Ever After

  How flattering! she thought, but she still excused herself and went upstairs to change. She put on a pretty flowered dress with a matching cardigan and her pink sandals.

  When she went downstairs, Jamie was waiting for her. “Wow! You look very pretty. I was thinking that we should keep looking for the key to that room. We didn’t check the attic. Or maybe we should spend the day in the garden and plan how to improve it.”

  “When I get back, we’ll search some more and talk about the garden. Anything you need from town? And it’s not too late to go with me.”

  “No, nothing,” Jamie said and stepped away from her. “Go. Have a good time. I’ll call my brother or something.”

  He sounded so sad that Hallie almost said she wouldn’t go, but that was ridiculous. If he was a man who hated to be alone, why had he left the company of his extensive family?

  But no matter how much his eyes seemed to be pleading, she didn’t give in to him and left the house. She walked to the end of the lane, took a left, and went to beautiful downtown Nantucket. The old buildings, the wonderful little shops, were all fascinating to her.

  As she wandered about, in and out of the stores, she kept thinking of Jamie. She went up the stairs to a shop called Zero Main and looked around. The clothes were beautiful, but as she started to leave, it hit her that she could afford some new garments. Ever since her father and stepmother had died, Hallie’d had to work, sometimes at three jobs. She’d had to support Shelly, then when Shelly had left for California to try her hand at acting, Hallie had put herself through school. And the house she’d inherited from her father had needed a lot of repairs.

  As she looked about the shop, she realized that that was all done. She had graduated from school and could now earn money.

  With a smile, she took her time looking at the beautiful merchandise and ended up buying an entire outfit. She got a pretty white knit top, a dark blue jacket, black silk trousers, and a long necklace with a purple glass ball on the end of it.

  As she left, she thought that even though her relationship with Jamie was professional, it didn’t hurt to look good.

  At Sweet Inspirations she bought him candy she thought he’d like. At the Whaling Museum she bought four books on the history of Nantucket and put the titles of eight more into her phone’s notepad. The museum was a historian’s dream.

  After lunch at Arno’s, she walked home. She put her shopping bags down in the kitchen, removed the sack of candy, and went through the house, searching for Jamie. She found him outside, sitting on the bench under the oak tree—and he looked almost forlorn. When he saw Hallie, his face lit up. Having someone glad to see you was a soul-lifting feeling. It was how her grandparents greeted her when she was a child. But after Shelly and her mother moved in, she got looks that seemed to say, Oh, it’s you.

  Smiling, Hallie brushed the thoughts from her mind and went to sit beside him, holding out the bag of chocolate-covered cranberries.

  “Tell me everything you did,” he said as he took the candy, and she did.

  They were still on the bench when a woman burst through the gate. Jamie was holding his phone out to show Hallie photos of the “sprouts,” so they didn’t at first see her. His family lived in Colorado and he had just shown her a picture of the children racing scooters down the hallway of what looked like a marble mansion. Immediately, Hallie asked him to tell her more about the house.

  “It was built by my robber baron ancestor, Kane Taggert,” Jamie said. “My dad is named after him. He was responsible for a lot of reforms in mining—the first Kane, that is, not Dad. He—” When the big gate made a sudden, explosively loud sound as it slammed behind the woman who came running through it, Jamie jumped to his feet. He grabbed a crutch and held it in a way that looked like he was ready to use it as a club.

  Hallie was torn between her astonishment at Jamie’s reaction and what appeared to be rage on the face of the woman. She was short and stout, with iron-gray hair, and she looked like she wanted to tear someone apart.

  “Is my mother-in-law here?” she demanded.

  When Hallie stood up beside Jamie, he took a half step in front of her, as though to protect her. “Who is your mother-in-law?”

  “Edith!” the woman said, then took a breath. “I’m sorry. I’m Betty Powell from Sea Haven, the B&B next door, and she is my husband Howard’s mother. If he doesn’t know where she is for even a few minutes, he gets frantic. I told him she’s probably over here, but he said I have to make sure. She’s not inside, is she?” She nodded toward the house.

