Ever After

  Behind her, Jamie sat up on the table.

  “Do you feel better?” she asked, forcing herself to smile but thinking, I need a boyfriend!

  “I do,” he said. “Thank you.” He started to get off the table but then halted and looked at her.

  It took Hallie a few moments to realize that he was waiting for her to leave before he stepped down. Why? Because he was afraid that his movement would allow her to see more of his nude body? What an odd man, she thought as she walked into the garden.

  When Jamie was again fully covered, he joined her. They walked around together, speculating on how the garden had once looked. At the big oak tree, they found a little brass plaque that said, In memory of my beautiful ladies, Hyacinth Bell and Juliana Hartley. Henry Bell.

  “Your namesake,” Jamie said.

  As they sat down on the bench under the tree, Hallie told what she’d learned: that she wasn’t related to the Bell family at all but to Leland through his second marriage. “It makes no sense that Henry Bell would leave the house to me.”

  “Maybe he really was in love with women who died long ago and you’re the closest person he could find,” Jamie said.

  “Which would mean that Henry had no relatives of his own. But then…” She shrugged. “My question is, did he decorate the upstairs for them?”

  Since Jamie hadn’t seen the second floor, they went back to the house and up to the two bedrooms. It wasn’t easy for him to go up the stairs on crutches, but he did it. Only when they were in the bedroom did Hallie remember seeing her few pieces of luggage downstairs. Jamie insisted on hauling them up the steep, narrow stairs, and that caused some hilarity. He kept pretending he was about to fall, so Hallie got behind him and pushed on his lower back.

  While she unpacked and put her toiletries in the bathroom, Jamie looked around. “Very girly. You’re right that these rooms were decorated for women.” He sat in her bedroom on a chair covered in blue and pink chintz and watched her. “Whose bedroom was whose, do you think?”

  Before she thought, she said, “This one belonged to Hyacinth.”

  “How do you know that?”

  There was no way she was going to tell him that she kind of, sort of, maybe, possibly heard two female voices telling her which bedroom to use. “I like this one better, so I’m sure it belonged to the sister with my name.”

  “Makes sense to me.” He looked over his shoulder into the sitting room. “I bet you can see the garden from that window.” It was as though he momentarily forgot about his injured knee. Leaving his crutches leaning against the bureau, he made almost a leap across the little sitting room to the window seat.

  “So help me, if you hurt your knee, I’ll—”

  He waited. “Come on, what’s the threat now? You’ve used Jared and my mother. Who’s next?”

  As she sat on the opposite end of the seat, she gave him a little smile. “The next time I massage your head, I won’t lean over you so very far.”

  After a quick look at Hallie’s ample breasts, Jamie put his hand to his heart and fell back against the wall. “Bring me the hemlock. My life is over. I have nothing more to live for. Even the prospect of losing that soft but very firm, luscious treat will take away all that I have left in life. I will—”

  Hallie’s face was turning redder by the second. His very intimate description was too much! “Will you stop it? You’re my client, not my—”

  “Patience is what I have. I will wait forever if it means that I may—”

  “Look!” Hallie said loudly as she nodded toward the window.

  “I can only see you. I can see no one else but—”

  “Okay! I’ll smash my entire chest up against you for head massages! Now will you look?”

  With one more glance at Hallie’s bosom, he looked out the window. Edith was leaving the side of the house and walking quickly toward the red gate.

  Jamie pushed up the window and leaned out. “Edith!” he shouted in a voice so loud that the force of it nearly knocked Hallie backward. She had an idea that he may have been heard in Boston.

  Hearing it, the little woman halted and smiled up at them. “Jamie? Is that you? I can’t stay, but the Tea Ladies left something for the both of you. Is that Hyacinth with you?”

  Hallie was a bit startled at being called that, but then she leaned close to Jamie and put her head out the window. “It is me,” she called down. “It’s very nice to meet you. Stay and we’ll come down and have something to eat.”

