True Love

by Jude Deveraux

  Jared gave a one-sided grin. “Maybe I do. I’m starving. Let’s get something to eat.”

  “We have lots of groceries and we could—”

  “Takes too long. Let’s go to The Brotherhood.” He led her outside by another door and into what looked to be a horribly overgrown garden.

  “Are you going to do the landscaping?”

  “Not me,” he said as he began walking, Alix close behind him. “I thought I’d try to sweet-talk Toby into doing it. Keep it in the family.”

  “Oh? I didn’t realize she was related to you.” Alix couldn’t help feeling an itty bitty bit of joy at hearing that the Toby whom everyone loved was off limits to him. She was glad her feelings weren’t in her voice.

  But Jared did hear it. “She’s related through my heart, not by blood,” he said as he put his hand on his chest and gave a deep sigh.

  “You idiot!” Then she realized what she’d said—and who she’d said it to.

  Jared laughed. “Only about Toby.” He opened the door to the restaurant for her.

  Shaking her head, Alix went in ahead of him and entered an old-fashioned pub sort of place, only she knew the walls and fireplace were real. “Nice,” she said.

  They were escorted to a booth in the back, with Jared saying hello to people as they walked through the restaurant.

  “You couldn’t sneak around and have an affair on this island, could you?”

  “A few people have found ways,” he said as he looked at the menu, “but they’re usually found out.”

  The waiter came and they gave their orders, and Alix thought about what he’d said. “I bet Aunt Addy heard all the gossip. Even if she rarely left the house, she had people over often and they’d tell her what was going on. Maybe my mother heard about—”

  Jared put a paper napkin and a pen in front of Alix. “So what would you do with that house?”

  “You’re trying to distract me, aren’t you?”

  “I just thought your own future would interest you more than your mother’s past. I guess I was wrong.” He reached out to take the napkin away.

  Alix put her hand over it and began to sketch the layout of the house. “When I was a kid my dad used to take me to visit houses, then when we got home he’d have me draw the floor plan.”

  Jared wanted to say that her father had done the same thing to him, but he didn’t. When Alix found out the truth, he really hoped she wouldn’t be angry at him for not telling her that her father also spent a lot of time on Nantucket.

  The restaurant was dark and he looked at the top of her head as she drew. Dilys had said he was “comfortable” with Alix and it was true. Maybe it was because they’d both been taught by her father, or maybe it was because they were interested in the same thing. Whatever it was, he enjoyed being with her.

  But it wasn’t easy to suppress his physical desire for her. He liked the way she moved, liked to watch her lips when she spoke. He kept having fantasies of touching her—and it wasn’t easy to keep his hands off her. In the grocery when she’d been so cold he’d wanted to put his arms around her. But all he’d done was put his hands on her arms and rub. On the street he’d turned her toward the house. They were tiny touches, and he shouldn’t have done them as they just made him want her more.

  “Is this right?” she asked as she pushed the napkin toward him.

  He barely glanced at the drawing, but then he’d been doing this since he was a teenager. “This wall isn’t right. It should be over here.”

  “No, you’re wrong,” she said. “The fireplace is there.” She drew it.

  “Your scale is off. Wall here, fireplace there.” He didn’t draw it, just ran his fingertip where the lines should be.

  “Absolutely not. You are—” She broke off, yet again thinking of who he was. “Sorry. I’m sure you know better than I do.”

  “What is that disgusting thing you called me?”

  She had to think what he meant. “An American Living Legend?”

  “That’s it. That makes me sound like a pre-Revolution artifact.” He held out his hand. “I’m warm. Flesh and blood. I can make mistakes.”

  Alix put her hand on his and his fingers closed over her hand. For a moment her eyes locked with his and sparks seemed to fly through her body.

  They broke contact when the waiter brought their sandwiches.

  “So how would you remodel it?” Jared asked as soon as they were alone again.

  Alix looked down at the sketch and forced herself to put her mind back on it. “It depends on what the owner wants.”

