“I guess that’s natural for any business,” she said, nodding. “It ebbs and flows sometimes, right?”
“Exactly,” he agreed. “Anyway, I did an online training once for a casting office in Philadelphia. One of the agents there called me once or twice to ask if I wanted to do commercials. She said my voice and mylookwere really good.”
Willow just managed not to giggle at the expression of horrified disbelief on his face when he saidlook. Though her heart went out to that casting agent, because as far as she was concerned Jensen Webb most definitely had the voice and the look to be a star if he wanted. If she was in charge of casting, it would be pretty much impossible for her to not want to call him in for every leading man role that came up. And how could anyone not love that voice?
“Anyway,” he said. “I never really thought too much about it. I told her I had a little boy and couldn’t travel to the city for that kind of thing.”
“That makes sense,” Willow agreed.
“Well, last time when she got in touch I was having a really slow month,” Jensen said. “And she mentioned that this would be voiceover work and I could record at the radio station here in town, so no traveling at all.”
“Wow, that’s perfect,” Willow said.
“She sent me my lines and they were just exactly what I would say in the commercial,” he went on. “My contractwas with the agency, not the Co-op, and it just saidGrocery Store OJ Spot. I know this sounds dumb, but with the lines I have, I figured it was for a supermarket chain down in Florida, so I didn’t think too much about it.”
“Fresh-squeezed goodness from Florida gems,”Willow repeated, nodding.
“It definitely never occurred to me that it was for the tiny co-op store in my own hometown,” he said, shaking his head at his own ignorance.
It hurt her heart to see him feeling foolish.
“You did this for Henry,” Willow said firmly. “Was the pay good?”
“Surprisingly so,” he agreed. “We’re set for December and I already have a couple of offers for other spots, though after last night, I’m not too eager to take them.”
“You managed to get through a slow month without touching your savings,” she said. “You’re a single parent. I’d count that as a pretty big win.”
“I guess so,” he said, steel-gray eyes focused on the road.
If they were strangers, she might have thought he was mad. But she knew Jensen well enough to recognize that look. He was just thinking it through.
Hopefully, he was giving weight to what she had said. After all, her own mother was a single parent, and Jensen knew how much Willow and Ransom admired her for always finding a way to have food on the table and school supplies in their backpacks.
“Besides,” she added. “You’ve given the whole town so much pleasure. You can’t even imagine what it was like at the market when it first played. I wish you’d been there.”
“Oh yeah?” When he glanced over he wasn’t smiling, but his eyes were twinkling.
“People were smiling,” she said, picturing it all in her head. “Some were even repeating your catchphrase.”
“It’s notmycatchphrase,” he told her. But he was actually smiling now.
“I had kind of forgotten while I was away,” she told him. “But there’s just not that much that goes on around here. You start to treasure these fun little surprises when they crop up. And you’ve got a real gift. Hey, if you play your cards right you could be going out to dinner on this story for years.”
He chuckled and kept his eyes on the road, but she could see his shoulders sink just a little as he relaxed into the idea.
If she had helped him view the situation in a different way, she was glad about it. He was a wonderful father, and she didn’t think he should be ashamed of doing what it took to provide for his boy.
“Thanks for putting it that way,” he said after a moment. “And I guess that’s more than you needed to know about my work situation.”
“Sounds like you’ve got your work situation under control,” Willow said with a smile. “Besides, I think I probably shared more than I should have myself the other night.”
It was a weak joke, meant to dispel what remained of the obvious tension from the other night. But Jensen didn’t even crack a polite smile. He just drove on into the winter night, his tight jaw somehow making him morehandsome than ever, and his expression one she had honestly never seen before.
Willow sucked in a breath and tried hard not to die of embarrassment.
We can’t be that far from Trinity Falls, can we?
Route One stretched out in front of them in the darkness and she literally couldn’t think of a single thing to say that would move them off the topic of her stupid confession.
