Ever After

  “What the hell are you doing?” Jamie bellowed, then immediately regretted it. It was the voice he used on a battlefield and at home it had sent many a child running away in tears.

  But Hallie seemed unperturbed. “I almost…” She stretched even farther. “Got it!” she said just before doing what looked like a one-footed dance on the stepstool. When she went to put her other foot down, she met vacant air.

  As Jamie lifted his arms, his crutches clattered to the floor, and he made a leap, catching her about the waist as they fell. When the dust settled, Hallie was lying fully on top of him, her nose almost touching his. “If you needed a hug, you could have just said so.”

  Jamie laughed. “What were you doing up there? If I hadn’t been here—” His eyes widened.

  “What’s wrong?”

  In an instant, Jamie rolled over so Hallie was on the floor, then he scooped her up into his arms as though he was going to carry her out. It was a struggle with his leg in the long brace, but he made it.

  When he started to walk, she called out, “Wait!” and he halted. “You can’t carry me with your leg like that.”

  “I have to get you out of here!”

  At his tone, she realized there was panic in his eyes. Just as she did at night, she put her hands on the sides of his head, her face close to his. “Jamie,” she said quietly and with great sincerity, “tell me what’s wrong.”

  Her words seemed to pull him out of his trance and he stared at her forehead.

  Reaching up, she touched her hairline and her fingers came away bloody. “I think that box hit me in the head.” He still looked worried. “Put me down and I’ll get a bandage.”

  The light was coming back into his eyes. “There’s so much dirt in your hair, it wouldn’t stick. Come on, I have first aid supplies in the gym, and I’ll fix that cut for you.”

  She could tell that he was embarrassed at the way he’d reacted, but she wasn’t going to mention it. Was it her being hurt or the sight of blood that had bothered him?

  They walked through the garden to the gym and Jamie had her sit on the end of a workout bench. Gently, he pulled back her hair and examined her scalp.

  “Will I live?” she asked, trying to lighten his mood. He seemed very serious about what was an everyday accident.

  “There’s so much dirt on your scalp that it might get infected. I need to clean the entire area. Come with me.”

  She followed him outside to the end of the gym, where he opened a door she’d not noticed before and pulled out a folding chair.

  “What is that?”

  “An outdoor shower,” he said. “For when you come in sandy from the beach. Sit here while I get what I need.”

  As soon as she sat down she closed her eyes. They’d been doing heavy-duty cleaning for a day and a half now. Plus there were Jamie’s treatments morning and night. Add that to his two A.M. night terrors and she was being worn down.

  She was half-asleep when he said, “Lean your head back and keep your eyes closed.” To her absolute delight, he poured warm water over her hair. It felt heavenly!

  “This is antiseptic shampoo. It doesn’t smell great, but it works.”

  As the shampoo—which she didn’t think smelled bad at all—turned to lather, he gently began to massage her head. When he got near the cut, which she knew wasn’t very big, he blew on it, as though the shampoo might burn her. It didn’t, but she didn’t want him to stop.

  He massaged around her ears, at the back of her neck, then over her scalp. His hands were strong—and accurate, she thought. As someone who’d had a lot of training in massage, she was aware that Jamie knew what he was doing. She started to ask him where he’d studied, but she knew he wouldn’t answer. Besides, she was so totally enjoying his touch that she didn’t want to interrupt it.

  His hands went down around her neck, then to her shoulders. As his thumbs went into her trapezius muscles, she could feel tension leaving them.

  It took several buckets of warm water poured over her head to rinse it. Then slowly, he began to comb out the tangles.

  When he stopped, she sighed, sorry that it was over. She looked up at him.

  “Would you do me the honor of going out to dinner with me tonight?” he asked.

  Without hesitation, she said, “I’d love to.”

  “Then go put on something pretty and I’ll meet you in an hour.”

  Hallie practically ran back to the house and up the stairs. Of course she shouldn’t go, she thought. He was a client and it wouldn’t be long before he left and she’d never see him again. But still, dinner out would be nice.

