“Oh, Lord,” Jared said. “I didn’t know. I thought …”
“Thought what?!” Ken half yelled, then calmed somewhat. “Look, Jared, I understand that she’s just a student and that someone like you might see her as a pest, but I’ll be damned if you’re going to treat her like one.”
“I didn’t mean to,” Jared said.
Ken took a couple of breaths. “My daughter only agreed to go to Nantucket so she could spend the time there assembling a portfolio of designs. Right now it’s hard for me to stomach the idea, but she wants to apply for a job at your firm. But tonight you—” He had to pause for a moment. “So help me, Jared Montgomery Kingsley the bloody Seventh, if you ever again make my daughter cry I’ll make you regret it. You understand me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And if you do spend any time with my daughter I don’t want your usual shenanigans you pull with women. This is my daughter and I want her treated with respect. You get what I mean?”
“Yes, sir, I do.”
“Do you think you can be nice to a girl and leave her clothes on? Is that possible with you?”
“I’ll try,” Jared said.
“Do more than try, do it!” Ken clicked off the phone.
Jared just stood there, feeling like he had when he was a teenager and Ken, the man who’d been a second father to him, had bawled him out. Again. Just like old times.
Jared went downstairs, started to reach for the rum, but knew that wouldn’t calm him down. He found a bottle of tequila, and had two shots before he allowed himself to think about what had happened tonight.
He went into the living room and sat down and his mind went back to when he was, as Ken had said, a fourteen-year-old juvenile delinquent.
As Aunt Addy and Ken later told Jared, Kenneth Madsen had come to the island to find his wife—who he thought would be living in abject poverty and therefore glad to see him—to let her know that he’d think about taking her back. He might even forgive her for her one-night stand with his business partner, followed by her flight to Nantucket with their small daughter, Alix. Eventually.
The truth was that he missed her and his daughter so much he could hardly function.
But what he found on Nantucket wasn’t what he’d expected. His wife had written a novel, it had been accepted for publication, and she was planning to divorce him.
She was fabulously happy; he was fabulously depressed.
After Victoria took little Alix and left the island, Addy suggested that Ken stay in the guesthouse until he recovered from his melancholia. After he’d been there a couple of months and showed no signs of going back to his architecture business or even of coming back to life, she said he could renovate an old house owned by the Kingsley family.
“But I can’t afford to pay you,” she said. “I can just afford materials.”
“That’s all right,” Ken said, “my former business partner is footing my bills. He owes me big time.”
Addy waited for him to continue but Ken didn’t say any more about why his partner owed him. “You can hire workmen on the island, but you’ll have to pay them. On the other hand, my nephew Jared is young and inexperienced, but he’ll work for free. But then it doesn’t matter because I don’t think you can handle him.” She looked Ken up and down in a way that said he wasn’t man enough to deal with the boy.
Ken’d had enough of being treated like less than a man. He said he’d take on the kid.
From the first meeting, Ken and Jared were a match. Ken’s life was a mess, but then so was Jared’s. A big, angry teenager and an elegant, angry young architect were a perfect pair. Ken’s attitude was that if Jared didn’t behave he was out of a job. Since the job was a free remodel of the falling-down old house he and his mother were living in, Jared felt he had to stay with it. Besides, Ken listened to what Jared had to say about how he thought the house should be changed.
Jared knew nothing about construction, and at first he’d worked every day with a hangover. At fourteen he was on his way to being an alcoholic. To his mind at that time, drinking was okay because most of the kids he ran with did drugs. Jared’s teenage mind thought that if he stayed away from drugs he could drink all he wanted to.
But being hungover on a construction site was bad. He’d ended up with smashed thumbs and one accident after another until he’d finally learned to say no to going out at night with his buddies. It hadn’t been easy as they told him what they thought of him. “Selling out to the other side,” they’d said.
Ken had helped, even though his “help” hadn’t been gentle. He didn’t put up with any nonsense, never felt sorry for Jared’s circumstances, and made him work no matter what.
One day after the boys had skidded off in their cars, their catcalls that Jared was a wimp still hanging in the air, Ken said, “You might make a man after all. Who would have guessed?”
Gradually, Jared began to want to prove himself. Ken stayed on the island full time for nearly three years and the two of them worked construction constantly. One time Jared saw Ken crying and he’d stepped away, not wanting to embarrass him. Later he found out that the divorce papers had come that day. “It was all my fault,” Ken said over his sixth beer. “I was the one to ruin it all. I thought I was of a higher class than pretty little Victoria Winetky and she knew it.”
That night Jared had to throw a drunken Ken over his shoulder, put him in his pickup, drive him back to the guesthouse, and put him in bed. The next day neither of them acknowledged what had happened and they never spoke of it.
Eventually, Ken recovered enough that he wanted to go back to architecture—and by then he’d discovered that he liked teaching. But by that time he and Jared were like father and son and the thought of separation hurt. “I can’t stay here,” Ken said. “Victoria won’t allow Alix to return to Nantucket. That book of hers sold millions and she says she has an image to uphold. Between you and me, I think Victoria doesn’t want Addy to take over Alix.” He looked at Jared. “If I want to be part of my daughter’s future, I have to go back to the mainland and set up a life there. I’ll come back when I can.”