  “I was in there just minutes ago and it’s empty,” Hallie said.

  “What about in the tea room? Is she hiding in there?”

  “If you mean the room on the side of the house, it’s locked,” Jamie said. “We’ve been looking for the key.”

  “There is no key!” Betty said. “According to my crazy mother-in-law, only they can open the doors.” She looked back toward the gate. “Why can’t that woman stay where she’s put?” She turned to Jamie and Hallie. “If she shows up, send her home, would you? Tell her Howard wants her. Heaven knows she won’t return for me. I’m sorry I bothered you.” She started for the gate at a rapid pace.

  Jamie and Hallie, both wide-eyed, looked at each other, then back at the woman.

  “Wait!” Hallie called.

  With a look of impatience, Betty stopped and turned back to them. “Yes?”

  “Who are ‘they’?” Jamie asked. “Who can open the doors?”

  Betty looked shocked. “Don’t tell me you bought this house and no one told you about them?”

  “Hallie inherited it,” Jamie said.

  “Ah. Right. Makes sense. Old Henry Bell wouldn’t want just anyone around his precious ladies.” She looked at her watch. “I have to get back, but ‘they’ are the Tea Ladies. The Bell sisters who died. They’re ghosts. I don’t know much about them. All I know is that my crazy mother-in-law comes over here, goes into what she calls the tea room, and spends hours talking to them—or she thinks she does. I’m trying to get Howard to lock her away somewhere, but he won’t do it. I really do have to go. I have fifteen people coming for afternoon tea.” She left, slamming the gate hard behind her.

  For a moment Jamie and Hallie stood side by side in silence.

  At last Hallie said, “We should have told her we love her fuzzy navel cupcakes.”

  “And the lobster. But then my guess is that she has no idea Edith brought us the food.”

  “I can understand that,” Hallie said. “I wouldn’t want to confront that woman.” She looked at Jamie. “It seems that I own a haunted house.”

  “I think so. Does that scare you?”

  She thought for a moment. “No, it doesn’t.”

  “Wanna go knock on the tea room door and see who answers?”

  “Definitely!”

  Jamie smiled at her. “Hallie, baby, I like you more with every passing minute. Race you there!”

  Hallie won the race, but she knew it was only because Jamie was on crutches. She hadn’t been to that side of the house and was surprised to see a narrow driveway and a double gate. If she had her car on the island, this was where she’d park it.

  In front of her was a set of tall, wide double doors that looked very solid. She tried the knob, but it didn’t turn.

  She waited for Jamie to come along on his crutches, and the way he pretended to have a tough time walking made her laugh.

  When he reached her, he said seriously, “I think I need another massage to loosen me up.”

  “Full body?” she shot back at him.

  “Lights off?”

  “Ten candles,” she said.

  “One candle in the next room. With the door closed,” he answered.

  “No deal, and it’s your loss.” Hallie looked back at the doors. “Are you going to knock?”

  “I’m still thinking about a candlelight massage and besides, it’s your house.”

  She took a step forward and after an
encouraging nod from Jamie, she knocked on the door. Both of them held their breaths, but nothing happened.

  Jamie stepped forward and knocked louder. Nothing.

  “Maybe tomorrow we should call a locksmith,” she said.

  “Yeah, maybe.” Jamie raised his voice. “We’re friends of Edith and we’d like to meet you. I’m James Taggert and this beautiful young woman with me is named Hyacinth, after one of you two. She’s called Hallie and she’s descended from—” He looked at her.

  “Leland Hartley. He was married to Juliana.”

  Jamie loudly repeated what she’d said. “Hallie is a cousin of yours by marriage and if there’s one thing I know about in this world, it’s cousins.” Looking back at Hallie, he lowered his voice. “I have thousands of cousins. My dad has eleven brothers and sisters and they all have kids.”

  “Really?” Hallie asked.

  “Yeah.” He looked at her. “That big marble house you saw? You wouldn’t believe it at Christmas. It’s pure chaos.”

