by Lisa Dyson
He smiled pleasantly. “Eleanor, do you have a place where you’d like me to set up the dog crate?”
Her mother stopped midstride and glared at her daughter.
Would Mom make a scene in front of Jack? Allie had warned him, so he shouldn’t be surprised.
“I thought we decided you’d find someone to take care of your dog this weekend, Allison.”
Standing behind her mother now, Jack mouthed over her head, Allison? He winked, and Allie had a difficult time maintaining her composure.
“I could get a hotel room—”
“If you’d prefer, Eleanor,” Jack interjected before Allie could finish, “I could get a hotel room and keep him there with me. Allison didn’t feel right leaving the poor guy with someone else after his operation.”
Allie’s lips twitched at his use of her full first name. She’d pay him back when the time was right.
“No need for you to stay in a hotel,” her mother said quickly.
Jack’s expression said he knew Allie’s mother wouldn’t want him to stay anywhere else. Though, they both knew that she might have allowed Allie to stay at a hotel if Jack hadn’t cut her off.
“We have plenty of room.” Her mother narrowed her eyes at Allie and said, “I’m sure we can find a place for the dog’s crate.”
* * *
JACK TOOK A BITE of homemade potato salad. “Does your mom always make a big lunch like this?” Growing up with only his granddad, he’d been on his own for most meals after he’d outgrown his au pair.
“She lives to cook for others.” Allie sat across from him at the long farm table in the kitchen eating area. No one else had arrived yet, and Allie’s parents had already eaten lunch. Her mom had disappeared as soon as she’d served them, and her dad was out running errands for the party. “Don’t overeat, because there will definitely be an afternoon snack.”
“I take it that you’re saying it’ll be more like a meal?” The remoulade on his crab cake sandwich dripped onto his plate, and he sopped it up with the roll before taking a bite.
“Unless you consider heavy hors d’oeuvres like pigs in a blanket and chicken wings a light snack.”
He swallowed the delicious mouthful of crab cake. “I’d gain a ton of weight if I lived here.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” Allie said. “Mom puts everyone to work, and you burn off the calories as fast as you consume them.”
“I have no problem helping out while I’m here.”
“Don’t worry, she already has us lined up to pick up Emily and Scott at the airport this afternoon. Part of her plan to make sure we spend more time together. I’m also sure there will be more to do for tonight’s party when we get back.”
“Do you really think she has matchmaking on her mind when she’s expecting all this company?”
Allie pursed her lips. “She doesn’t know how to turn it off.”
He chuckled. “Should we take Harvey with us to the airport?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “He was resting in his crate in my bedroom when I left him a few minutes ago.”
“We can take him for a long walk before we leave,” Jack suggested. “You can show me the neighborhood, tell me stories of your childhood.”
“Sounds good, except for the childhood stories part.”
“Oh, come on. There must be something you’ll share.” He grinned and took a long drink of his milk.
“I had a typical childhood, I guess. My parents worked hard to make sure we had an idyllic upbringing.”
“But?” There was obviously more to her story.
“But what?”
“But it sounds like in your case they didn’t succeed.”
Allie turned her head in both directions. They were alone in the kitchen, but she still spoke in a low tone. “It’s not that they didn’t succeed. I just felt like an outsider.”
“An outsider?”
She shrugged. “My younger siblings are biologically related, and so are my older siblings. I love them all, but I’m the only one without a biological brother or sister.” She sucked in a breath. “I’m different from them, and I’m certainly nothing like my parents, who do everything by the book.”
“Sounds like a lot of pressure to assimilate, to be who your parents expect you to be.” Jack doubted Allie shared these intimate details often.
“I always felt like something was missing.” She covered her face with both hands and shook her head. “I sound crazy, don’t I?”
He chuckled softly and reached across the table to take her wrist and move her hand from her face. “Not at all.” He released her, wiped his mouth on his napkin and pushed his chair back. “Come on! Let’s go get Harvey, and we can compare childhoods.”
After they cleaned up after themselves, Jack followed Allie through the house. “Was this always your bedroom?” He took in the room’s feminine touches—floral comforter on the queen-size bed, matching floral window treatments over lacy sheers. After having seen her apartment bedroom, it was obvious she and her mother had different taste.
“I shared it with my sister, Rachael. We used to have twin beds in an L-shape. My mother redecorated after we moved out.” Allie pointed to the center of the bed. “We would set up our Barbie dolls right here. Between the two of us, we had all the important stuff: house, car, even an RV and tent. My mother made clothes for them, and we would spend hours arguing about whose Barbie would marry Ken.” She shook her head and wore a look of disgust. “I should have let her Barbie marry him so mine could have a career and be independent.”
