Ever After

  “Good plan,” Jamie said and after they’d hauled the supplies from the car, they began. They put on white cup masks and opened all the windows and doors. Hallie began taking load after load of dishes into the kitchen to wash them, while Jamie tackled the pantry.

  At first they worked in silence, but gradually they began to talk. Jamie asked her a lot of questions about her life. As she had earlier, she talked only about before her father married Ruby.

  “I don’t understand something,” he said as he raised his mask. “If your dad was gone most of the time and you just said that a lot of his work was in Florida, when your grandparents left, why didn’t you go with them? Why did you stay with your stepmother, who you hardly even knew?”

  “I wanted to go with them and my grandparents begged Dad to let me go, but Ruby said Shelly needed her big sister. Dad was still crazy about Ruby then, so he agreed and said I couldn’t leave.” She gave a little laugh. “Sometimes I felt like I was being used for body parts. My function in life became to ‘help Shelly.’ Helping my stepsister took precedence over school-work, my social life, et cetera.” When she looked at him, she saw the concern on his face. “Feel sorry for me now?”

  “I don’t believe in pity,” he said. “I don’t take it and I don’t give it out.”

  “Good philosophy,” she said. “Sometimes you just have to accept what is and live with it.”

  “I agree completely,” he said and they smiled at each other.

  Chapter Eight

  At six o’clock Hallie had an unpleasant run-in with one of the many spiders in the room and Jamie gallantly saved her life—or at least that’s the way he described it. When he said he had earned a hero cape, she laughed.

  They were both dirty and tired, but a half day’s work had made a big dent in cleaning the place. When they went through the pantry to the sparkling clean, well-lit kitchen and looked at the dirt on each other, they laughed.

  “We should go upstairs, take showers, put on clean clothes, then come back down here and have a civilized dinner,” Hallie said.

  “What are you? A Montgomery?” Jamie said as he went to the kitchen sink, pushed up his sleeves, and began to lather his hands and face.

  “You’re going to have to explain to me about your relatives so I can understand these comments.” Hallie went to the other side of the big sink and took the soap from him. For all that she wanted some part of her to be clean, her job was always in her mind. She hadn’t seen his bare forearms before and she couldn’t help sneaking glances at them. There was a long scar running up his left arm and three small ones crossing his right wrist.

  When he saw her looking, he turned away and grabbed a towel.

  “Montgomerys,” he said, as though the little incident hadn’t happened, “were born with a salad fork in their hands.” He pulled a container of chicken out of the fridge. “At home they use real napkins that somebody has washed and even ironed.”

  “They sound like monsters,” Hallie said without a smile.

  “They’re too delicate for that. Mom said the two families are Beauty and the Beast. Guess who is who?”

  Jamie’s hands and face were clean, but his hair and neck were coated with sweat-drenched dirt, and his heavy clothing was filthy.

  “I don’t know,” she said as she frowned in decision, “you’re kind of pretty.”

  Laughing, Jamie bent over and kissed her neck. “You’re—” He stopped because he was sputtering. “I think I got a mouthful of cobwebs.”

  “That’ll teach you,” she said as she ran a towel over her neck. “Are you going to share some of that chicken?”

  After they ate, Todd called and as always, Jamie sought privacy to talk to him. But as he walked away, Hallie heard him say that he’d driven a car. “Yeah, Hallie did it,” Jamie added.

  Smiling and feeling like all her late nights of studying were paying off, she cleaned up the kitchen.

  Later, after a long, hot shower, Hallie turned in early and, as was becoming her habit, she awoke at two A.M. For a moment she thought Jamie was going to forgo his nightly terrors, but at the first groan, she was by his side. She was beginning to develop a routine for calming him. Telling him he was safe and saying her name and Todd’s helped. But most of all, sleeping kisses settled him.

  Within minutes he’d calmed down, turned on his side, and began to sleep peacefully.

