True Love

  “No, I don’t think we will,” Ken said, standing up. Jared’s suitcase was on the ground and Ken picked it up. He walked over to put it in the back of the pickup.

  Jilly followed them. “I feel that I should ask: Alix, are you all right? And by the way, I’m Jilly Leighton, a Taggert before I married.”

  Jared turned around so Alix could get an upside-down view of her. “It’s nice to meet you, and I’m fine. Jared is just jealous because I spent yesterday morning dancing with one of his relatives.”

  Ken smiled. “And which relative was that? Wes?”

  “Caleb,” Alix and Jared said in unison.

  “Oh” was all Ken could reply, then he lowered his voice and looked at Jared. “Please, take my daughter away, and keep her away for as long as you want. As long as you can.”

  “Betrayed!” Alix said. “I am betrayed by my own blood.” Her tone said that she was quite pleased by it all.

  Jared set Alix in the truck, shut the door, then got in the driver’s seat.

  “Call me,” Ken said through the window.

  “You can be sure that I will,” Jared said, his eyes betraying his anger at his grandfather. He backed onto the lane.

  When Ken and Jilly were alone again, she said, “Jared told me about a lot of people, but I don’t believe he ever mentioned a Caleb. Is there a problem with this man?”

  Ken ushered her back to the table. When they were seated, he said, “I guess that all depends on how you look at it. You see …” He looked at her. He’d met her less than an hour ago but he liked her. The look of her, the way she moved, the sound of her voice appealed to him. But he feared that if he told her the truth, it was quite possible that she’d run away. But sometimes, he thought, you needed to risk something to gain everything. “Caleb …” he said slowly.

  “Yes?”

  “Caleb died about two hundred years ago.”

  “Oh, my,” Jilly said as she picked up a chocolate-covered doughnut. “Now you must tell me all of it. From the beginning.”

  Ken couldn’t help smiling at her. A woman who didn’t freak at the mere mention of a ghost! Where had she been all his life? “More tea?” he asked, smiling even broader.

  “Yes, please, but I think we’re going to need a second pot because I want to hear every detail.”

  “I think you’re right. You see, it all started when I found my wife, Alix’s mother, in bed with my business partner.”

  “How awful for you.”

  “Worse than I can describe.”

  “I imagine that it was,” Jilly said, thinking of her own unfortunate marital experience, but she didn’t mention that. This was Ken’s time for telling.

  He looked into her eyes. There had been other women in the many years since Victoria, and twice he’d been close to marriage. But at the last moment he’d chickened out. Never, not with anyone, had he come close to telling the truth about Victoria, or even about his time on Nantucket. And he’d never told of his connection to the famous architect Jared Montgomery. Most of all, he’d never told about a ghost who haunted the old Kingsley House, a ghost his daughter had seen clearly when she was a child—and seemed to have danced with on a rainy day.

  Pretty Jilly was looking at him patiently. It was as though she had all the time in the world and the only thing she wanted to do was hear his story.

  And Ken realized that all he wanted to do was tell her.

  In the upstairs window, Caleb smiled down at them. “Welcome home, Parthenia,” he whispered.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Jared was doing his best to remain calm—and to protect Alix. He could see that she had no idea that she’d been dancing with a ghost, and he didn’t want her to ever know. If she did find out, he didn’t think she would go into hysterics, but who could be sure? He just had to make it until Izzy’s wedding, then Caleb would leave and … He didn’t want to think about that.

  What was really bothering Jared was that his grandfather seemed to have so much more power than he used to have. Rules and facts about Caleb had been passed down through the Jareds for centuries. “Don’t tell the women you can see him.” “Don’t mention him to outsiders.” “He can’t leave the house.” “He can stand in front of people but they can’t see him.” On and on, never ending.

  But never, ever had anyone hinted that Caleb could dance with someone. Touch them. An odd hand on a shoulder, a cheek kiss, yes, but not actual full-body contact.

  And what about his apparent ability to provide Alix with glimpses of the past? He’d never experienced anything of the sort with his grandfather, nor had his father told him of such a thing.