  When Hallie had packed for Nantucket, she hadn’t thought about what she was putting in the suitcase. At the time, between an inheritance and Shelly’s latest trick, she hadn’t been thinking clearly.

  But Shelly’d had time to plan leaving with Jared. She had taken Hallie’s suitcase and carefully filled it with her own clothes and a lot of Hallie’s. When the plans had changed, Hallie had emptied her suitcase of what Shelly had packed and pulled her own garments from the pile. One item was a plain black sheath dress, silk, with little straps. It had been in the very back of Hallie’s closet, saved for a special occasion that had never come. Right now Hallie was very glad she had the dress. Should she thank Shelly for pulling it out, she wondered, and almost laughed at the idea.

  It took her a while to blow-dry her hair and she was almost sad to take away the reminder of Jamie’s washing it. As she worked, she hummed every tune from South Pacific.

  When she put the dress on, she was surprised that it was a bit loose. When she’d bought it, it had fit like it was painted on her.

  She opened the little jewelry roll that Shelly had filled and found things she hadn’t worn in years. She chose a plain gold chain and matching earrings.

  When Jamie politely knocked on her bedroom door, she was ready.

  “Wow!” he said. “You look great. Let’s stay in and make out.”

  Hallie laughed. “I want dinner with wine, and you don’t look bad yourself.”

  “Thanks,” he said and let her go down the stairs before him.

  When they were at the front door, she handed him the car keys, her eyes daring him to say no. He’d driven before and he could do it again.

  As they pulled out, Hallie said, “Tell me about the wedding. How many of your family are coming?”

  “A lot of them. Everyone loves Aunt Jilly. You’ll be introduced to all of them, then you’ll be quizzed on the names. But if you forget every Montgomery, that’s understandable.”

  “Poor Montgomerys. But I was more interested in them individually, such as…I know, who’s the smartest?”

  “My dad and his brother. But that’s just my opinion and don’t tell either of them I said that.”

  “Nicest?”

  “Without a doubt, Aunt Jilly.”

  “Best looking?”

  “My brother Todd,” Jamie said with a little smile.

  “Okay,” Hallie said. “Who is the most interesting?”

  “That would be Uncle Kit. No question about it. In spite of the fact that he’s a Montgomery, he’s interesting because no one knows much about him, not his job, his personal life, nothing. All very mysterious.”

  Kind of like you, Hallie thought but didn’t say. “What do you think he does?”

  “He’s a spy. All of us in the family believe that. One time he showed up at Christmas with two teenagers—a boy and a girl—and introduced them as his children. The kids were very sophisticated and accomplished. They could do anything, from sports to brain games. They were quite intimidating.”

  “Surely not in a gym. They couldn’t possibly outlift you.”

  Jamie smiled. “You have raised my ego to the sky! But alas, it’s my cousin Raine who’s the winner on that score. We never saw the kids after that one Christmas. I think they thought we were barbarians.”

  “Even the Montgomerys?”

  “Yes. Shocking, isn’t it? You should
see Uncle Kit with my mother. She quizzes him mercilessly, but he never tells her anything. We all believe her Detective Dacre, who is a retired spy, is based on him.”

  “Will your uncle Kit be at the wedding?”

  “Who knows? Just look for tall, thin, lots of gray hair, and elegant. My mom likes to come up with things to see if he can do them, like archery and fencing and backgammon. He’s never disappointed her yet.”

  Hallie laughed. “Your mother!”

  “Yeah, I know.” He pulled into the parking lot of the Sea Grille, turned off the engine, and looked at her. “She’ll like you.”

  For a moment they sat in the car looking at each other and Hallie had an almost overwhelming urge to lean forward and kiss him. But then kissing Jamie was a familiar thing to her, as she did it every night.

  She almost giggled at the thought of how shocked he’d be if she did kiss him. Smiling, she turned away and got out of the car.