  “Thank you, dear, but no,” Edith said, her hand up to shield her eyes. “I’m full now. At least for a few minutes.” For some reason she seemed to find this statement highly amusing. “Maybe tomorrow. Kiss Jamie for me.” Turning away, she began to hurry toward the gate.

  “Good idea,” Jamie said.

  Hallie realized that she was practically lying against him, his face close to hers.

  “I think you should kiss Jamie,” he said in a low, seductive voice.

  Ignoring his words, she moved back to the opposite side of the seat. “I thought you just met her, but she’s sending you kisses?”

  “What can I say? Women fall for me.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “And do they manage to get your clothes off you?”

  “Only if it’s very, very dark.”

  Laughing, Hallie stood up and got his crutches. “What did she mean that the Tea Ladies left us something? And who are they?”

  “I have no idea. Maybe they work for the B&B.” When he took the crutches, he acted as though he’d forgotten how to use them. “I’m going to need help getting down the stairs.”

  “What if I remind you that the food is downstairs and you can’t have it unless you get down there?”

  “I think part of being a good physical therapist is making sure your patient is fed.” He sounded serious.

  “No, it’s not. In fact, even the massages aren’t part of it.” Smiling, she was walking backward toward the staircase. “I learned that art form in totally different classes that I took before I became a physical therapist. Used massage sessions to pay for school. In fact, they were—”

  She broke off because she tripped on a loose corner of the big floor rug and was about to fall. But in a lightning-fast move, Jamie dropped his crutches and reached out to grab her. They went down together. He hit the floor hard, with Hallie on top of him, his braced leg to one side.

  Hallie’s head hit his chest almost as hard as his back slammed into the floor. “Jamie! Are you all right?”

  He lay on the rug, utterly still, his eyes closed.

  She clutched his head in her hands. “Stay here.” Her voice was frantic. “I’ll call an ambulance.” She started to roll off him, but his arm held her tightly against him. “Let go! I have to—”

  When she realized that he wasn’t even near being unconscious, she lay where she was, her upper body on his wide chest. “Let me guess. High school football taught you how to take down your opponent.” She saw the tiniest of smiles on his lips. “What were you? The entire defense team?”

  His smile grew and she felt his stomach move in laughter.

  “Let me up or I’ll—” Since she couldn’t think of anything to threaten him with, she put her elbows in the two spots on his chest where she knew she’d cause the most pain and pushed down.

  “Yeow!” Jamie yelped, his eyes flying open.

  Hallie rolled off him and stood up. “Can you get up by yourself or do I need to get a crane?”

  “I think my back is broken,” he said, smiling up at her.

  “That’s too bad. I guess I’ll have to get scissors to cut your shirt off and have a look at your bare back.”

  Jamie gave a sigh, rolled over, grabbed a crutch, and stood up.

  “It’s a miracle,” Hallie said and went down the stairs, Jamie not far behind her.

  Waiting for them on the kitchen table was an afternoon tea so lavish it would have pleased King Edward VII. There were two tiered stands with three pretty plates on
each one, all of them loaded with food in miniature—two of each item. One stand had savory dishes: crustless sandwiches cut into shapes, miniature quiches, tiny pickled quail eggs, and dumplings tied up like little purses. The other stand held desserts: scones, tarts, pies the size of silver dollars, tiny bowls of creamy coconut pudding. From the look of it all, it was a smorgasbord of food from around the world.

  There was also a steaming hot pot of tea, a jug of milk, a bowl of sugar cubes, and pretty cups and plates. To the side were glasses of champagne with raspberries in them.

  “Beautiful,” Hallie said.

  “I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”

  They sat down at the table and Hallie poured the strong black tea and added milk to their cups, while Jamie filled their plates.

  “How do you think Edith got all this here?” Hallie asked. She was eating a dumpling filled with vegetables and chicken.

  “Probably someone from the B&B brought it over in one of those electric golf carts.” He had just finished a little lobster roll. “Best lobster I’ve ever had and I’ve spent a lot of my life in Maine. Wonder where they got it.”