  “He left it up to me,” Jared said. “It’s for resale.”

  “Carte blanche. What an intriguing idea. My dad said the hardest part of being an architect was dealing with the clients. Think Montgomery had any problems in that area?”

  “I think he told them that if they wanted a Montgomery design they had to do it his way or get out.”

  “That’s a road to starvation.”

  “It was a better economy back then, and he had enough anger in him to pull it off.”

  Alix looked across the table at him. The restaurant was dark, very atmospheric, and his eyes had a look that she couldn’t read. She could imagine that his anger, talent, and looks were a lethal combination.

  Jared was having a difficult time remaining still when Alix looked at him like that. If she were any other woman he would have said, “Let’s get out of here,” then taken her home and to bed. But this was Ken’s daughter.

  “You don’t have any ideas for the remodel?” He sounded as though he was disappointed in her.

  Alix looked down at the drawing and tried to control her frown. She felt almost like she’d just had a man tell her no, that she’d made a pass at him and he’d turned her down. She told herself to get a grip. For all she knew he had a serious girlfriend, maybe even a fiancée.

  But still … he could have pretended he was interested.

  “If I were Montgomery,” she said firmly, “I’d change this door and widen these dormers. Inside I’d remove this wall and this one, and in the kitchen I’d put the sink over here.” She made marks as fast as she talked, and when she finished she looked up at him.

  Jared was staring at her with wide eyes. It was exactly the way he’d planned the remodel, even down to the sink position.

  It took him a moment to recover. “How would you do it?”

  “Softer,” she said. “Less invasive. Leave the kitchen alone except to put an island here. Take out the downstairs wall, and upstairs, take out the frame walls here and here.”

  “And the exterior?”

  “Leave it alone but add a room here. Dig down so it doesn’t block the upper windows, then put windows all along the south side. Door and stairs up into the garden here.”

  She halted. The drawing was barely readable with all the marks on it. “That’s what I would do.”

  Jared could only stare at her. If he’d fallen into a rut so deep that a student could predict what he was going to do, that was bad. But then this student was what he once was—and her design was better than his.

  It ran through his mind that he should leave the island immediately, get away from this upstart girl who thought she was better than the famous Jared Montgomery.

  In the next second, he leaned back in his chair and smiled.

  Alix had seen the emotions pass across his face and for a moment she thought he was going to walk out of the restaurant and she’d never see him again.

  “It’s yours,” he said, still smiling at her.

  “What is?”

  “The house. It’s yours to redesign.” He’d told his cousin he’d do the work for free but he wasn’t going to tell her that. “I’ll make sure you get credit for it and you can put it on your résumé.” He leaned toward her, his face serious. “Which I truly and sincerely hope that you’ll submit to my company when you apply for a job. It will have my personal endorsement on it and since I own the place, I’m quite sure that you’ll be employed b
y me.”

  Alix just sat there blinking at him, not quite able to comprehend what he’d just said.

  “If you start crying and embarrass me, I’ll take back my offer.”

  “I won’t,” she said as she blinked faster.

  Jared signaled to the waiter to come over and ordered two chocolate desserts and two rum and Cokes. “With double lime,” he added.

  “Drunk and fat,” Alix murmured and started to pick up the napkin to wipe her eyes.

  “You might need that later,” he said and handed her a clean one that he took off an empty table. He put the napkin with the jumbled drawing in his shirt pocket.

  Leaning back in the booth, he watched Alix as she ate all her chocolate dessert and half of his. With his encouragement, she chattered about her childhood and what it had been like to grow up around two extraordinarily talented parents.

  While she talked, he thought that maybe his designs had become predictable, that he had become a sort of trademark. Alix, new to the world of architecture, brought with her an energy that he hadn’t felt in a long time.

  “You ready to go home?” he asked. “I have an overwhelming desire to look at some house plans I made over the winter. I think I need to change them. They’re too much like what I’ve already done. I don’t have a CAD system here, but maybe together we could—”

  “Yes,” Alix said.

