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“Thanks.” She motioned to him with a hand. “As do you.”
“Yeah, I figured it’d be best if I wasn’t as dirty and sweaty as you saw me before.”
“I have news for you.” She curled a finger at him and he leaned in closer so she could whisper, “You look good to me dirty and sweaty and clean and ironed.”
His lips turned up on one side. “Good to know.” He held out his hand. “Shall we?”
“We shall.” Isabel looked over her shoulder at Grandpa and Blaze who was curled up next to him on the couch. Both man and dog had their eyes closed so she didn’t disturb them. Instead, she took Jackson’s hand, followed him outside, and quietly shut the front door behind her.
“How is your grandfather doing?” Jackson asked as he led her over to his jeep in the driveway next door.
“Okay. He seems tired. I spent most of the day with him before I bugged you in the woods.” She got into the passenger seat as he slid behind the wheel. “Despite Pine River Cottages not being as busy as he’d like, he is a wealth of knowledge about running a place like this.” She waved a hand toward the windshield to indicate the cottages. “Different knowledge than I acquired managing a hotel.”
“Good knowledge to add to your base then.” He started the jeep.
“Exactly. Running a place like this has a more personal side to it. I’d like to incorporate that into my resort. You know? Have all the amenities of a larger-scale place, but the homey feel of a place like this.”
Jackson drove past the Pine River Cottages gates. “The best of both worlds. Sounds like a good plan.”
“I hope so. I worked on my business plan some today too. I have to narrow down where I want to locate it.” And she’d be lying if she didn’t admit she’d searched for a few places farther north than she’d originally planned. The Gulf Coast seemed a little too far away after being in Maplehaven for a few days. “How did your hour of research go?”
“Splendidly.” He shot her a little smile, the joy of his findings evident in his expression. “I made a list of possible tribes those artifacts may have belonged to. I’ll cross-reference that list with some books I’m having transferred to Maplehaven’s library. I need to wait a few days on that though. In the meantime, I’m going to head to Donovan’s and hunt through my uncle’s library I have boxed and stored at his house. I seem to remember a volume on North American tribes in his collection.”
“Your uncle would be so proud of you, Jackson,” Isabel said. “I remember how you two used to get lost in conversation about history.”
“Yeah. He was like a database of information. I wish I could have downloaded his brain to my hard drive before he passed.”
Isabel reached over the center console and rubbed Jackson’s forearm. “You must miss him.”
“He was one of the few people who truly understood me. I mean, my parents and brothers have always been supportive, but Uncle Patrick had the same fever for history that I have for archaeology.”
Isabel was quiet for a few moments, studying her hands in her lap. “Jackson?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t more supportive of your passion back when you got the news about skipping ahead in school,” she said. “I acted like a selfish jerk that day. A good girlfriend would have thrown her arms around you and told you how proud she was of you. I was proud of you. I’m sorry I wasn’t a good girlfriend.”
Jackson pulled the jeep over to the side of the road and put it in park. He angled to face her. “Isabel, you weren’t ever a good girlfriend.”
That punch to the gut surprised her.
He reached for her hand which she let him take though she wanted to bail out of the jeep and run back to the cottages.
“You were the absolute best girlfriend in the whole world. Outstanding. Way better than good.” He cupped her cheek when she met his gaze, relief coursing through her. “You acted the way you did over the news because I hit you with it out of nowhere. One day, you and I have a solid plan to go to college together, and the next day, I’m changing the plan. A pretty big change too. I’d wanted you to be onboard, but I could have broken the news to you better, or discussed it with you before accepting, or... something. I don’t know.” He sifted out a breath and squeezed her hand. “All I do know is that you and I got off course that day. The fact that we’re going on a date tonight though makes me hope that course isn’t completely gone.”
She nodded, her throat too tight to speak. Instead, she leaned forward and brushed her lips to his.
He put the jeep in drive and pulled back onto the road, but he held her hand for the entire drive to Albero’s. Inside the restaurant—one that was designed to look like the outdoors only fancier—the hostess led them to a private table in a quiet corner.
“I’m told you are friends of Jorden’s,” the hostess said.
“Yes,” Jackson said.
“Excellent. He has prepared something special for you so all I need is a drink selection and the feasting will commence.”
Jackson ordered a bottle of wine that Isabel agreed to and she couldn’t stop looking at him across the table. His beard had been freshly trimmed and his hair was neatly styled, and even though he didn’t make Vermont his regular home, he still had that rugged reared-in-the-mountains look about him that no guy Isabel had dated in Pennsylvania had.
This actually was a grown-up date with a grown-up Jackson, but she had no reason to be nervous. She had every reason to be excited instead.