  Beside him, Alix was talking about what she’d seen. “Of course it was all my imagination. Probably from having seen too many movies, but I completely envisioned what he was telling me about. Such an amazing storyteller! It was as though I could see and hear it all. Like I was there. Or hovering over it and looking down at it, anyway. And the people he spoke of I imagined looking like people I know. My dad was there and—”

  “Is everything in place for Izzy’s wedding?” Jared asked. “How’s she doing? Is she feeling better?”

  Alix understood that Jared didn’t want to hear more about her and Caleb. When she’d said he was jealous she was teasing, but maybe it was true. He had no reason to be, but she didn’t want to upset him, whether he was being entirely reasonable or not. “Izzy is doing well. We exchange half a dozen emails and texts a day and call every other day. She’s almost stopped throwing up, but now she says she’s eating everything in sight.”

  Jared pulled into the parking lot of the Stop and Shop. “I have to make a quick call to the office,” he said. “Would you mind getting groceries, enough to last for at least three days?”

  “No clothes but lots of food?”

  “I’ll eat it off your bare belly,” Jared said, and Alix laughed as she got out of the truck. As soon as she left, he phoned Ken.

  “How is she?” Ken asked as he stepped outside to take the call. Jilly was in the guesthouse making tea and sandwiches.

  “She has no idea what she saw,” Jared said.

  “My daughter danced with a ghost but she doesn’t know it?”

  “That’s right,” Jared said. “And it seems that my granddad showed her some vision of the past. She saw Valentina’s cousin getting married.”

  Ken was still trying to adjust to the idea of the ghost being real. He looked up at the back of the big house, his eyes searching every window. But he saw nothing—and he was glad of it. He didn’t think he’d much like seeing a ghost. “Are you going to tell her the truth about what happened?”

  “Hell, no!” Jared said. He didn’t want to say that his grandfather was leaving the earth on Izzy’s wedding day. It was too painful to think of, and he doubted Ken would understand. Outsiders loved phrases like “eternal rest,” as though that solved everything. Get rid of the ghost and everyone would be happy—except for the people who love him, that is. “I don’t want her seeing him again, so I’m going to do my best to keep Alix by my side every minute.”

  “That’s what you’re doing with my daughter anyway,” Ken said, sounding like the father he was.

  “Don’t get on my case!” Jared snapped, then calmed himself. “I need something to distract her. As much as I’d like to be alone with her, that’s not going to keep her from talking—and thinking. If she keeps on like this she’s going to figure it all out.”

  Ken knew he was right. “All she needs to hear is that the name Caleb was used only once in your family and she’ll know. My girl is smart.”

  “Too smart,” Jared muttered, looking around at the packed parking lot. Cars were on the grass, in the roadways. During the summer season, getting groceries meant taking your life in your hands. “What do you think of Jilly?” When Ken didn’t answer, Jared said, “Are you still there?”

  “I’m here,” he said. “Do you believe in love at first sight?”

  “A month ago I didn’t,” Jared sa
id. “You ought to get Jilly to talk. Cale said her late husband was—and I quote—a ‘lying, thieving monster.’ It seems the bastard stole Jilly and her kids’ entire inheritance.”

  “I hope he rots,” Ken said under his breath. “Wait a minute! Are you talking about Cale Anderson? Victoria says she makes a nest on the New York Times best-seller list, then sits on her eggs until they hatch into movies.”

  Jared chuckled. “Thanks, I needed a laugh, and that’s the right Cale. Listen, I need help distracting Alix. She’s really digging at this.”

  When Ken spoke, his voice was cautious. “Don’t forget that at the end of the year she’ll leave your house. After she’s gone, you won’t have to worry about her ever again seeing the ghost.”

  “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that,” Jared said. “I just have to keep Alix occupied until Izzy’s wedding, then everything will change—and, no, I’m not going to tell you why. After that, Alix is mine. Forever. Not just for a single year.”

  “Okay,” Ken said, his voice full of his joy at hearing that. “I’ll talk to Jilly and see if she has any ideas on what might take my very curious daughter’s mind off your ghost.”