  She started back to her own room, but instead she paused to stroke his clean hair. “Tell me what happened to you,” she said softly. “Tell me what you went through that did this to you.” But there was only silence from him, and she went back to bed.

  When she awoke the next morning Jamie was already at work. She dressed and went to the kitchen, where a beautiful breakfast of cheese, pastries, and hard-boiled eggs was on the table. It looked like Edith had been there early.

  She opened the door into the pantry, but that was a mistake. Dust filled the air. Coughing, she waved her hand about. “How long have you been at this?” she asked Jamie, who had his arms full of animal-shaped pewter molds.

  “I started before daylight,” he said. “About four, I guess.”

  She was about to express astonishment but saw the twinkle in his eyes. “Got here ten minutes ago, did you?” she said, laughing.

  “More like eight. Did you eat?”

  “Just starting. Come on, the tea is hot.”

  After they’d eaten, they went back to cleaning. What they found in the pantry was fascinating. Items were three rows deep and they seemed to cover all the years since the young women had died. There were iron pots and wooden implements in the back, and what looked to be Victorian gadgets in the middle. In the front was cookware from after World War II. There were even a few ration cards.

  “I guess we should contact the Whaling Museum and get someone to come look at these things.” Before them, spread out on the sheets they’d put on the grass, were a lot of the artifacts they’d cleaned, many of which they had no idea what they were. “Or maybe we should call Dr. Huntley at the NHS.”

  “Are you sure?” Jamie asked. “Didn’t he say the sailors brought the Tea Ladies gifts? If that’s true, then all of this belongs to them.”

  “You think we should put it all back in there, don’t you?”

  “It’s an option,” Jamie said.

  She was watching him. “You pretend that you don’t believe in them, but you do think they exist as ghosts, don’t you?”

  “I’d like to think there is more than just the finality of death, yes.” When he looked at her, there was something in his eyes, an emptiness, a hollow place that ran through them. It was there and gone in an instant.

  He knows about death, has felt it, she thought. But in the next second Jamie gave his devil-may-care grin and he was back to being the guy who jetted around the world from one party to the next.

  “What’s made you—?” she began, but he cut her off.

  “You ready to hit it again?” he asked.

  Obviously, he didn’t want to talk about anything serious. “Shall we take on the last layer of the pantry?” She looked him up and down. The heavy sweatsuit he had on was covered in dirt and drying sweat. “If I can stand the smell of you, that is.”

  Jamie looked down at himself. “You’re right. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” She watched him disappear into the house, then sat on the grass and began to clean some more of the old kitchen items. There were half a dozen pretty white ceramic molds that she thought were for ice cream. They had designs of fruit and flowers on the bottom. She dunked one into a bucket of warm, soapy water and began to wash it.

  She wondered if her ancestor Leland Hartley had touched the molds. Had he eaten ice cream made from them? The thought led her to that wedding day long ago, when two beautiful young women had caught a fever and died within a week.

  What were they like? she wondered. Did they have dreams for the future? Were Juliana and Leland planning on living on Nantucket? Or were they going to his home in Boston? If they w
ere leaving, what about Hyacinth? Was she going too?

  No, Hallie thought, Hyacinth would stay with their father—which would make the wedding day sad as well as happy.

  Hallie was so absorbed in her thoughts that she didn’t hear Jamie approach.

  “Better?” he asked from a few feet away.

  Smiling, she looked up at him, but her face froze. He had changed clothes. He was still covered, but he had on a thin outfit meant for jogging. The long-sleeved shirt fit him snugly—and showed off muscles that curved over his body. He also wore pants loose enough to go over his brace but tight enough to show off his heavy leg muscles. Superman would envy his body.

  When she looked up at his face, she saw his smug expression. He certainly knew how good he looked!

  Hallie made herself turn away long enough to recover from her awe, then put her professional face back on. “You’ll be cooler in that,” she said seriously. “Ready to go back to work?”

  Jamie’s smirk turned into a frown as he stepped back. “Yeah, sure.” Looking a bit disappointed, he went into the house.

