True Love

  “Nantucketers owned the oceans.”

  “They did.” Jared’s face was serious. “Caleb’s brother, Thomas, was on his way home and docked to see his brother. They exchanged news and Caleb was told that Valentina had given birth to a son six months after her marriage. Caleb knew the child was his and he had an idea of why she’d married Obed. He wanted to go home immediately, so he talked his younger brother into exchanging ships. Thomas’s ship was much faster than Caleb’s and it was ready to leave right then. Caleb wrote out a will leaving everything he owned to Valentina and their son, then he headed home on his brother’s ship. But it hit a storm and went down with all the crew on board. It was almost a year later when Thomas got home with Caleb’s ship full of valuable goods from China, all of which belonged to Valentina and their son. They moved from here to the new house on Kingsley Lane, and a year later, Valentina was gone. She’d disappeared. Obed said she ran off and left him and her son. But no one saw Valentina leave the island. Some people had doubts, but then no one had any reason to disbelieve Obed. Everyone felt sorry for him, and a few years later, he remarried.”

  “So the child inherited it all.”

  “Everything. And Obed and his second wife had no children, so Kingsley Soap went to the boy too. He was a very wealthy young man.”

  “But with no parents,” Alix said. “Not so wealthy, after all.”

  Jared turned to her with a sweet smile. “You’re right,” he said. “Nothing in the world makes up for that loss.”

  For a moment they looked at each other, the soft Nantucket sea breeze on them, but then Jared stood up and the moment was lost.

  “You’re supposed to find out what happened to Valentina,” he said.

  “I’m what?” Alix asked as she got up.

  “You’re to find out what happened to Valentina. It’s the Great Kingsley Mystery.”

  “This woman disappeared over two hundred years ago. How am I supposed to research that?”

  Jared started walking down the path and back to the truck, Alix close behind him. “Beats me,” he said. “Aunt Addy left boxes of papers collected by various relatives, but no one could find out. She always said the secret died with Obed.”

  They had reached the truck. “Let me get this straight,” Alix said. “Your ancestors spent years trying to figure this out but couldn’t and now they want me, who is—I hardly dare say this—an off-islander, to figure out what happened to her? Is that right?”

  “That’s exactly right. You catch on quickly. But then I’ve seen that you’re smart, a little impatient at times so you get things wrong, but you have brains.”

  “Me impatient? You were throwing rocks at my window this morning and hurrying me to change shoes.”

  “I was afraid you were having a long conversation with the Captain you’re so crazy about.”

  “I told him to keep quiet.”

  Jared’s eyes widened. “You were talking to him?”

  “Just blowing kisses at him. Our relationship is purely physical.”

  “Bet he likes that,” Jared muttered as he got in the truck beside Alix.

  She sat in silence, thinking about what he’d said as he turned the truck around and drove back to the paved road. She was thinking so hard about all that he’d told her that she paid little attention to where he was going.

  All she could think of was the story she’d just heard. Two people deeply in love, but they’d agreed to wait for years. Alix couldn’t imagine that happening in the modern age. At least Caleb and Valentina’d had some time alone. Was it the night before he left? One wild, passionate night? Maybe they’d decided to wait until Caleb returned from his voyage, but on that last night Valentina had slipped into his room and untied her corset strings and—

  “We’re here,” Jared said. “You seem a million miles away.”

  Alix came out of her trance and looked out to see a house, new, fairly modern, and definitely not designed by Montgomery. The sea stretched out behind it. “I was thinking of the story you told me. My mother wrote about a man who built up a soap empire.”

  “Did she?” Jared asked. “What did she say about where he got the recipe?”

  “I don’t remember. It’s been too long since I read it, but I seem to remember that there was a second wife. Sally?”

  “Susan,” Jared said, then gave her a sharp look. “Not that your mother was writing about my family.”

  Alix was about to make a sarcastic remark about her mother spending so much time on Nantucket yet he didn’t want to believe that she wrote about the place. But she stopped herself, suddenly understanding that Jared didn’t like the idea that his family’s past passions and indiscretions had been published for the world to see.

  “What’s the name of the book about soap?” he asked.

  “Forever at …” She looked at him.

  “At what? Making bubbles?” He was not being funny. In fact, he looked thoroughly disgusted.

  “Sea,” she said softly. “Forever at Sea.”

  “Great,” he muttered. “And my quarterboard is …”

  “TO SEA FOREVER,” Alix said, sympathy in her voice as she thought, Oh, Mom, what have you done? “It could be a coincidence. Kingsley Soap used to be a very big deal, so maybe Mom—”

  Jared looked at her with hooded eyes. “Do you really think it’s a coincidence?”

  Alix started to say it could be, but changed her mind. “I think my mother spent one month a year here with Aunt Addy, prying the whole Kingsley family history out of her. Then Mom spent the next eleven months writing the stories into best-sellers. That’s what I really think.”

  Jared looked like he was about to answer that, but then he opened the truck door and got out.

  Alix thought, He knows a great deal more about this than he’s telling.

  “Come on,” Jared said. “We need to get the old truck.”

