Wild Man Creek. Робин Карр

do,” was the response.

      When she found a good price, she bought several large bags and had them held to be picked up by Denny in the truck. She bought a gas-powered tiller and put it in the back of her Lexus along with a gas can she could fill up on the way home.

      Before heading back to the Victorian, she stopped off at Jack’s Bar. As she entered, he came out of the back. “Well, there’s my landlord,” she greeted, smiling at him. “I have a couple of things to run by you.”

      “Something to drink while you run?” he asked.

      “Cola?”

      “Coming up.”

      “I think you should come out to the house when you have time. I’d like you to come up to the widow’s walk with me so we can see a lot of the acreage. You know how the drive to the house runs up the road and forks at the southeastern corner in front? Part of the drive curves to the left in front of the house and the other part goes straight along the eastern side of the house to the back.”

      “It always seemed like that was the obvious place for a freestanding garage, behind the house,” Jack said.

      “It’s just a gravel drive, so I was wondering something. If I extended it through the trees for access to the back meadow, would you go along with that idea?”

      “Good idea,” he said. “But I’m sorry to say, I don’t think it would be responsible for me to invest any more in that house. That’s something an owner should do. Someday.”

      “Well, here’s what I’m offering,” Jill said. “I want to put a couple of portable greenhouses back in that meadow, a sheltered place to start some plants. I’m going to fence the plot behind the house to keep the wildlife out, but I’m going to use that back meadow for the greenhouses. I found them online for a few hundred dollars each and they’re easily movable.”

      He leaned both hands on the bar and looked at her closely, quizzically. “Jillian, aren’t you taking this gardening thing a bit far?”

      “Oh, definitely. To the next level. I want to try some special fruits and vegetables back there. Denny’s out getting estimates on excavation crews and the cost of leasing equipment. I’m not talking an asphalt drive, but more of a wide path, wide enough to accommodate one vehicle and, of course, I’ll cover the cost. It’s really not going to be that expensive—we won’t have to take out more than ten trees. In fact, getting some gravel to match what’s already down on the drive will probably be the most expensive part.”

      “Um, Jillian, have you considered going a little slower? A little smaller? I mean, what you’re really doing is experimenting, and it seems like an awful big, expensive experiment.”

      She smiled. “I’ve been told I can be impulsive, but it usually works for me to go with my gut instinct. Of course, I’ll be leaving the extended road when my lease is up, so it should improve the property. For right now, that’s what I need to be able to access that meadow. Oh, and thank you for Denny—bright kid. I like him. He thinks I’m a little nuts, but he’s awful cute, totally polite and he does exactly what I ask him to do. So—will you come out to the house, look over my plans and give me your approval?”

      “I’ll come out after breakfast is done,” he said. “See you tomorrow.”

      “Great!” she said, slapping the bar.

      He couldn’t help but laugh. “Jillian, where did all this come from?”

      “From my great-grandmother,” she said, taking a sip of her cola. “When she was teaching us to garden, cook, read, clean, sew, she said she was preparing us for life. Well, life has changed a lot in the years since she was my age, but somehow the lessons haven’t really changed. They’ve evolved. And I want to be part of that.”

      Jillian went home and was scooping dirt from several different sections of the garden into small plastic cups with lids and labeling them when Denny returned and came over to report on his activities and progress.

      “There is not a lot of work around these days so I was able to have a tree crew come out first thing tomorrow to give you a final estimate,” he said. “I hope that works for you. It’ll take them two days to cut through those trees. I found a guy who can grade the area and level it out. You can worry about the gravel after that. And I rented a posthole auger so I can get started on the fencing in the meantime.”

      She smiled very happily at his business sense. “Perfect,” she said, sitting back on her heels in the dirt. “Will they come even if it’s kind of wet?”

      He gave a nod. “Like I said, not so much work around these days. I think I got you a good price because of that. And you get a discount if you let them have the trees. They’ll process it into usable lumber.”

      “Seriously?” she asked, standing up.

      “Not huge, but still …”

      “Did you shop around a little bit?”

      “Three businesses,” he said with a nod. “They were pretty much in line. I went with the one who was available right away.” Then he got a worried look. “Was that all right? That I made a decision? And rented the post digger?”

      “That’s what I expected you to do, get it done,” she said, balancing all her little containers to take them into the house. “Want to quit for the day or do you want to make a run to FedEx for me? I need to send in the soil samples.”

      “I’ll work till you can’t take any more of me,” he said with a grin.

      She stopped in her tracks, smiled at him and said, “You’re my kind of guy, Denny.”

      “And you’re my kind of boss, Miss Matlock.”

      Jillian thought often about the fact that her best friend was her sister and had been since they were toddlers, yet they were complete opposites in almost every way. They didn’t even look alike, Jillian being a tall, slender brunette and Kelly, a shorter, rounder, blonde. Jill’s skin tanned nicely while Kelly’s tended to burn; Jill had always leaned toward academics while Kelly, the chef, was more artistic. And while even Jill could admit she had a tendency to be impetuous, Kelly always cautiously planned every detail of her life.

      Jill had always relied heavily on Kelly, who had a very nurturing personality. When Jill was twelve and started her period, it was Kelly who showed her the ropes. And whenever Jill’s heart was broken, whether it be by a boy or just a disappointment, it was Kelly, the more steady of the two of them, who propped her up and encouraged her.

      Even while she was in Virgin River, busy with her new garden, Jillian talked to Kelly every day, usually right before Kelly went to work in the afternoon. She liked to climb up to the roof and sit on the widow’s walk where her cell reception was best and talk to Kelly, filling her in on her growing plans by the day. By the end of her third week she told Kelly, “There’s a bunch of construction equipment parked by the side of the house, a big stack of tree trunks waiting for a flatbed and the road to the back meadow is almost finished. The fencing finally arrived and Denny is working on the posts. Two ten-by-twelve-foot greenhouses are on the way and I’ve started to till the soil where they’re going to be positioned. I can plant both in the ground and in starter trays under the protective domes. It’s going to be a two-tiered operation.

      “And,” Jillian went on, “I put my town house in San Jose on the market.”

      “You did what?” Kelly nearly shrieked.

      “I sent the key to my agent by FedEx along with a personal check for a cleaning crew to get it all cleaned up and spiffy. I realized I’m done with that place, Kell,” she said. “I’m not attached to it.”

      “But are you staying there—in Virgin River? Is that the new plan?”

      “Honestly? I don’t know.”

      “But what if Harry calls you and asks you to come back to BSS?” Kelly asked.