  “This cheese is fabulous.”

  Jamie smiled, his mouth full.

  “I’d like to see some of Nantucket,” Hallie said as she bit into a cupcake that tasted of oranges. “Try this. It’s really good.” She’d meant for him to take the other cupcake off the plate, but he took the half she’d bitten into from her hand and ate it.

  “Fuzzy navel,” he said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It’s a drink of orange and peach juice and that’s what it tastes like. My guess is that it’s made with peach schnapps and if so, it’s fairly lethal. Here, try it again.” He bit into the second cupcake, then handed her the other half.

  Hallie hesitated, but there was a look of challenge in his eyes. Daringly, she bent and took the cake from his hand with her lips. “Mmmmm. Quite delicious.”

  Jamie was smiling broadly. “It’s named fuzzy for the peach and—”

  “Navel for the orange. Now, as I was saying, I’d like to see some of the island. Jared drove through town and I saw some nice shops. Maybe you’d like to go too.”

  “No, thanks,” Jamie said. “I have enough trouble with these blasted crutches without tackling streets and sidewalks.”

  She’d already learned that half of what Jamie said was teasing, so she played along. She mentioned beaches and a meal out. No, he didn’t want to do that. Drinks at sunset? No. A boat ride? He said he’d had enough of that with his Montgomery relatives. “They live on the damned things. I like the earth.” No matter what she came up with to try to entice him to go into town, he said no.

  “I guess I’ll have to go alone,” she said as she picked up a piece of what looked to be poppy seed cake. For a tiny bit of a second, she saw something flash across his eyes, some emotion, but she wasn’t sure what it was. If it weren’t coming from such a strong, healthy young man, she would have thought she’d seen fear. But that was, of course, ridiculous.

  Whatever it was, it was gone in an instant and Jamie’s handsome face was back to smiling. “What I want to know is where Edith came from,” he said.

  “You mean where she grew up?”

  “No. Here. Twice now I’ve seen her walking out from the side of the house. Yesterday when I woke up, I went looking for my brother with the intention of telling him what I thought about what he’d done to me.”

  “And what was that?”

  Jamie waved a sweet, sticky ball of rice around before popping it into his mouth. “It’s a long story, but my point is that on the far side of this house are two big doors and they’re locked. I thought maybe my brother was hiding in there so I used a bit of force to try to open them, but they didn’t budge.”

  Hallie licked coconut off her fingers. “Let me see if I get this straight. You woke up angry at your brother—for a reason that you won’t tell me—and tried to batter down a couple of my doors to get to him? Possibly with the intention of murdering him?”

  Jamie nearly choked on a square made of carrots and honey but managed to recover himself and said, “Pretty much.” His eyes were laughing. “I wonder if Edith has a key and what’s—”

  “In there?” Hallie finished for him.

  “My thoughts exactly. What would you say about searching for the key? Whoever finds it gets to kiss the other one.”

  “And what does the loser get?” Hallie asked.

  “Two kisses?”

  She laughed. “Go on and start searching. I’m going to clean this up and have it ready in case Edith returns for the dishes.”

  “I’ll help,” he said.

  After they cleaned up the kitchen, they went out to the side of the house and inspected the doors, but as Jamie had said, they were locked tight. He wanted to try again to use his considerable strength to open them, but Hallie persuaded him not to. Inside the house, all the doors that led into the hidden room were also locked. They began to search for the key, but even though they looked through every drawer, under every piece of furniture, they didn’t find any stray keys. They did, however, find brochures and tickets dated from the 1970s to two years ago.

  As they made a pile of what they found, they speculated about Henry Bell. He seemed to have been very interested in the history of Nantucket. Twice he’d won the annual Jeopardy-like Nantucket trivia contest. There were a couple of newspaper articles with photos of him with Nat Philbrick, who wrote so well about Nantucket.