  “You told Jilly about my grandfather?!”

  “I did,” Ken said, “and don’t give me any grief about it or I’ll call Victoria and tell her about Caleb.”

  Jared took a moment to imagine that horror. “I have to go. You and Jilly need to come up with something fast.” After he hung up, as he waited for Alix, he tried to come up with a distraction, but couldn’t. When he saw Alix approaching with a full grocery cart, he went forward to help her.

  At Dilys’s house, they’d just unloaded the last of the groceries when a car pulled in behind the truck. A pretty blond woman was driving and in the backseat was a little boy, about two, belted into a car seat and crying at the top of his lungs.

  Jared bent down to look at the woman through the passenger window. Alix stood behind him.

  “Jared! Thank goodness I caught you!” she said over the noise of her son. “Dilys isn’t here so I have no sitter. I hate to drag Tyler around and you know how much he hates shopping, but I have no one to look after him. With his dad away fishing, fighting the seas to earn money to support us, it’s hard for Tyler and me to—”

  “All right!” Jared said. “You don’t have to beat me up.”

  Alix had no idea what he was talking about, but she watched as Jared opened the back door, unbuckled the car seat, and the child nearly leaped into his arms. From the way the boy immediately stopped crying, it was obvious he and Jared were well acquainted.

  “You better get the bag,” his mother said. “There are phone numbers in there and clean clothes and you should take the seat too. Just in case. And, oh yes, I think he needs …” She trailed off with a little smile.

  “You think?” Jared’s voice was sarcastic.

  She smiled even broader as she put the car in reverse. As she pulled away, she called out, “Jared, I love you.”

  Alix watched the car until it turned the corner, then looked at Jared comfortably holding the boy. He was cute, with dark blond hair and big blue eyes. “Old girlfriend?” she asked in a tone that she hoped sounded unconcerned. Inside she was screaming. Please don’t let her be an ex-anything and this be Jared’s love child.

  “Naw. Her brother and I went to school together. She loves me because this is one fragrant kid. Want the job?”

  For a moment, Alix had no idea when he meant. “Oh! You mean he needs changing?”

  “And right away.” He slid the heavy bag off his shoulder and handed it to her. Alix took it, but when Jared started to give her the boy, she stepped back.

  “Scared?” he asked, teasing.

  “Not really. It’s just that I’ve never changed a diaper before. I don’t know how.”

  Jared blinked at her a few times. “What are they teaching in that fancy school of yours these days?”

  “How to earn a living,” Alix said, smiling.

  “But obviously not what to do with what you earn. Come on in and I’ll teach you the great art of nappy changing.”

  “If you’re teaching again, this must be Montgomery.”

  “That guy? He wears a tux to dinner.”

  When they got inside the house, to Alix’s disbelief, the boy didn’t want to have his diaper changed. Didn’t movies and TV have the kid crying if its diaper was soiled even a little bit? But not Tyler.

  “Should we put him on the bed?” she asked.

  “Dilys would kill us if we got it dirty,” Jared said, holding on to the boy who was now struggling to get down.

  “Go! Go!” he yelled as he kicked Jared in the ribs.

  “Look in the closet and get out that old blue blanket and spread it over the rug,” Jared said. “And I’m going to need a washcloth—no, two of them—wet with warm water.”

  Alix got the blanket and spread it out, then ran to the bathroom to get some wet cloths. All this to change one messy diaper? she wondered.

  When she got back to the living room, Jared had Tyler’s shorts off and Alix saw that they weren’t clean. She rummaged in the bag and got out a diaper, then sat on the arm of the couch and watched. Tyler was laughing as Jared held him down with one hand and removed his very dirty diaper with the other.

  Alix’s first thought was how could someone so small produce that much? Jared used the diaper and the cloths to clean him but…

  “Look,” Alix said. When Tyler rolled over, she saw that it was all the way up his back, almost to his hair.

  “Okay, buddy,” Jared said, “let’s get you into the shower.”