  He looked back at the door. His tone implied that it was a horrible time, but Hallie thought it sounded like fun. In her experience, Christmas had been a fairly solemn occasion. There had been pleasantries but nothing even near chaos—unless Shelly didn’t get enough gifts.

  Jamie banged on the door again, but still nothing happened. “So maybe Edith is crazy.”

  “’Fraid so,” Hallie said. The truth was, she was looking at the way he leaned on his crutches. His body was tilting toward one side, and she was planning his next treatment. Besides that, she was dreading the coming night. She was getting tired of running up and down a dark staircase. One of her toes still ached from where she’d stubbed it this morning. The nighttime turmoil had happened twice now and a third time would make it a habit. It needed to stop now! “I can’t believe that after all we ate just a couple of hours ago, I’m hungry again.”

  “Me too,” Jamie said and they started back to enter the house through the sunporch. Hallie picked up the unfinished embroidery she’d seen the first day. “I could swear that more of this has been completed.”

  Reaching into his pocket, Jamie pulled out his cell phone and took a photo of the embroidery. “If it changes again, we’ll have a record of it.” As Hallie put the hoop back on the sofa, he quickly snapped a couple of photos of her.

  “What was that for?”

  “To send home to the relatives. You’re the woman who keeps begging me to take my clothes off.”

  “You aren’t really going to say that, are you? Your mother will think I’m—”

  “Trying to help me recover and she’ll thank you.” He was smiling.

  As they went into the kitchen, she said, “Why didn’t you stay at home with your family and do your therapy there?”

  “What can I say? They wanted to get rid of me.”

  Hallie started to ask more, but he strode ahead of her, opened the fridge, and began to talk rapidly. “How about giant sandwiches and four kinds of salad? You know how to make lemonade? I like mine with less sugar and maybe we can find some club soda to add. Ah! Here’s—”

  She didn’t listen to the rest of what he said because she knew he was just filling the air with words. Obviously, he didn’t want to answer her question, so she backed off.

  While they made the sandwiches they chatted easily, laughing at themselves for believing there were ghosts living in the house.

  “If they were here, they wouldn’t need locked doors,” Hallie said. “They could float through the walls.”

  “So what do you think ol’ Henry Bell has locked away in that room that he didn’t want anyone to see?” Jamie bit into his sandwich.

  “Oh, please, I hope it’s not porn.”

  “What’s secret about that? It’s all over the Internet. Any kind you can imagine, it’s all there. I’ve seen—” He broke off. “Not that I know for sure, but my brother Todd—he’s a law enforcement officer—told me about it.”

  Hallie laughed. “Todd the Educator and Jamie the Pure. But maybe Henry was old school and thought porn was something to be hidden away. I haven’t checked if there’s Wi-Fi in the house.”

  “What about cross-dressing?” Jamie said. “The room could be full of his dress-up clothes.”

  Hallie frowned. “When we get the doors open, I really hope we don’t find anything hideous and especially not illegal in there. Why do you sleep downstairs?”

  Because Jamie was still thinking of the possible contents of the locked room, he almost blurted out the truth. But he caught himself. “It seemed the right thing to do. I was going to be alone in the house with a young lady. It wouldn’t be good for her reputation for us to be so close.”

  “Reputation. I haven’t heard that word since I last saw my grandparents. In this world of one-night stands, who worries about a woman’s reputation?”

  “All those girls who get nude photos of themselves posted on the Internet. I think they’re starting to make laws about that. I read that…”

  Hallie blinked at him. And are you changing the subject again? she thought. It looked like she’d hit on yet another one of his secrets. How many was that? About a hundred? She reminded herself that he was her patient, not her boyfriend.

  She picked up her empty plate and carried it to the sink. If he kept secrets, so could she. For one thing, she wasn’t going to tell him what went on between them during the night. Nor was she going to mention that she knew his sleep was drug-induced. What she wanted to do was try to stop both the drugs and the night terrors. “I want you to move upstairs,” she said.