  “You didn’t let me finish.”

  “I don’t need a CAD or a computer. You had me at the word ‘together.’ ” She stood up. “You ready to leave?”

  “I think I should pay the tab first, all right?” He was smiling.

  Reluctantly, she nodded.

  Chapter Nine

  Jared wasn’t sure what woke him, but the first thing he saw was his grandfather hovering over him. Sunlight was flooding the room and going through his grandfather’s body. When Jared was little and his aunt was out of the room, he would run through his grandfather, then laugh hysterically. His mother, who couldn’t see Caleb, thought it was funny that when they visited Aunt Addy her son would run back and forth across the room and laugh so hard at something imaginary.

  Jared’s father, who could see Caleb, smiled indulgently. As a child, he’d done exactly the same thing.

  When Caleb disappeared, Jared saw Alix sprawled across the other couch and sound asleep. An empty plate and glass were on the rug; piles of papers and great rolls of blueprints were scattered everywhere. It looked like they’d again fallen asleep while working. But then they’d been at it for four days and nights and had slept only twice.

  Jared sat up on the couch, running his hands over his face, and looked back at her. He knew from experience that she slept hard. The first time she’d fallen asleep on the couch he’d played the gentleman and tried to get her upstairs.

  It didn’t happen. He’d tried nudging her, but she’d just murmured and kept sleeping. Even when he put his hands on her shoulders and pulled her upright, she didn’t wake up. He had an idea that if he picked her up she’d snuggle against him like a child. Since he was as tired as she was, he was afraid that if he carried her up to bed he’d climb in with her.

  In the end he’d kissed her forehead and let her sleep on the couch. He thought he’d go to the guesthouse, shower, then sleep in his own bed. Instead, he glanced at one of the plans on the floor and realized it had an error on it. He sat back down on the couch, meaning to fix it, but the next thing he knew Alix was standing over him, holding the plan, and saying, “This wall is wrong. It should be four inches to the south.”

  It had taken him a moment to wake up but when he did, he said, “I agree.”

  That had been two days ago and they hadn’t slept since. They had just worked.

  Jared looked back at Alix, smiling at her sleeping. Last night—or rather, early this morning—when she’d fallen asleep, this time, he’d kissed her on the mouth. A sweet kiss, one of friendship more than passion. She’d kissed him back a bit then smiled in her sleep.

  Jared had looked up to see his grandfather wearing a look that said, You’re pathetic, then he’d disappeared.

  The second time around, Jared never even considered sleeping anywhere but on the couch facing Alix.

  A movement caught his eye and he looked up to see his grandfather reappear by the doorway. He looked like he was going to say something, but in the next second Lexie stepped through the man.

  “Jared!” she said loudly. “Where have you been? No one’s heard from you since you went out to see Dilys. Toby’s been so worried that she sent me over here to see about— Oh! Is that—?” She was looking at Alix asleep on the couch.

  Jared crossed the floor in two strides, took his cousin’s arm, and led her out of the room and into the kitchen.

  “Was that Alix on the other couch? Are you two a couple now? Already?”

  “No,” Jared said. “At least not in the way you mean. And lower your voice. She needs her sleep.”

  “What have you two been doing besides drinking rum?” There was an empty bottle on the counter and a half full one beside it. Lexie held up her hand. “Don’t tell me. You’ve been working.”

  “Right,” Jared said. “She is worse than I am.”

  “Couldn’t be,” Lexie said, then took pity on him because he looked tired. “At least she and Dilys got you to cut that mass of hair you had. Sit down and I’ll make you some breakfast. Toby sent over some jam she made. Will Alix get up soon?” She filled the coffee-maker.

  Jared sat down at the banquette, rubbing his eyes to get the sleep out of them. “She’ll wake up when she does.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “That before she’s ready, an anchor falling on her feet wouldn’t wake her.”

