True Love

  When Jared got to Warbrooke, he called Alix. She’d found the names of Michael Taggert and Adam Montgomery online in the town directory. Based on their involvement in the community, she guessed that they were patriarchs of the family. “It looks like the family owns most of the town,” she told him.

  “It’s a nice place,” he said about the town in Maine. “Reminds me of Nantucket.”

  “High praise indeed.”

  On the day Jared was to meet the men Alix had tracked down, she found she was a bit nervous and had trouble concentrating on what Toby was saying. They had nearly all the wedding preparations done, including reservations for all of Glenn and Izzy’s guests. A few were staying in hotels—which cost a fortune—but most of the guests were being put up in the houses of the Kingsley relatives. Lexie had organized that, as well as persuading Roger Plymouth to let her use his six-bedroom house for guests.

  “Will he be there?” Toby asked.

  “No!” Lexie said. “He’s promised to stay at his house in Taos then.”

  “Darn!” Alix said. “Toby and I were thinking of taking over the master suite.”

  “And if he showed up …” Toby said.

  “We’d lock him in with us,” Alix said.

  “You guys are crazy,” Lexie said. “And you have no idea what that man is really like.”

  “So tell us,” Alix said, and she and Toby leaned forward, chins in hands, ready to listen avidly.

  Frowning, Lexie started to say something, but then shook her head. “You two are hopeless. So how’s Jared doing with the new relatives up in Maine?”

  “I haven’t heard about them yet. Just the town, which he likes a lot,” she said. “He’s going to meet the men today and call me tonight.”

  He didn’t call until nearly ten P.M.

  “Tell me!” she said. “I want to hear every word.”

  “They are … unusual,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “There are two families, the Montgomerys and Taggerts, and they intermarried a long time ago.”

  “How long have they lived in that town?”

  “It seems that they arrived here a few centuries ago.” He paused. “Are you laughing because it sounds like my family?”

  “Exactly like them. Do they have any documentation about Valentina and Parthenia?”

  “As a matter of fact, they do.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “No, I’m not. There’s a woman who has sort of become the family historian, and she’s going to fly in from Colorado and bring me letters between Valentina and her cousin.”

  “That sounds great,” Alix said. “So do you like your new relatives?”

  “Yeah,” he said, but there was hesitation in his voice.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. In fact, it’s all good. They’re so much like me that I feel as though I’ve known them forever, especially the Montgomery side. They even sort of look like me. The truth is that I’m trying to get them all to spend time on Nantucket. The Harper house is for sale.”

  “Isn’t that the big place on the corner? And isn’t the asking price of that house seven and a quarter million?”

  “I think so,” he said. “But they can afford it.”

  “Rreeee​aaaallll​yyy?” Alix said.

  “Really. I have to go. I’m meeting Mike in a few minutes. Tomorrow I’m going fishing with a couple of my new cousins. And I may stay a few days longer than I originally planned. Do you mind?”

  Alix smiled. She wouldn’t tell him so but it felt great that he’d asked what she thought. It was as though they really were a couple.

  “I think you deserve time off, so go have fun. And by the way, what do they have that needs designing?”

  Jared laughed so loud that Alix had to hold the phone away from her ear. “There’s a huge old house set on a rock bluff and it needs a major remodel, but they’ve not trusted anyone to do it.”

  “Until now,” Alix said.

  “Until a blood relative came along. It’s a distant connection, but the time element of family doesn’t seem to bother them.”

  “You’ll fit right in with them since you talk about Captain Caleb as though you saw him yesterday.”

  Jared was a bit taken aback by that, but he smiled. “I miss you,” he said. “Are you getting along all right?”

  “Well enough.” She was pleased with the sweet tone in his voice. “Dad doesn’t want me to see the progress on the chapel, Izzy can’t seem to stay awake long enough to make a decision, and this house is big and empty with only the Captain and me here. Other than that, I’m great.”

  Jared drew in his breath. “Have you been talking to him?”

  “Yes. Lots, but, alas, he never answers back.”