  Chapter Nine

  “So where do you see yourself in, say, five years?” Jamie asked as he filled Hallie’s wineglass for the second time. He wasn’t drinking. His excuse was that he was the designated driver, but really he knew better than to mix alcohol with the medications he was taking.

  Hallie smiled. “You sound like a therapist.” She lowered her voice. “How do you feel about inheriting a house and a jet-setting patient?”

  Jamie winced. “I wish Dad hadn’t sent the plane,” he said. “The weight of it has leaked onto me. How are your scallops?”

  “Great. Fabulous. Are you trying to get me drunk?”

  “Yes,” he said with such a leer that she laughed. “What’s your fantasy of your future?”

  “I’m afraid I’m not very creative. I tend to like ordinary.”

  “What does that mean?”

  She drank more of the wine. The beautiful restaurant, the beautiful man, and the wine were loosening her natural caution. Jamie was eating in silence and waiting for her reply. She’d never seen him in anything other than athletic clothes so his crisp shirt, the jacket that she was willing to bet was made for him, the creased trousers over the brace, made him look like something out of a dream.

  She took a breath. “What most women want: a home, a husband and kids, a good job. See? I told you that I’m a very ordinary person.”

  “It doesn’t sound ordinary to me. I thought women today wanted to climb the corporate ladder and become CEO of some billion-dollar company.”

  “Maybe they do, but it’s never interested me. What about you? What do you want?”

  He almost said, To regain myself, but he didn’t. “Pretty much the same thing.”

  “Just in a mansion with marble hallways.”

  Jamie frowned. “My family isn’t like that. We—” He stopped because he wanted the conversation back on her. “You now own two houses, so what are you going to do with them?”

  Hallie groaned. “I don’t know. I haven’t had time to think about the future. I’d give the Boston house to my stepsister, but then she’d just sell it and—” She took a deep drink of her wine. She did not want to talk about Shelly! “Any suggestions?”

  “Sell the Boston house and stay here on Nantucket.”

  “And support myself how? Besides, the house in Boston is heavily mortgaged. When I got it, it was in bad shape and I needed money to repair it. If I sold it, I’d clear some but not a lot. So how long could I live on the small proceeds and pay taxes on the Nantucket house? And you saw the prices at Bartlett’s. This island is expensive.”

  “It sounds like you’ve thought about it a great deal. Surely they have need of physical therapists on this island. Or you could work on clients in the gym.”

  “It would take years to build up a private practice and what do I live on in the meantime? Why are you smiling?”

  “I’m impressed by how practical you are,” he said, but he was thinking that she was free. “You said you want a husband. Anyone picked out?”

  “No, no one,” Hallie said, but she looked away. This afternoon Braden’s mother had called her.

  “He’s in a bad way,” Mrs. Westbrook said, happiness in her voice.

  “Oh?” Hallie asked. “Has something happened?”

  Mrs. Westbrook gleefully told of her son being dumped and his resulting misery. “I’m sending him to you, dear Hallie. I’m hoping…” She didn’t finish her sentence, but they both knew what she meant.

  “A penny,” Jamie said and again he was frowning.

  Hallie emptied her wineglass and he refilled it. “A small house,” she said. “That’s what I’d want. Not one of those things with a three-story foyer and eight bathrooms. And you?”

  “A big farmhouse with a porch where I can sit and watch it rain.”

  Hallie thought maybe it was the most personal thing he’d ever said to her. “And a garden with vegetables and flowers all mixed up. Did you know that if you plant basil near tomatoes, it keeps the bugs away? Or that’s the theory anyway.”

  Jamie was nodding. “And we’ll enclose it in a fence with sunflowers along the back.”

  “They draw birds that peck at the vegetables.”

  “Then we’ll put up a scarecrow that will frighten them away.”

  “And I’d have a few chickens,” she said. “My grandparents had hens and I gathered the eggs. I think it’s good for kids to have chores and to know where food comes from. Have you ever seen a chicken up close?”

