TILL THERE WAS YOU (The Thorntons #6)

Chapter 2-1

2

Jubilee dumped her purse onto her bed when she arrived home, searching through all the various items for that damn list. Swearing, she dug around in her pockets, her coat pockets, even inside her shoes.

No list.

Hadn’t Megan returned it to her before Heath had come into The Rise and Shine? She couldn’t remember. She’d heard the bell while she and Megan had been adding things to the list, and then she’d seen Heath, and her brain had essentially turned to mush.

She texted Megan, Do you have my list?

To which Megan replied a few minutes later, No, don’t you have it?

That meant that that list was somewhere in The Rise and Shine. Jubilee almost considered going back to look around, but that seemed like overkill. If someone picked it up, she hoped they threw it away, thinking it was trash.

Oh God, she thought suddenly, what if Heath picked it up?

That thought sent a chill straight through her, although it was mostly embarrassment she felt overall. She’d never live it down if he saw that list. He’d think she was insane, or slutty. Or both. Who made a list of things like “lose your virginity”? Only sad weirdos did that.

Jubilee pushed away panic, telling herself that Heath would’ve returned anything belonging to her. He was a good guy. A good guy she wanted to kick in the shins, but decent nonetheless.

Jubilee had moved into her apartment two years ago when she’d started working at The Rise and Shine. She’d never lived away from home before, and it had been a battle for her mother to let her go live on her own. Lisa had been convinced that Jubilee wouldn’t take care of herself, or she would get overwhelmed with the usual types of things you had to do when you were an adult. Pay the rent, pay the electric bill, etcetera.

Jubilee had persevered, however, and although working at a bakery wasn’t exactly her dream job, it paid those pesky bills and allowed her to get out from underneath her mother’s overly concerned thumb.

While eating dinner, Jubilee checked her email. Her heart raced when she saw the email from Avila College, a small community college in Seattle.

She set down her bowl of soup and opened the email, only to let out a deep sigh of relief when she saw the words, Congratulations, you’ve been accepted! Jubilee had gotten decent grades in high school, but her second bout of leukemia had lasted through her freshman year. She’d gotten behind, and it had been a struggle to graduate with her peers, but Jubilee had managed it.

A community college wasn’t as competitive as a state university, of course. There was no reason she wouldn’t have been accepted, but that hadn’t stopped her from feeling nervous. Now she just had to tell her family that she was moving to Seattle to go to college.

Lisa Thornton would love hearing that news.

But Jubilee allowed herself a celebration for her good news. Pouring herself a glass of wine, she was about to turn on the Food Network when someone knocked on her front door. She opened it to find none other than her mother standing there with two bags of groceries in her hands.

“Help me with these,” Lisa said as she handed Jubilee a bag. “Those checkout boys can never bag properly. I had to take the bread out from the bottom of the bag before I left the store.”

Jubilee sighed as Lisa started unloading the groceries and putting them away in Jubilee’s cabinets. Lisa periodically bought Jubilee groceries for no other reason than she was convinced Jubilee couldn’t buy her own. Jubilee knew her mother did it so she could check up on her. It also amused her greatly, considering Lisa hadn’t bought groceries on her own for years until Jubilee had moved out. She’d always had help to do that for her.

“You didn’t need to bring me groceries,” Jubilee said as she placed a carton of eggs in the fridge along with bottled water and almond milk.

“You barely have anything to eat here.” Lisa clucked her tongue as she placed three more boxes of cereal next to the lone one sitting in the pantry.

“I was going shopping tomorrow.”

Lisa didn’t hear her, too busy organizing Jubilee’s pantry to her specifications. Jubilee gritted her teeth to keep herself from saying something she’d regret.

Lisa had never left Jubilee’s side during her chemo treatments as a child. She’d taken Jubilee to every appointment, every test, every treatment. She’d brushed Jubilee’s hair when Jubilee had been too tired to do it herself. She’d bathed her, sat with her, told her she would beat this leukemia and live a long, long life.

Jubilee hadn’t realized until years later how much Lisa had missed out on with her five older siblings to care for her. Thus, guilt kept her from telling Lisa to let her live her own life, no matter how frustrating it was.

Jubilee rubbed her chest, right over the scar where a port had been placed during her bone marrow transplants. Sometimes she could still feel the needle under her skin, even though she hadn’t had any treatments in over a decade.

“Why didn’t you answer my text?” Lisa asked. In her sixties now, Lisa remained an attractive woman. She kept her hair a light blond, her makeup light but elegant.

As the matriarch of a large family, Lisa remained a fixture in her children’s lives, even after they’d reached adulthood. After she had almost broken up Harrison and Sara, however, she’d since “calmed down,” as Harrison had termed it. Jubilee had a feeling she’d only calmed down regarding her older siblings. Jubilee would always be the baby who needed to be protected.

“Oh, sorry, I forgot.” Jubilee started eating her soup again, but it had gotten cold. She sighed inwardly.

“Are you coming home this weekend?” Lisa sat down next to Jubilee, her back not touching the cushion behind her. “Your father would like to see you.”

Jubilee bit back a smile. “He just saw me yesterday at the bakery.”

“You know what I mean. You haven’t been home in a while. Your brothers and sister will be there.”

“Really? All of them?”

“Most of them. Caleb is worse at responding than you are.” Lisa tapped Jubilee’s knee. “I’m worried about you. You work all day, you have no food when you come home, you live in this tiny apartment—”

“Mom, we’ve been over this. My apartment is just fine. I have food, I’m paying my bills. I’m taking care of myself fine.”

“And so this is it? You’ll work at a bakery the rest of your life?”

Jubilee flushed in embarrassment. She considered telling Lisa about her acceptance to Avila, but she bit her tongue. She wasn’t in the mood to hear Lisa tell her that moving to Seattle would be a terrible plan. Ironic, considering that Lisa wasn’t a fan of Jubilee working at a bakery.

“What do you want me to be doing?” Jubilee countered. “Move home and live with you and Dad for the rest of my life?”

“No, I’m not saying that. Don’t put words in my mouth. I’m simply saying that I’m concerned about your choices, that’s all, and you have to be careful with your health. If you have another relapse…”

“Unlikely, now that I’m an adult.”

Seeing the worry in Lisa’s face, Jubilee couldn’t help but squeeze her mother’s hand.

“I’m fine. I’m happy. Don’t worry about me, okay?”

Lisa squeezed her hand back. “You’ll come home this weekend?”

“Yes, I’ll come. I promise.”

After Lisa left, with Jubilee promising to get the landlord to look at her leaky window, Jubilee tossed out the now ice-cold soup and poured herself a second glass of wine.

Would her mother ever let her grow up? She didn’t know if Lisa could let go of the sickly child Jubilee had been.

Her mother’s continued interference only hardened Jubilee’s resolve further. No matter what anyone said, she was going to Seattle, and she was going to live the life she’d always wanted.