  “Not even any cheek kisses?”

  “None,” Alix said. “So what do I do to get the legendary Kingsley ghost to talk to me?”

  “Now that I think about it, it might be good for you to move in with Toby and Lex until I get back.”

  “Is that jealousy I hear?”

  “You’re wanting to talk to a ghost and I’m jealous?”

  “Yet another question evaded.”

  Jared laughed. “Yeah, okay, so I’m more than a little envious that he’s with you and I’m not. What are you wearing?”

  With a look at her sweatpants and old T-shirt, Alix lied completely. It was a few days later that Jared called and talked to her about Jilly Taggert. She was the family historian who’d flown to Maine especially to see Jared. “Is it all right if she returns home with me?”

  Alix replied instantly. “How old is she and what does she look like?”

  “She’s pretty in a quiet, Sunday-picnic way, intelligent, and she’s in her forties, I guess. She said she’s always wanted to see Nantucket, so I thought …”

  “That the island is so beautiful that she needs to see it,” she finished for him.

  “Exactly!” He paused for a moment. “Alix, would you think I’m crazy if I told you that something about her reminds me of your father?”

  Was Jared matchmaking? she wondered. If he was, then Alix was pleased. Her father deserved to find someone. “I take it Jilly isn’t like my mom?”

  Jared gave a guffaw of laughter. “Jilly is the complete opposite of your mother. She never demands attention and she’s very thoughtful of others.”

  “It does sound like my dad will like her, so yes! Bring her back with you. Are you going to drive or fly back?”

  “Drive.” He gave her the date of his reservations on the slow boat. “I should see you in the early afternoon,” he said and his voice lowered. “So have you written any more poems?”

  “No, but I’ve a good idea for one.”

  “Tell me,” he said softly.

  Chapter Twenty

  It was early Sunday morning and Alix was in bed listening to the rain. It seemed that today everyone she knew on the island was away or busy. Toby was doing the flowers for an afternoon wedding, and Dilys and Lexie were off-island shopping. Her dad was at the job site at six A.M., seven days a week, and Alix knew he didn’t want her hanging around there.

  Alix had work to do on the sketches for the guesthouse for the man from the Daffodil Festival, but she didn’t want to do that. At long last, this morning she awoke with an overwhelming, impossible-to-deny urge to go to the attic and see what she could find. In spite of Jared’s offer of help, Alix knew that the time had arrived to begin searching through the papers about Valentina.

  Getting up, she opened the bedroom curtain and saw the rain coming down in a steady stream. It was dull outside, colored by a mix of rain and fog. “The Gray Lady” was a nickname for the island and she saw why.

  Alix dressed quickly—no need for careful attention to her hair and face if Jared wasn’t there. She hurriedly ate a bowl of cereal, then started up the stairs to the attic. A couple of days ago she’d asked Lexie what she knew about the attic and its contents.

  “That pl
ace is a mess,” Lexie said. “Although Jared likes it. He goes up there and hangs out for hours.”

  “Interesting,” Alix said. “I need to work on this mystery. Besides, if I wait until Jared returns we’ll get wrapped up in designs and I’ll never get up there. So where are the documents about Valentina?”

  As Lexie had told her to do, Alix left the door open “for the hall light,” then pulled the string on the single bulb. Even though Alix hadn’t been in the attic before, she’d figured it would be full. But nothing could have prepared her for what she saw. The huge room covered the whole house and whereas the downstairs had been continually repaired and remodeled, the attic looked to be just as it was when Captain Caleb built the house. There were big, exposed beams overhead and a wide plank floor. However, Alix was glad to see that every inch was dry and even fairly clean. It was obvious that Jo Costakes’s Domestic Goddess team, who came in every other week to clean the downstairs, also sometimes took care of the attic.