  Hallie got up to follow him, but when she stood up, she found her knees were weak, and her skin was overheating. She leaned against the side of the building and tried to calm herself. Jamie Taggert looked like every movie star and professional athlete she’d ever been awed by, ever giggled about. His beautiful face was over a body that made her ache to touch him. She could feel her lips on those abs!

  Jamie looked out the door to see her leaning against the building. “If you’re too tired to do this, I can finish by myself.”

  “No, no,” she said as she pushed away from the wall. “What should we do next?”

  “You could climb on the stepladder and hand down things from the top shelf.”

  “Sure,” Hallie said and he went back inside. She took a step toward the door, but then she saw the new hose and hand sprayer they’d just bought. She picked it up and sprayed herself in the face with ice-cold water. The way she felt, she could have dived into a glacial pool and turned it into a hot spring.

  “Come on, Hartley,” he yelled from inside, and she went back into the house.

  When Jamie’s phone vibrated, he took it out of his pocket and looked at the text message. I HAVE INFO, Todd had written.

  He glanced at Hallie. She was sitting on the floor washing the legs of the tea tables. When he told her he needed to call his brother, she didn’t look up, just waved her hand.

  Once he was outside, he called. “What have you found out?”

  “I may lose my job because I took time off to go to Boston and do some investigating for you.”

  “Who did you talk to?” Jamie asked.

  “What happened to ‘Thanks, Todd, you’re the best brother anyone’s ever had’?”

  “Give me grief later. Right now I need to get back to Hallie.”

  “Is that need or want?” When Jamie was silent, Todd knew he’d pushed his brother far enough. “I talked to Braden Westbrook’s mother. The woman is a fount of information. Has Hallie told you what her stepsister did?”

  “No,” Jamie said. “I’ve tried to pry it out of her, but she wouldn’t give me the details.”

  “That’s surprising. You’d think that being around someone like you, who is so open and sharing, who keeps no secrets from her, she’d blab her guts out.”

  “Get off it!” Jamie said. “I keep secrets for a reason. Tell me what you found out.”

  “As you know, Jared was the executor of Henry Bell’s will and he overnighted the info to Hallie. But it seems that her stepsister, Shelly, opened the package, then began an elaborate scam to steal Hallie’s identity. She even sent a copy of Hallie’s passport to Jared but put her own photo on it. It was only by chance that Hallie came home early and found out what was going on. So now Jared is determined to help her out.”

  Jamie took a moment to catch his breath. “Her stepsister faked a passport?! Isn’t that a federal offense?”

  “Yeah, but Mrs. Westbrook said Hallie would never press charges. She’s too nice a person.” Todd paused. “I talked to half a dozen people on that road and no one had a bad word to say against your Hallie, but they certainly had plenty to say about her stepmother.”

  “You mean Ruby?”

  “Yes. There were a lot of complaints about unmowed grass and loud parties. The neighbors said that Hallie used to come home from college on weekends to do yard work. And after Ruby and Hallie’s father died…” Todd trailed off.

  “What happened?” Jamie asked.

  “Hallie quit college to take care of her stepsister. From what I was told, that first year was hell for everyone on the street—and they all agreed that the hell was caused by a teenage Shelly. I checked out the police reports and after the parents’ deaths, neighbors called 911 six times because of all-night parties. Some of them involved gangs on motorcycles. There were a lot of warnings issued before the noise finally stopped.”

  “Poor Hallie,” Jamie said.

  “She’s not told you any of this?”

  “Some, but not much,” Jamie said. “She mostly talks about her grandparents and how happy her life had been with them.”

  “You’re with her twenty-four-seven and I’ve never heard you speak about any other woman the way you talk about her, but you know practically nothing about her. What are you doing with your time together?”

  “Looking into some ghost story, and lately we’ve been cleaning.” Jamie wanted to get back to the subject. “What did you find out about this Braden character?”

  “You’re cleaning?” Todd said in disbelief. “And ghosts? This is how you are courting this woman?”