  What they saw made Hallie and Jamie say they were going to learn more about the island. But when Hallie repeated her invitation to go exploring, Jamie’s face closed. He said that he’d be the researcher and she could do the footwork.

  By ten Hallie was yawning, but Jamie looked wide awake, as though he never planned to go to sleep. She wanted to ask him about the medication he was taking, but she didn’t. Instead, she bid him goodnight and went upstairs to bed.

  Maybe some part of her mind was on alert because just as she’d done the night before, she awoke at two A.M. She lay there for a while, staring up at the silk rosette on the underside of the bed canopy, and listening. But the house seemed quiet.

  She was just about to go back to sleep when she heard a faraway sound, something like a groan. If it hadn’t been for what happened the night before, she wouldn’t have paid any attention to it.

  Without a second thought, she leaped out of the bed and ran down the dark stairs. She stubbed her toe on a table leg, but she kept going toward Jamie.

  The nightlight was on, but this time there was no pill bottle on the desk. Jamie was in the bed, rolling back and forth, making soft sounds of panic.

  “I’m here,” she whispered as she put her hands on the sides of his head. He calmed somewhat, but his legs were moving, his brace hitting the side of the bed.

  Keeping her hands on his face, she stretched out beside him. As before, he drew her close. He settled for a while, but when he again started thrashing, she lifted her head up to his and kissed him.

  This kiss, their second one, had a bit more passion than the first one. When Hallie felt herself moving her leg between his, she pushed away from him. “Sleeping kisses are one thing,” she said softly, “but no sleeping screws.”

  But the kiss did settle him and before Hallie knew what happened, she fell asleep in his arms.

  Chapter Four

  When Hallie awoke the next morning, daylight was beginning to come through the window. She and Jamie were spooned together on the narrow bed like they were one person.

  Peeling his arms from around her body was no easy feat. When she stood up, she had a crick in her neck and one in her lower back. The bed was too small for one person, much less a former football player and her.

  She tiptoed up the stairs to her own bedroom and took a shower. When she went back down, Jamie was in the kitchen, his hair damp. As usual, he was covered in clothing from neck to ankles. Hallie had on a sleeveless top, cutoff jeans,
and sandals.

  “I think I’m going to go into town this morning,” she said, avoiding his eyes, as the memory of last night was too clear in her mind. She needed some distance from him. On the other hand, exploring a new town on her own wasn’t going to be a lot of fun. “Want to go with me?”

  “No,” he said, his voice firm, as though he didn’t want to be questioned any more. He ran his hand across the back of his neck.

  She put a plate of scrambled eggs in front of him. “Are you all right?”

  “Just…dreams,” he said as he picked up his cup of coffee.

  She sat down across from him. “What kind of dreams?”

  He hesitated, but then looked at her. His eyes were hot, intense. “If you must know, they’re about you.”

  “Oh,” Hallie said and got up to refill a cup that was already full. “Hazards of working together,” she mumbled. Or sleeping together, she thought. All in all, it probably would be better if they spent some time apart. “Tell me again when your relatives will begin to arrive.”

  “I’m not sure what day. If I know the sprouts, they’ll come running as soon as the ferry docks.”

  “And who are the sprouts?”

  “I have a brother and sister, twins, who are seven years old.”

  “How wonderful!” Hallie said. “What are their names? Tell me about them.”

  The tension that had been caused by Jamie’s mention of his dreams was broken and they ate breakfast while he told of his family. The twins, Cory—a nickname for Cordelia—and Max, were going to be in the upcoming wedding and they were very excited about it.

  As Hallie watched him talk of his family in such a loving way, she again wondered why he hadn’t stayed with them for his therapy. Why go to Nantucket where he knew so few people? Why isolate himself with a stranger? Hallie knew that if she had a loving family, nothing on earth would get her away from them.

  When she said she needed to change to go to town, Jamie said he had another story to tell about the twins. She listened, then said she was going. But when Jamie came up with yet another story, she realized he didn’t want her to leave.