Ever After (19 page)

“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.

Hallie knew she was dreaming. She was standing outside the tea room, the doors were open, and the interior was beautiful. There were four little tables in the middle of the room, each one draped in divinely thin and floaty white cotton. At the side of the room was the big dresser, its shelves filled with dishes she and Jamie had found, only they were new and sparkling clean. In fact, everything was warm and inviting.

But what drew Hallie's eyes weren't the objects but the beautiful
woman who was sitting on the window seat on the far side of the room. Hallie didn't think she'd ever seen anyone as pretty. Her dark hair was piled onto her head, framing every exquisite feature on her face. Hallie could imagine her on the cover of every fashion magazine published, and from the look of her body under that pretty silk dress, that included
Sports Illustrated
.

Hallie wanted to say something to the young woman, but before she could take a step, another woman, equally pretty, walked through her.

Hallie gasped in shock, but neither of the women seemed to be aware that she was there. This is a dream, she reminded herself, and stood at the doorway and watched and listened.

“I wondered where you were,” Hyacinth said to her sister as she walked into their pretty tea room. She was halfway across before she saw the little man sitting in the shadows behind the far table. “Oh!” she said in surprise
.

Juliana was on the window seat, staring out at the garden. She had on her wedding dress, a grayish-blue silk that exactly matched her eyes. “He was Parthenia's idea, and Valentina backed her,” she said. “They insisted that I have a quick portrait done on my wedding day. Come and sit with me.”

Hyacinth stretched out by her sister, her pale pink dress a complement to her complexion, and looked at the small, dark man as he set out pots of ink. “Does he speak English?”

“Not a word.”

“Then his silence will be bliss,” Hyacinth said. “The house is already so full of guests that I want to run away and hide.”