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Bunny looked at him thoughtfully before she spoke again. “Let’s come up with a strategy.”
“Okay.” He grinned at her. Bunny liked nothing better than helping someone realize their dreams.
“Bridget O’Shea and Molly are inseparable, as you say. That means you’ll have to work twice as hard to win them both.”
Jonas groaned. “How?”
Bunny smiled brightly. “I’m teasing you. Just be the same great guy you always have been, Jonas Concannon. And have patience. It’s not going to happen overnight.”
“True. I moved back to Randolph in April. We’re not even at the six-month mark.”
“Exactly my point.”
He drummed his fingers on the table, wondering what she would say next. Bunny leaned forward and her voice dropped to a conspiratorial level. “Love ain’t easy.”
“Amen to that. I’m losing sleep.”
She winked at him. “Don’t worry so much and don’t try so hard. And don’t get too emotional. You may be coming on too strong.”
He gave her a rueful look. “Bingo. You’re right about that.”
“Relax a little. Most likely Bridget will too. And one last thing, Jonas … don’t forget to have fun.”
Jonas raised an eyebrow. “Is that the deep, dark secret of life?”
Bunny flashed a dimpled smile at him. “Yes, it is. One of them, anyway. And I’m old enough to know so.”
He’d decided to take Bunny’s advice and go with the flow. In Randolph often to get his medical office furnished, staffed, and ready to open its doors, he ran into Bridget now and then, and did his damnedest to seem easygoing and unthreateningly friendly.
It worked. It didn’t take all that long before she seemed to become more relaxed in his presence, just as Bunny had predicted. And wonder of wonders, she’d even accepted his invitation to go fishing. He planned a family-style outing with Molly, catered by To Go, which would provide the box lunches, so she didn’t even have to do make sandwiches.
Casual as he wanted to seem, he’d planned that down to the last detail too. He’d borrowed inner tubes in case they wanted to do some lazy drifting on the section of the little river where it was deep enough. He’d bought fishing rods with line spools guaranteed not to tangle, and he’d stocked up on fishing flies, reasoning that Molly was likely to be squeamish about worms.
Saturday dawned bright and sunny, and he was up at six, already packing everything in the back of his SUV, checking the spare, and fixing the wobbly mirror on the driver’s side. He caught a glimpse of himself in it and had to chuckle. He had the air of a nervous teenager getting ready for a major date—except for the thick stubble he’d woken up with.
Jonas rubbed his bristly chin and grinned, glad he was a grown man. When he got done with the packing, he’d go back in and shave. With Molly around, he wasn’t likely to be able to steal a kiss, but it wouldn’t hurt to be prepared.
Somewhat later, shaved, dressed, and looking as good as he could without looking too eager to impress, Jonas got behind the wheel and headed for Randolph to pick up the box lunches. He drove down the back road for about a mile, spotting Dotty Pomfret on the shoulder, walking with a woman he guessed was her sister—they looked alike, even from the back—and her black-and-white dog Kiwi. He honked before he slowed down beside them.
“Good morning, ladies. Need a ride to town?”
“No, but thank you. Elizabeth and I were just taking our constitutional.”
At her side, Kiwi wagged his tail, looking at Jonas with intelligent eyes.
“Okay. Let me know when you do. See you around, Kiwi. You stay on top of those sheep, pal.”
He waved and continued on, accelerating slowly and watching the trio in his rearview mirror. The leisurely pace of summertime in the Green Mountains was doing him good. Little by little, the mental tension of living in New York was ebbing away.
There wasn’t much doing in Randolph, but he knew To Go would be open. They did a brisk business on Saturdays. He parked, and went in through the double glass doors, informing the girl at the counter about the order he’d placed yesterday. She went to check on it as he got some serve-yourself coffee, sipping from the paper cup and reading the notices on the community bulletin board.
The Bread and Puppets Theater, a hippie holdover that was wildly popular, was putting on a show up in Glover in the Northeast Kingdom. The beads-and-flowers crowd was sure to turn out for that, Jonas thought. He ought to buy tickets for Dotty and Elizabeth, and drive up with them for the day. He’d bet anything the old sisters would be tickled to pieces if he did. Jonas set down his coffee and jotted down the phone number on the flyer.
He perused the other thumbtacked papers on the board, realizing that it would be an excellent place to publicize his new practice with a flyer of his own. It didn’t have to be anything fancy—just a notice of their hours and that it was a family practice, plus a picture of himself, and Schulzy, the nurse, and whoever he hired to run the office. Jonas liked the idea of a medical office with a human touch.
The girl at the counter came back with three box lunches, stacking them on the counter. “Will that be all?”
“Nope.” Jonas went to the beverage cooler, and took out several lemonades and an assortment of sodas, just barely making it back to the counter without dropping them. He peered into the glass-fronted bakery cabinet and requested three sugar-dusted apple turnovers oozing delicious-looking filling, a pound of assorted cookies and a peach pie. The key to keeping a kid happy was keeping a kid fed, he knew that much. Especially a rambunctious kid like Molly. And Bridget’s womanly figure meant she didn’t pick at her food. One more thing he loved about her. He had never met a woman in New York who didn’t obsess over her size and her clothes and what she ate.