  “Wouldn’t a tub be better?” Alix asked.

  “You want to clean it?”

  “No, thanks.”

  With Jared holding the half-naked boy at arm’s length, they went to the master bath. Alix was going to get the blanket and shorts up, but Jared called for her.

  “Help me undress, would you?” he said as he reached in and turned on the shower. “I can’t let him loose or he’ll spread it all over the house, so I’m going to get in with him.” With his arm securely around Tyler, Jared bent so Alix could pull his shirt off over his head.

  When Alix started to help with Jared’s jeans, the child almost escaped, but Jared caught him. Unfortunately, the mess on Tyler was now also down the front of Jared’s bare chest.

  Alix couldn’t help laughing.

  “Don’t encourage him,” Jared said, but he was smiling. Still holding Tyler, he got into the shower with the boy and grabbed a bar of soap.

  Alix looked at the two of them, both naked, both beautiful. Never in her life had she seen a sight that affected her more. No building on the face of the earth equaled the perfection of this man with this child. The tenderness, the kindness, the love between them seemed to create a glow around them.

  For a moment she had to hold on to the sink to keep from collapsing. “I’ll …” she began. “I’ll get the …” Vaguely, she pointed toward the living room.

  “No eating the soap,” Jared told Tyler. “And keep your eyes closed. I have to shampoo your entire body.”

  Alix left the room to get the blanket and clothes in the washer, and put the diaper in the outside trash.

  When she got back to the bathroom, Jared held a wet and slippery Tyler out to her. “He’s yours to dress. I’ve got to wash my hair.”

  “I don’t know how—” Alix began, but Jared wasn’t listening. Grabbing a towel off the rack, she took the boy.

  Tyler didn’t like having his diaper changed but he hated being put back into clothes. Alix managed to get him onto the bed where he promptly rolled off and ran for the door. She caught him, put him back on the bed, and held him down with one hand on his chest while she got clothes out of the diaper bag.

  Tyler was laughing hilariously as he struggled to free himself from Alix’s grasp. Figuring out how to put on a diaper while holding him down wasn’t easy. As soon as she’d get the diaper under him, he’d roll aw
ay and she’d pull him back. She got the diaper in place, then the sticky tab glued itself to her left thumb and she couldn’t get it off. She had to get the other tab in place before the first one gave way.

  When she finally had it on, Tyler looked at her with eyes of mischief, but she caught him before he made another run for it. “Oh, no, you don’t. Now come the clothes!” She made a cackling sound like an evil witch—which made Tyler go into hysterics with laughter.

  When Alix finally got him into his shirt and shorts, she looked at him in triumph. “There, now. Doesn’t it feel good to be clean? Let’s get your sandals on.”

  Seeing an opening, Tyler did a lightning-fast roll and was off the bed in less than a second. He ran past Jared, who was standing in the doorway. He wore only his jeans with a towel around his neck.

  Alix sat on the edge of the bed, then flopped back onto it, her arms spread wide. “I am exhausted.”

  Too bad Tyler didn’t feel the same way. Jared nabbed him as he ran out of the room, then tossed him onto the bed beside Alix. When Jared stretched out on the other side of them, Tyler immediately began yelling, “Press! Press!”

  Jared groaned. “He only knows about six words, so why does that have to be one of them?”

  “What does it mean? Is it someone’s name?”

  “I should be so lucky,” Jared said as he began to stack pillows on top of each other then lay down on them.

  Alix watched as Jared stretched out on the pillows so his body was a foot above the bed. With a howl of laughter, Tyler flopped across Jared’s chest and stiffened his sturdy little body. Jared began to bench press the boy. The pillows were for Jared’s arms to go down by his ribs.

  “I think I’ll go make dinner,” Alix said, laughing as she got up and left the room.

  When Jared and Tyler got to the kitchen, with Jared saying his arms were aching, Alix was stirring shrimp and rice in one of Dilys’s big skillets. Jared fastened Tyler into a sturdy wooden high chair that he said had been made by his great-grandfather, and began to feed the child cheese and crackers.