  “No one said anything about ‘courting.’ ”

  It was Todd’s turn to be silent.

  “All right! So I like her. I like her a lot! She’s funny and smart and caring and—”

  “And not bad to look at,” Todd said.

  “That too. Is this Braden coming here?”

  “Yeah,” Todd said, “he is. I’m not sure when, but in a few days. His mother had some very interesting things to tell me about her son.”

  “Such as?”

  “That he just broke up with his latest girlfriend. She said this is the third one who’s left him because Braden only goes after the unattainable.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Seems he pursues the girls in the highest heels, the ones who are clawing their way to the top. They use Braden, then leave heel dents on him when they climb up and over him.”

  “Good,” Jamie said.

  “I know what you’re thinking, that if that’s what he likes, he’ll stay away from your Hallie. Want to hear the best news?” Todd didn’t wait for an answer. “Mrs. Westbrook has been trying to get her son and dear, sweet Hallie together since they were kids.”

  “He’s too old for her!” Jamie said.

  “Not according to his mother. She thinks Hallie would make him a great wife and give her half a dozen grandkids. So what does your Hallie think of him?”

  “I don’t know,” Jamie said softly.

  “What was that? I couldn’t hear you.”

  “I don’t know what she thinks of him!” Jamie half shouted, then calmed. “All I know for sure is that Hallie calls him her friend and she wants the place spotless before he arrives.”

  Todd drew in his breath. “You’re helping her clean up the house for her boyfriend?”

  “He’s not—” Jamie closed his eyes for a moment. “Besides being stupid about women, what else is this guy like?”

  “Squeaky clean. Not so much as a parking ticket. Dad knows someone at the law firm where he works, so I—”

  “You told Dad?! Please say you didn’t tell Mom too.”

  “Sure I did. In fact, Mom’s decided that her next book is going to be about a physical therapist who—”

  “Spare me,” Jamie said. “What did Dad say?”

  “Braden Westbrook is soon to be made a partner in the law firm. The gu
y is a hard worker and as honest as a lawyer can be. Those rapacious women he goes after seem to be his only flaw. But his mother thinks that the way he was treated by this last one is going to make him change his ways. I don’t know about that, but the day I was there, he was in Boston buying himself new clothes to wear on Nantucket. How are you doing in your sweats?”

  Jamie didn’t answer the question. “What’s he look like?”

  “A blond Montgomery.”

  “That’s good,” Jamie said. “Skinny, no muscles, washed out, bland.”

  “You keep telling yourself that. This guy looks great and has a good job. Just out of curiosity, have you told Hallie how much you like her?”

  “Not yet,” Jamie said. “It’s too early and I need more time to work things out.”

  “I agree,” Todd said. “Take all the time you need. I’m sure there are thousands of unselfish, funny, smart, beautiful girls like Hallie out there. And I bet that when the family starts arriving not one of the cousins is going to hit on her. What are Adam and Ian up to now? Or does she like bulk? Raine should fill that need. And what happens when Westbrook asks Hallie out to dinner and a moonlight walk on the beach? Is she going to want to stay home with you and clean things? Or talk about ghosts?”

  “You’re a real bastard, you know that?” Jamie said in anger.

  “Just trying to get you to leave the past behind,” Todd replied with an equal amount of anger. “You have a chance and I don’t want you to blow it. If I found my Hallie, I’d go after her with everything I had.”

  “Yeah, well, there are extenuating circumstances. I—”

  “Heard it all before,” Todd said. “The way I see it, you have just days to make her look at you as something other than her cleaning partner. I’ll call you tomorrow. No! You call me when you’ve done something about all this. Otherwise, don’t bother.” He hung up.

  Jamie was angry after his brother’s call, but when he got back to the house and saw Hallie, he nearly exploded. She was in the pantry, on one tiptoe on the top step of the little ladder, trying to reach something at the back of the uppermost shelf. She looked like she was a quarter inch away from falling.