  “Are you kidding?! My relatives are practically farmers. My aunt Samantha lives next door to us and she grows nearly everything our family and hers eat. I can shuck an ear of corn—and de-silk it—in less than a minute.”

  Hallie was looking at him with wide eyes. “I can’t imagine you doing that. Jetting about, yes, but—”

  “Does owning a jet stereotype my whole family? Look,” he said seriously, “my father and his brother work with money. They buy and sell things and they’re good at it, but they need to be near the various stock markets. They both had the wisdom to marry women who wanted homes and families, not highsociety lives, so they all moved to Chandler, Colorado, to be near the relatives. But my dad and uncle need a way to get to work. Going from Chandler to New York on commercial airlines takes a lot of time away from their families.”

  “So they bought their own plane,” Hallie said. “Who pilots it?”

  “My cousin Blair—but only on the condition that she not do somersaults in the air. At least not if there are any passengers.”

  Hallie laughed. “I like her already.”

  Jamie looked serious. “I’m not like what you think, nor was I raised as you believe. As a kid I had chores and responsibilities.”

  “So why aren’t you at home in Chandler with them now? Why come to Nantucket to stay with a stranger?”

  “I—” he began, but then a waiter came to take their empty plates away and he didn’t finish. When they were again alone, he changed the subject. “It’s working out well, isn’t it? You and I are a good team.”

  Yet again, she thought, he wasn’t going to reveal anything truly personal about himself. Suddenly, Hallie felt deflated. She hadn’t realized it before, but dealing with a ghost story had provided the perfect distraction so she didn’t have to think about the future. What was she going to do? Should she try to get a job on Nantucket and live in the beautiful old house she’d inherited? Or should she sell it?

  “I think I’ve upset you,” Jamie said, “and I didn’t mean to.”

  “The truth is that I don’t know what to do.” Maybe it was the wine or maybe it was that Jamie seemed to want to hear what she had to say, but she wanted to talk. She surprised herself when she realized he was right, that she had thought about her future.

  He ordered a chocolate dessert and two forks and while they shared, she told him what had been going through her mind. If she got a job on Nantucket, would it pay enough for the upkeep of an old house? If she sold it, what would happen to the artifacts in the tea room? “I feel an obligation to those things
since they’re connected to an ancestor of mine,” she said.

  “I bet Dr. Huntley would have some answers to these questions.” He paused. “Chandler could use a physical therapist. It’s cowboy country and there are lots of injuries. You could—”

  “Be supported by your rich family?” she said with more anger than she meant. “No, thank you. I don’t take charity. Are you finished? I’d like to go home now.”

  “Hallie, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  She stood up. “It’s all right. I shouldn’t have talked about my problems. This was a lovely dinner and I thank you. It was kind of you to do it.”

  Jamie paid the check, then they walked to the car, and Hallie was embarrassed. She’d revealed too much to this man who lived in a very different world than she did. He didn’t have to worry about things like where he was going to get a job or whether or not to sell a house. And from the sound of his relatives, he didn’t have a Shelly in the lot of them.

  When they were in the car, Jamie said, “Does your friend Braden have a place in your future?”

  She started to say no, but changed her mind. “Maybe. If I’m very, very lucky.”

  “Nice to know,” Jamie said and he drove the short distance home in silence.

  When Hallie heard the first moan, she wasn’t sure if it was hers or Jamie’s. She was so tired that she could barely open her eyes and she almost went back to sleep. But a louder groan made her throw back the covers and stagger through to Jamie’s room.

  As always, he was thrashing about.

  “Do be quiet,” she said, but not in her usual tone of infinite patience and understanding. She was too tired to understand anything.

  Dutifully, she put her hand on Jamie’s cheek. “You’re safe.” She yawned. “I’m here and—Oh!” Jamie’s big arm swooped out and pulled her into the bed beside him.

  In a single motion, he turned onto his side and snuggled her up against him.

  “Teddy bear time,” she said and for about a millionth of a second, Hallie thought of struggling against him, but then she closed her eyes and went back to sleep.