Jared worked to conceal his pain. A few years before he’d met Ken, his father had gone out on his boat one day and never returned. It was days before they found him. He’d had a heart attack in his sleep. Jared had loved his father to the point of worship and losing him had brought out the worst in the boy. He’d always been a big kid, nearly six feet when his father died, and Jared started drinking just months later. Fistfights, racing cars, vandalism—you name it, he’d done it. His mother, trying to deal with her own grief, had no control over him.
Then Ken, also angry at the world, had stepped in and taken over.
When Jared said goodbye to Ken, he thought that would be the end. Nantucketers were used to summer visitors. They came and went and you never saw them again.
But Ken had returned often. He was the one who got Jared into college, then into architecture school. And when Jared made his mark by building his final project, it had been Ken who left his office and his classroom, strapped on a tool belt, and helped Jared build it.
Yes, Jared owed Ken, and he owed Victoria because she was part of his life too. And now he owed their daughter.
He stood there for a moment and all he knew for sure was that he wanted to talk to his grandfather.
Jared was sitting in the family room of Kingsley House. He hadn’t turned on any lights, but he didn’t need to. He knew that if he sat there long enough, his grandfather would show up.
When he did, Jared didn’t even look up. “I messed up. Really big. Ken is angry at me, and when Victoria hears what happened she’s going to tear me apart, piece by piece. I doubt if I’ll live through it. Our friendship certainly won’t survive it.” He looked toward the window at his grandfather. “If you’d only told me she was here, I could have escaped.”
“Young Alix has always been a considerate person,” Caleb said.
When Caleb started to say more
, Jared cut him off. “If you’re about to tell me some of that reincarnation mumbo-jumbo, don’t do it. I don’t want to hear.”
“I never try to put knowledge into that hard head of yours. You only believe what you can see and touch. Turn on the light and look inside that far cabinet.”
Jared hesitated, almost afraid of what he’d see. Reluctantly, he got up, switched on the light, and opened the cabinet. What he saw wasn’t what he’d expected. Inside was a model of what looked to be a little chapel, complete with bell tower.
Right away he could see the influence of his own work on the design, but he also saw that of Ken Madsen. But most important, it was a new and fresh design, Alix’s own voice, unique to her.
“Lost your tongue?” Caleb asked.
“Pretty much.”
“She made it to show you. But you—”
“You don’t have to rub it in. What made her choose this to work on?”
“I made sure she saw an old photo.”
Jared nodded. “The one of Aunt Addy and Grandma Bethina laughing together?”
“Yes, that one.”
He picked up the little model and held it on the flat of his hand, turning it around to study it. “This is better than I would have done.” He put it back in the cabinet, then took out her freehand sketches and went through the pages. “She’s good. Three of these are buildable.”
“She and her friend broke into your house.”
“They what?” Jared was still looking at the drawings.
“What is that heretical thing you say about heroes and Our Father?”
Jared had to think for a moment to understand that one. His grandfather often mixed up old and new slang. “Hero worship.”
“That’s it. Alix used to feel that way about you, but after tonight I don’t think she does.”
“That’s exactly what I didn’t want to happen,” Jared said. “Some kid looking at me with big puppy-dog eyes, thinking I hung the moon. That’s impossible to live up to.”
“And there you were, lusting after Ken’s daughter.”
“I did no such thing!” Jared said angrily, but then he grinned. “Well, maybe I did. She’s a beauty—and built. I’m only human.”
“You like that her father taught her what you showed him about fish.”
“Which my dad taught me.”
“And I taught all of you,” Caleb said, and the two men smiled at each other.
“So now what do I do?” Jared asked.
“Apologize to her.”
“And she’s going to forgive me? I just say I’m sorry and that’s it?” Jared hesitated. “I know. I could give her a job at my office in New York. She could—”
“You could help her with the wedding.”
“Oh, no! I don’t know anything about that. If she wants to stay here I’ll get the office to send her some work and I’ll … I’ll buy her a drafting table. Or a CAD system. Maybe she could use the guesthouse as an office. I’ll go back to New York and …” He broke off at the look on his grandfather’s face and sighed. “What are you plotting against me?”
“She’s here alone. She knows no one on this island.”
“I said I’d get Dilys to—”
“Young Alix is planning on leaving for good,” Caleb said.
“Ken and Victoria want her here.” Jared took a breath. If he was the reason she left, everyone would be angry at him. “When is she planning to leave?”
“I heard her father—the man who made you what you are, I might add—ask her to give him twenty-four hours to change things. Did he mention that time allotment to you?”
“No, he didn’t. At least I don’t think he did, but then he yelled a lot. It was hard to keep up with every word.”
“Good man. Protective of his child. It looks like Kenneth’s leaving it up to you to figure out something to do to make her stay. If she weren’t his daughter, what would you do to keep her here?”
“Go upstairs and get in bed with her.”
Caleb grimaced. “In this case, that’s not an option.”
“When it comes to women, I’m better in bed than out of it,” Jared said in a matter-of-fact way.