  Alix had lots of questions for him but she had an idea that right now he wouldn’t answer them. “It couldn’t be older than your truck.”

  He gave a little smile. “It’s even older than me.”

  “A true antique,” Alix said as she hurried forward to walk beside him.

  She’d thought he would laugh at her joke but instead he gave her a look that said he’d like to show her how old he was. Truthfully, his look was a bit intimidating, but she remembered what the woman in the liquor store said, that she wasn’t to let Jared bully her. Alix pulled herself up straighter and met his look with one that said “Bring it on. I can handle it.”

  She had the great satisfaction of seeing him smile a bit before he turned his head away. She followed his long strides across the gravel to the garage.

  When they got there, he lifted the lid to an alarm box and punched in numbers, and the door began to go up.

  Alix was looking at the house. “He may be your friend, but you didn’t design this house.”

  “I did one in Arizona for him.”

  “The Harwood house?” Her breath caught in her throat.

  “That’s it.”

  “Oh,” Alix said, blinking up at him. “That’s one of my favorites. That house seems to rise out of the desert, to be part of it.”

  “It should. I still have scars on my back from where I ran into a cactus. Damned things! Worse than being hit with a tuna rig.”

  She followed him into the garage. “So you spent time there studying the land? How long did you stay? Did you have any trouble getting the owner to agree to that slanted roof? Usually the roofs there are flat, but yours—” She stopped because Jared was glaring at her.

  “We are on the island,” he said.

  “But we just spent days designing houses together and—” When he kept staring at her, Alix couldn’t help laughing. “Okay, you win. No more work. I’m supposed to think about Valentina and the ghost who keeps tossing things around my room—when he’s not kissing me, that is—and then there’s Izzy’s wedding that I’m to arrange. That I’m not a professional researcher and I?
??m certainly not a wedding planner doesn’t seem to make any difference to anyone.”

  “Everybody has great confidence in you. What do you think of the truck? If you can quit complaining long enough to look at it, that is.”

  He was right in that she hadn’t even glanced at it. It was old, with big round fenders, whitewall tires, and a large front grille. It was probably from the thirties and in pristine condition, with bright blue paint that was so shiny it looked wet. “Nice.” She ran her hand over a fender. “And you’re going to drive it in the parade?” She wanted to ask who would be riding with him.

  “Yes, I’m going to drive,” he said as he looked at her through the truck windows. “Toby and Lexie will help you with the wedding plans. And I can help you with Granddad’s papers. If you want to work on them, that is. Aunt Addy’s will says that you don’t have to.”

  She couldn’t help the little charge that went through her at the thought of continuing to work together. An idea hit her. “I know that what happened to Captain Caleb and Valentina was a great tragedy, but it was a very long time ago. What difference does it make now?”

  Jared looked away and seemed to be having trouble coming up with an answer.

  “Is it the soap?” she asked.

  “The soap?”

  “If you could prove ownership of the recipe, would that mean you still own the company?” Her eyes widened. “Or do you still own Kingsley Soap?”

  Jared smiled. “Aunt Addy’s brother, Five, sold the company, recipe and all, then he spent every penny of it.” He raised the hood of the truck and looked under it.

  Alix stood beside him. The engine was as clean as the outside of the vehicle, but she wasn’t looking at it. Wasn’t one of her mother’s books about a likable scoundrel who wasted the family fortune? She brought her mind back to the present. “So why does anyone want to know what happened to Valentina?”

  “Maybe Aunt Addy promised Caleb to find out. Who knows?”

  “She wasn’t that old.” Alix followed him to the back of the truck. “Wait a minute. You don’t believe what Dilys said about Aunt Addy talking to a ghost, do you?”

  He looked up from the truck. “Would you like to see the inside of the house?”

  “Are you trying to make me stop asking questions about your family? Are there lots of secrets?”

  “Walt Harwood had me design a bedroom in this house for his grandson. It’s like the interior of an old whaling ship. Or a movie version, anyway. And photos of the room have never been put in any book.”

  Alix very much wanted to know more about Valentina and Caleb and even Obed. And she wanted to know for sure how her mother came to know so much about all the Kingsleys. Could Aunt Addy have known so very much about the family? All the way back to the 1700s? That didn’t seem likely. And why had Alix been asked to do this research? Why not her mother? But then her mom would have hired someone from the Smithsonian.

  But as much as Alix wanted to ask questions, she knew this could be her only chance to see a room—an interior!—designed by Jared Montgomery. She knew he was trying to distract her, but still…

  “I have a sixteen-megapixel Nikon in the glove box of my truck,” he said. “You can take all the photos you want.”

  Alix stared at him.

  “Think your friend Izzy will want to see them?” he asked enticingly.

  “Okay, you win,” Alix said. “Lead me to the room. Have you done many interiors?”

  “On island,” he said. “No questions.”

  “You’re a rat, aren’t you?”

  “With a long, strong tail,” he said and walked ahead of her.

  Alix watched the backside of him as he walked away and agreed. Quite strong looking.

  Alix thought the house’s interior was very ordinary. There were big windows looking out to the sea and that was nice, but there was absolutely nothing in the house that was unique or even very interesting. The crown moldings were insipid, and what woodwork there was came from a millwork catalog.

