed by a female voice sharing the news that the Trinity Falls Co-op Grocer now offered fresh-squeezed orange juice daily.
Willow smiled at the idea that the Co-op had radio ads these days.
“Fresh-squeezed goodness from Florida gems,”a very familiar male voice added. “ORANGE you glad we’ve got juice?”
“Jensen?” she murmured, amazed.
The first strains of “The Nutcracker Suite” began to play on the radio, but half the people in the market were laughing, looking astonished, or both.
So she wasn’t imagining it, that really had been Jensen Webb. Or at least, it had sounded an awful lot likehim. And based on the reactions here at the market, it was the first time they were hearing it, too.
Why in the world did you make a radio commercial, Jensen? And why didn’t you brag about it to your friends?
One more thing to ask him about tomorrow…