  Lexie had her back to him as she got things out of the fridge so he couldn’t see her smile. She was a very pretty young woman with the dark hair and eyes of all the Kingsleys, and the jawline was unmistakable. Her father had been an off-islander with blond hair and blue eyes, and his coloring had tempered the Kingsley darkness so that in the sun, lighter streaks could be seen in Lexie’s hair. And Dilys always said that Lexie’s eyes were lighter than the Kingsley blue that was so dark it was almost black.

  “And you know this how?” Lexie asked as she put a carton of eggs on the counter.

  Jared wasn’t about to answer that question. “How is Dilys?”

  “Full of talk about you and Alix. Is it true that you make her call you Mr. Kingsley?”

  Jared laughed. “It started that way but that was back when she was in awe of me. Now it’s just Kingsley, as in ‘Kingsley, you don’t know what you’re talking about.’ ”

  “I thought architecture students thought you were some god to be worshipped.” Lexie’s tone told how absurd she thought that was.

  “Not this one.” Jared was smiling. “At least not anymore, even though I was right about the wall in my cousin’s house.”

  Lexie paused in breaking eggs to look at him. “You listened to her? From what I’ve seen, when it comes to buildings, it’s your way or get out.”

  “Except with Ken,” Jared said.

  “And that extends to his daughter? Dilys thinks that man can perform miracles. She used to tell me what you were like before Ken showed up. I was just a kid but—”

  “You’re the same age as Alix. Dilys used to bring you over here to Aunt Addy’s to play with her.”

  “I didn’t know that. She didn’t tell me.”

  “I saw the two of you together once. I remember you kids sitting in the back and …” He stopped talking as he remembered the scene.

  That had been the summer before Ken showed up. It was Jared’s second summer without his father. Even though people had told him that time would make it better, he’d found that time had made it worse. He’d dropped out of all school sports, he hadn’t opened a textbook that whole year, and he was drinking everything alcoholic he could get his underage hands on. He’d had several after-school jobs, but he’d been fired from all of them b
ecause he rarely showed up when he was supposed to.

  His family had exhausted themselves talking to him, threatening him, offering him incentives to change his ways. Even his ghostly grandfather had endlessly lectured him on how he needed to be a man and help his widowed mother, not make her life worse. But Jared’s anger had no ability to reason.

  Only his great-aunt Addy didn’t nag him. In her very long life she’d seen a lot of death and knew about grief. Her only comment had been, “You’re a good boy and that goodness will come out again when it’s time.” As a result of her understanding, the only place on the island Jared felt any peace was at Kingsley House with his aunt.

  On the day Jared saw little Lexie and Alix playing, he had just been fired from yet another job. He’d taken a beer from his aunt’s fridge—she never pointed out that he was a kid—and sat in a chair by her under a shade tree.

  “Alix fits in here so well,” Addy said.

  “You know that Victoria will take her away. She’s not the type to live here all year,” Jared said. “You’d do better not to fall in love with the kid.” He sounded very old.

  “I know,” Addy said, “but I plan to enjoy her as long as I can.”

  “What does Victoria do all day? The house needs a good cleaning.”

  “I know. There’s dust everywhere.” Addy lowered her voice. “I think she’s reading the old Kingsley journals.”

  “How the hell did she find them?” Jared looked at Addy’s face. “Sorry. How did she find them?”

  “She knocked over a cabinet while she was dancing with a tourist.” Adelaide made it sound like Victoria had consorted with an enemy alien.

  Jared smiled as he drank his beer. That sounded like Victoria. She was beautiful and vivacious and—

  “Earth to Jared!” Lexie was saying.

  He blinked a few times. “I was just remembering you and Alix together.”

  “What did we play?”

  “I don’t remember. No. Wait. I do. You brought over some little dolls and she built houses for them.”

  “It’s a wonder you didn’t help her with the building.”

  “That was before Ken arrived, so I would have built it out of fishing lures.”