  However, she noted that the kitchen cabinets were the very expensive kind made in Germany, the granite had fossils in it, and all the tile had been handmade. To her it was odd that the walls were Sheetrock but the marble was Carrara.

  She looked back at Jared. “You mind if I ask how much your friend paid for this house?”

  “Twenty mill.”

  Alix took a moment before she could get her mouth closed. “Twenty million dollars? American dollars? Twenty of them?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Why in the world did it cost that much?”

  “Because it’s on Nantucket.”

  “I know that. But if it were in Indiana …”

  “If it were in Indiana it wouldn’t cost even one million,” he said. “But it’s on Nantucket.”

  “Yes, and it’s on the water, but isn’t twenty million a bit excessive?”

  “Not if the house is on Nantucket,” he said firmly.

  “Okay,” she said, “what would this house cost if it were on, say, Martha’s Vineyard?”

  “Who’s she?”

  “I don’t know who Martha was. I’m talking about the island that’s about thirty miles west of here.”

  “Never heard of the place.” He turned and walked down the corridor.

  Alix stood still for a moment, shaking her head, then she followed him upstairs to see the room he’d designed to look like a ship captain’s quarters.

  Chapter Eleven

  As they were leaving the house, Alix tripped on the porch and fell into Jared’s arms. She had taken over fifty photos of the room he’d designed—it was charming—and she was looking at them in the viewfinder of the camera. She was so absorbed in the photos that she wasn’t paying attention to where she was walking and didn’t notice when she got to the edge of the porch.

  Jared must have seen what was going to happen, or else he had the reflexes of a cobra. His arms went out and he grabbed her before she fell facedown onto the ground.

  For a moment they stood there, Jared holding her with her feet off the ground, both his arms around her. Alix had the camera in one hand and the other was on his back.

  The only thing certain in her life was that she wanted him to kiss her. Her eyes went to that bottom lip of his and words from her poem like “succulent” and “tip of my tongue” and “draw it in” came to her mind. Words and anticipated sensations floated through her mind and seemed to run through her body.

  She felt his breath on her lips. Mingling breaths, she thought. She couldn’t help moving her face closer to his until their lips were no more than a quarter inch apart. She looked up into his eyes and they were like blue fire, like an explosion about to happen.

  Had he been anyone else she would have closed the tiny gap between their lips, but with this man she had doubts.

  A seagull screeched nearby and the trance was broken.

  Jared set her down on the ground with such a thunk that Alix’s teeth clicked together. The second they were disentangled, he turned and quickly walked toward the sea.

  Alix took a step back and sat on the edge of the porch. If he’d slapped her, he couldn’t have hurt her more. She buried her face in her hands and tried to calm her wildly pounding heart.

  A conversation she’d overheard a few years ago between her father and a friend of his came to her. “The real joy of youth is that you’re desirable to everyone,” her father’s friend said. “When you get to be our age every year cuts that number in half.”

  “So where are we now? Down to fifteen percent of the population?”

  “You always were an optimist.”

  Both men had laughed together.

  When Alix had heard that she’d been about twenty, which made her father close to fifty. She didn’t think that now, at twenty-six, she was old, but she was realizing that she wasn’t desirable to every man. And definitely not to Jared Montgomery Kingsley the Seventh.

  As she stood up, she took some breaths. She could not continu
e to carry a torch for someone who didn’t want her. The sooner she stopped her lunacy of imagining something between her and this famous man, the better.

  She looked toward the water and saw him standing with his shoulders raised as though fighting off an attack. His self-protective stance made her feel bad. She reminded herself that this island was his home, a place where he could get away from eager students pouncing on him.

  It took courage on her part, but she walked the few feet and stopped just behind him. He didn’t turn around. “I apologize for that,” she said softly. “It won’t happen again.”

  He kept his face turned away from her but he gave a sigh, as though in relief.

  Alix couldn’t help feeling a bit sorry for him. How horrible it must have been for him to be in an auditorium full of students, all of them wanting something from him. “Friends?” she said and held out her hand to shake.

  When he turned to look at her, Alix drew in her breath. She’d expected sadness in his eyes, but instead she again saw that blue fire. Raging hot. So fiery that she had to work not to step back from it.

  It was gone as quickly as it came. In the next second, he was smiling as though nothing had happened.

  “I don’t know about you,” he said, “but I’m starving. Want to go to Lexie’s house for lunch?” He started walking toward the antique truck.

  “Does this mean I get to meet the angelic Toby?” Alix asked as she hurried after him. She was hoping that they could return to the easy camaraderie they’d enjoyed these last few days.

  He stopped with his hand on the door handle of the old truck. “On one condition.”

  Alix quit breathing. Was he going to ask her to promise to keep her hands off him? “What’s that?”

  “That you help me with that house in L.A. that I’m late on. Tim emailed me again. They want a plan yesterday.”

  “Oh,” Alix said as she got into the truck. “Oh.”

  “Is that a good oh or a bad one?” he asked, getting behind the wheel.

  “I’m a student and you’re … him. What do you think it means?”

  “That I should do my own work?”