  Not that they could do much besides dust. In front was a space with a little couch, a rickety old coffee table, and a threadbare wing chair. Behind them, stretching out until they disappeared into darkness, were rows of boxes, trunks, baskets, furniture, and suitcases that were stacked nearly to the ceiling. Narrow walkways wove between the objects and she saw a couple more bulbs in the ceiling, but all in all, the idea of trying to find anything in the huge expanse made Alix want to turn and run.

  She opened the door of an enormous armoire and found old clothes that looked to be from the twenties and thirties. In front was a fur-collared wool coat, some cotton dresses, and a sparkly gown, perfect if they were invited to a costume party.

  So where was the info on Valentina? she wondered. Lexie had said it was all together, “to the right of the door.” But when Alix looked near the door she’d entered, she saw only a stack of tables.

  “Maybe she meant to go down the aisle on the right,” she said aloud and started edging her way through it. About halfway down was another light and she pulled the string. The weak bulb made the place even gloomier. Any documents she found would have to be taken downstairs, as it was much too dark to read.

  To her right was a six-foot-tall stack of storage boxes, the kind for files. On the end of each one, written in large letters, was VALENTINA. Alix stepped back as far as she could—about eight inches—to look at them. There had to be twenty boxes, all of them looking to be packed full. She climbed on the top of a steamer trunk on the other side of the aisle and stretched across to pull off the top box. She got it in her hands, but then lost her balance. For a second she thought she was going to fall. With her feet slipping, she held on to the box and made a leap to the floor. She landed on her seat on the hard surface. As she hit, the overhead bulb went out.

  “Perfect!” she said, getting up. Just yesterday she’d noticed that the house’s supply of lightbulbs had run out and that they needed new ones. Grumbling, she picked up the box and started toward the front.

  “Hello?”

  It was a male voice that seemed familiar. For an instant, she thought it was Jared returning early, but then she realized the voice was deeper and sounded older.

  At the end of the aisle, she stopped in her tracks. Standing there was a modern version of Captain Caleb. He had on jeans, a denim shirt, and heavy brown lace-up boots, but other than that, he was the Captain.

  “I think I’ve startled you.” His voice was very much like Jared’s. “I’m terribly sorry. I better leave and return after we’ve been properly introduced.” He turned toward the door.

  “No!” she said. “You don’t need to leave. You look too much like Captain Caleb to be anything but a Kingsley.”

  “I look like Captain Caleb?” he said and even in the dull gray light she saw his eyes twinkle. “I couldn’t possibly be that handsome. No man today could be.”

  Smiling, Alix put the box she was holding down on the floor. “I have to agree, and perhaps you do look somewhat different from him. Your eyes are less serious.”

  “Ah, but then when that portrait of him was painted, the Captain had a lot on his mind. He was trying to win the beautiful Valentina.”

  “From what I heard, he had no trouble with that.” As Alix plopped down on the little sofa, a spattering of dust went up around her and she gave a sigh. “Sorry,” she said as she looked up at him. “It’s just that I’m feeling overwhelmed at all the boxes I’m supposed to go through.”

  “Do you mind?” he asked, motioning to the chair across from her.

  “Please.”

  He took a seat in the big wing chair, the flanges casting his face in deep shadow. He really did look like the Captain, she thought, but then maybe it was because she looked at Caleb’s portrait every morning and evening. Whatever the reason, he seemed very familiar. “Who are you?” she asked.

  “Jared didn’t tell you about me?”

  “No, he didn’t,” she said. “But then he didn’t volunteer any information about his cousin Wes either.”

  When the man laughed, Alix was almost sure she’d heard the sound as a child. “I think I’ve met you before, but you’re …” From the look of him he was a bit younger than Jared, which meant that he wouldn’t have had that deep, adult laugh when she was so young.

  “We did meet when you were a child,” he said, smiling. “But you’ve met so many of my family that perhaps you can’t place me. I’m Caleb.”

  “That seems appropriate,” she said.

  His smile made her relax. “I take it that the great cache of material isn’t making you want to dive in and explore?”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “I will tell you a secret,” he said. “I have read every word on those papers in the boxes.”

  “Have you?”