“There must be something you know how to give to women outside of bed.”
“You’re talking about your old-fashioned ideas of courting, aren’t you? And when have I had time for that? I’ve worked seven days a week since I was a teenager. I only stopped to be with Aunt Addy. As for gifts, my assistant took care of that, usually from Tiffany’s. Maybe—”
“No jewelry.”
Jared stood there in silence, thinking, but he came up with nothing.
“How did a descendant of mine get so smart yet so dumb?” Caleb asked in disbelief.
“Maybe we better not talk about stupid acts of the Kingsley men.
Tell me again what happened to your ship that was so horrible that you aren’t allowed to leave this earth?”
Caleb glowered, then shook his head and smiled. “All right, we’re equally befuddled when it comes to women. However, I’m trying to teach you what I’ve learned in my lifetime.”
“Which spans a few years.”
“More than a few of them. How about flowers?” Caleb asked.
“Okay, so tomorrow morning I go buy her a bunch of flowers. That’s easy.”
“In my experience, ‘easy’ doesn’t win a woman. They like men to climb mountains for them.”
“Right. And get the single, rare blossom on the top. Of course nowadays we know doing that will wipe out an entire species.”
Caleb grimaced. “And you wonder why women don’t hang around you.”
“For your information—”
“I know,” Caleb said, “you leave them, they don’t leave you. I think she should wake up to find flowers.”
“Where would I get them? It’s too early in the season to pick them in the garden. Think I should break into a florist shop?” He was trying to add some humor to the whole thing, but Caleb wasn’t smiling.
“It wouldn’t be the first time you’d done something like that,” Caleb said.
“No, but it’s been a while.”
“If only we knew someone who grew flowers even when it’s cold outside.”
Jared blinked at Caleb as understanding came to him. “No,” he said, then stood up. “No, no, no. I won’t do it.”
“But—”
“I’m not going to. Lexie will give me hell and I don’t want to hear it. I’ve had enough of being yelled at today.” Jared left the room and went to the back door in the kitchen.
Caleb put himself in front of the door.
“No,” Jared said again and reached through his long-deceased grandfather to turn the knob, then went outside.
Jared got all the way to the guesthouse before he stopped. He mumbled curse words as he stood there, knowing that his grandfather was watching, and worse, knowing that he was right. As Jared went toward the gate, he raised his hand in a very old gesture.
Caleb chuckled. He’d known his grandson would do the right thing. He just had to be pushed hard—something Caleb was good at doing.
Jared’s cousin Lexie lived just a few houses away and he hoped that at this hour she’d be asleep so he could use that as an excuse not to bother her. Last summer he’d restored an old greenhouse on the property. For years it had been buried under several feet of vines and briars and poison ivy. He’d tried to talk her into letting him bring in a dozer and level it all. “Then I’ll buy you a brand-new Lord and Burnham greenhouse,” he’d said.
But neither Lexie or her roommate, Toby, would have any of it.
“You’ve been away from Nantucket too long,” Lexie said. “We were recycling and reusing before it became fashionable.”
“My whole house is reused and recycled,” he’d snapped, not liking being accused of having off-islander tendencies.
In the end, the two women won because Jared had made the mistake of asking Toby what she wanted to do. Toby was tall, slim, blond, with
a dreamy look in her blue eyes. Ethereal, fragile. There was an otherworldly air about her that could turn grown men into mush.
“I rather like the idea of an older greenhouse,” she’d said as she smiled up at Jared.
“Then I’ll do it,” he said.
Lexie had thrown up her hands. “I ask and you argue. Toby asks and you give in instantly.”
“What can I say, little cousin?” Jared said. “Toby is magic.”
“Whatever,” Lexie said. “If it gets you to do the work and pay for it, that’s all that matters.”
Toby worked in the best florist shop on the island, while Lexie was a PA to a man she described as a “helpless idiot.” When he wasn’t on Nantucket and demanding her attention, Lexie planned to help Toby raise flowers that they could sell to shops around town.
Jared had sent a text message to Jose Partida, who owned Clean Cut Landscaping, and he hadn’t blinked an eye at the daunting job of cleaning up the poisonous tangle.
When the debris was cleared away they saw that there wasn’t much left of the old greenhouse, but Lexie expected her cousin to put the pieces back together.
“This thing is rotten,” Jared said. “A new one—”
“I want you to do it,” Lexie said. “I want you to be a Kingsley—if you can remember how—and put it back together yourself. Or have you become too much of an off-islander to put on a tool belt?”
For a moment Jared thought about strangling his cousin, and he pondered ignoring her challenge, but he didn’t. Instead, he’d called New York and postponed what he was doing for a rich client. He went to the drawing board in the guesthouse and spent three days designing a garden for flowers and berries.
As Lexie had requested, Jared put on a tool belt and worked with contractor Twig Perkins’s men to put the old greenhouse back into working order. They also installed raised beds, made a compost area, and added a seating place for clients.
When it was all done, Toby stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. “Thank you,” she said.
After Toby left, Lexie said, “If you’re so enraptured with her, why don’t you ask her out?”
True Love Page 9