  “And why would you want that?” He was still sitting at the table.

  She’d expected him to do more sexual teasing, but he didn’t. Instead, he sounded as though he was about to refuse—and she could guess why. He knew about his nightmares, but he didn’t want her to know. He wanted to keep his male ego intact and make her think there was nothing wrong with him.

  She wanted to be near him so she could soothe him during the night, then get back to her own bed. There would be no more sleeping on the couch or with him. And the bigger bed upstairs would eliminate the danger of his falling onto the floor.

  But Hallie was sure that if she told him the truth, he might…What? Leave? That was possible. Any man who had nightmares like his needed help and Hallie planned to give it to him.

  She turned back to him. “I, uh, well…I, uh…”

  He looked at her. “What are you trying to say?”

  “This ghost thing kind of…Well, it scares me. Earlier you said that my lack of fear made you like me more, so now I’m worried that you’ll like me less.”

  Jamie stood up and reached out to pull her to him. It was a brother-sister hug and he rubbed her back comfortingly. “I’m sure there’s nothing in the ghost story. Betty is probably right and her mother-in-law should be put under care. I don’t agree that she should be locked away, but she should get some help.”

  He held Hallie at arm’s length and looked into her eyes. “My guess is that old man Bell did something he didn’t want people to know about. And he probably spread the ghost rumor to keep people away.”

  “I’m sure you’re right.” Hallie lowered her eyes so she’d look properly frightened.

  Jamie drew her back against him. “Tomorrow we’ll call a locksmith and I’ll go in and look around.”

  Hallie wanted to say, Not without me! but couldn’t since she was pretending to be afraid. “So you’ll move upstairs into the other bedroom and I won’t be alone in this strange house?”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” His tone went back to being stern.

  Hallie pushed away from him. “Okay. I’ll move downstairs. But, no, that couch down there is too small to sleep on. I know. I’ll call Jared and see if I can stay in his house for a few nights. I know it’s empty. You’ll be all right here by yourself, won’t you?” She batted her lashes at him in innocence.

  Jamie looked like he was torn between anger and helplessness. “All right,
I’ll move upstairs.” His teeth were clenched together.

  “That’s great!” Hallie said. “I’ll help you pack your things, and tonight I want to do some breathing exercises with you.” She headed toward his room.

  “Look only in the bathroom and the closet!” Jamie called after her. “I’ll take care of the desk.” He glared at the locked door that led into the tea room. “Whatever you’ve got hidden away in there, Henry Bell, I’m going to expose it, ’cause look what you’ve done to me.”

  He moved as fast as he could to get to the living room and dragged his duffel bag from under the bed. While Hallie was gathering toiletries from the bathroom, he slipped eight bottles of medication into the side pocket and zipped it.

  Chapter Five

  Jamie was lying on his back on the floor of his new bedroom, his hands clasped and raised above his head. Hallie was seated beside him, leaning over his midsection, her hand just below his navel. Not that she could see his belly button, but she could guess at it. “I want to feel your breath coming from here,” she said. “Now deeper and slower.”

  “Are you sure this is going to do anything?”

  “Shhhh,” she said. “Don’t talk. Just breathe.” She watched him slowly raise and lower his hands and take long, deep breaths. He was such a contradiction! she thought. On the surface he seemed to not have a serious thought in his mind, always teasing and laughing, but his body felt like a tightly coiled spring. If she could just get him to fully relax, maybe he wouldn’t need pills to help him sleep.

  She couldn’t help wondering what had made him so tense. Was there a recent tragedy in his life? A brush with death for him? But she knew better than to flat out ask him. He’d change the subject.

  They spent an hour together doing exercises. Jamie called them “girly” and frowned, but she could tell that the breathing movements were helping him. At one point she saw his eyes flicker as though he were sleepy. The thought that she’d helped enough that he might not need pills for sleep made her feel good.

  When she finished with him, he lay on the thick rug, his eyes closed, and smiling. “Feel better?” she asked.