  “Oh, yes. In fact, I am directly responsible for a great deal of the information stored here. Would you like for me to tell you the true story of Valentina and Caleb? The one the rest of my family doesn’t know?”

  Alix hesitated. Perhaps she should wait until Jared returned and Caleb could tell both of them. But she couldn’t resist. She nodded.

  He looked around the attic. “For this story of great and deep love, we need to create the proper atmosphere. I have a … What do you call it?” He made a small circle with his hands. “It plays music. Do you have a gramophone?”

  She smiled at the image of the old-fashioned machine, which fit right in with the artifacts surrounding them. “No, but I have an excellent laptop and it will play your CD.”

  He smiled at her as though she were the most intelligent of people. “I remember seeing a gown in a box down the first aisle. Its owner was rather tall, like you, and I believe the garment will fit you. Perhaps you’d like to put it on and while we talk I could teach you a dance from Valentina’s time.”

  “Oh,” Alix said, her eyes wide. As a woman in a modern world that rarely bothered to dress up for anything, she started to protest. But then she glanced at the window. The rain was still coming down hard and she had nothing else really urgent to do, so why not dance with Jared’s handsome relative? “Where is the dress?”

  Caleb smiled at her with such warmth that Alix felt herself take a step toward him. Good grief! she thought, stepping back. If the real Captain Caleb had this magnetism, she could certainly understand why Valentina ended up pregnant before they were married. He seemed to understand Alix’s thoughts, but didn’t comment as he gave her directions to find the box containing the dress.

  She found it easily but getting it out was difficult. She had to remove six other objects off the top and drag it out. It was a dress box, dark green, with the name of a store in Boston on the lid.

  When she got it to the front, Caleb was standing by the chair and smiling. She wondered why she hadn’t been introduced to him. Did he live nearby?

  “That’s it,” he said.

  It took Alix only moments to open the box. Inside was what looked to be a white cotton dress. Pulling it out, she held it up under the si
ngle bulb of light. It was beautiful: crisp, clean cotton, with a deep square neck, long sleeves, and a floor-length skirt done in folded-over layers. It was, without a doubt, a wedding dress. She looked at Caleb. “1950s?”

  “I believe so.” He paused. “Would you like to try it on?”

  She looked at the long white dress. There was really no reason for her to put it on, but then lately her mind had been so full of weddings and all that goes with them that she felt drawn to the gown. And then, of course, there was Jared. Hadn’t she said that her wedding dress would be cotton? “I think I’ll go downstairs to put it on.”

  “Then you’ll come back to me?” he asked in a way that took her aback. He sounded as though he’d be devastated if she said no.

  “Yes, I will,” she said as she ran down the stairs to her bedroom.

  Once in the room, she couldn’t help going to Captain Caleb’s portrait. The man upstairs really did resemble his ancestor! “He’s not quite as handsome as you are,” she said. “But he’s a close second.”

  In the next minute she’d stripped off her clothes. On impulse she rummaged in a drawer to find her best white lacy underwear and put it on. She started toward the gown but instead went to the bathroom and put on makeup. She was glad her long hair was clean. She pulled off the tie for her ponytail and managed to sweep it up into a soft chignon. It wasn’t a professional job but it was more fitting for the elegance of the dress.

  At last she returned to the bedroom, wearing just her underwear, and picked up the dress. As she stepped into it, she had to struggle with the tight, narrow sleeves, then work to fasten the buttons up the back. Only when she had it on did she look in the mirror. If the dress had been made for her, it couldn’t have fit better. The neckline was low, showing rather a lot of cleavage. She made a halfhearted attempt to pull it up, but then smiled. Her breasts had never looked better!

  As she went up the steep, narrow attic stairs wearing a wedding dress and carrying a laptop, she was hesitant, but the moment she saw Caleb her reluctance vanished. He wore a tuxedo, one of that utterly perfect kind, like out of a Cary Grant movie. It fit him exactly, curving in at the waist and showing his long, heavily muscled legs. She didn’t know what gym he went to, but it should be given an award.