He laughed. “Sounds like a typical childhood to me.” He sobered. “Career is that important to you?”
She nodded. “What else can prove I’m a useful human being if I don’t have a successful career?”
“What if you fail?”
“Then I’d have to depend on someone else to provide for me, and I could never be happy. That’s why I can’t fail.”
* * *
CHARLOTTE DROVE AROUND NEWPORT, trying to decide where to go for inspiration. She desperately needed to add to her inventory, but she’d been so caught up in this mystery involving her adoption, as well as Allie’s, that she’d barely thought about work all week.
She stopped at a red light near downtown and fully took in her surroundings. The doorways. Newport was famous for its doorways. Each one was unique. Although many artists had reproduced them in different media, she was sure they would be well-received at her show since she’d done them in the past and they’d been very popular.
Recognizing a lucky break, she found a parking spot on the street. She grabbed her camera from the case in the backseat and began walking, taking pictures from different angles of the many doorways she came across.
She’d walked several blocks away from her car when she saw them. Two little girls, maybe nine or ten, sitting on a stoop. As she got closer, she realized the girls must be sisters or at least related. They had fair skin and dark-brown hair that they brushed back from their faces in an identical manner. Their noses turned up slightly, and they shared the same Cupid’s bow mouth.
“Good afternoon,” Charlotte greeted them as she got close.
They looked up from the magazine they were giggling over, and Charlotte saw a picture of the latest preteen heartthrob on the cover.
“Can you take our picture?” one of them asked while the other nodded.
Charlotte never took pictures of strangers, especially children. She didn’t draw people either, only places.
“I’m not sure—”
The front door of the house opened, and a woman who was the adult version of the two girls stepped out. “Who’s this?”
Before Charlotte could say a word, the girls piped up. “We want this lady to take our picture.”
Charlotte hastened to explain. “I’m an artist. I’m taking pictures of the doorways. I was about to tell the girls that I don’t take people pictures.”
The mother cocked her head. “How unusual. Most people these days only take p
ictures of people, especially themselves.”
She had a point. “I don’t like to invade people’s privacy.”
“Are you an artist I should know? Do you have anything in any of the shops downtown?”
“I’m Charlotte Harrington.” She put a hand out to the mother, then dug in her little purse that she wore across her body for a business card.
“I’m Joanna, and these are my daughters, Kayla and Maura.” The woman took the card from Charlotte and read it. The list of Charlotte’s upcoming shows were on the back. “Very impressive to have shows in big cities.” She pocketed the card. “I’ve been wanting to get something besides a photograph of these two, a painting or some kind of drawing. I know this is sort of out of the blue, but is that something you might consider?”
Charlotte hadn’t in the past, but her world seemed to be changing by the second. “It’s not what I usually do, but let me think about it.” She took down Joanna’s email and promised to get back to her soon.
The girls smiled, and Charlotte couldn’t resist asking, “So how old are you two?”
“Almost ten.” They answered in unison.
“You’re twins?”
They bobbed their heads.
They didn’t dress alike, not even close, but their body language was identical. One wore a frilly pink top with pink jeans, and the other wore regular blue denim jeans with a T-shirt that sported the Boston Red Sox logo.
Charlotte looked at Joanna, who shrugged. “What can I say? They haven’t allowed me to dress them alike or even similarly from the time they learned the word ‘no.’”
Charlotte laughed. “I guess they learned at an early age to be independent.”
“You’re telling me.”
At the girls’ urging and their mother’s okay, Charlotte took several pictures of them in different poses. “Let’s do a serious one now,” she suggested, posing them back-to-back on the stoop with both looking at the camera. “Perfect!”
After promising to email the pictures to the girls’ mother, Charlotte continued on her walk.
As an only child, she often wondered what it would have been like to have had a sibling or two. Would they be close, or would they have drifted apart as they became adults?
She would hope that after losing their mother, they’d have been close, even if they hadn’t been before.
It didn’t matter. Family was a dream—she had no one left. She would never know what growing up with siblings felt like. A single tear ran down her cheek, and she brushed it away. She could count herself lucky to have several close friends, including new friends Jack and Allie, with whom she could form her own “family.”
But how great would it be if she and Allie were truly related?
* * *
JACK AND ALLIE stood in the small entryway of her parents’ home. “I can drive my mom’s car to the airport.” She held up the keys. “There’s no need for you to drive since you drove all the way here this morning. In fact, you can stay behind and relax if you want.”
Not that her mother would let him relax, but he was a big boy who could take care of himself.
“I really don’t mind driving.”
She cocked her head at him. “Are you one of those control freaks?”
“Control freak? Me?”
“Yeah, you don’t seem to like giving control over to others. Do you ever let anyone else drive?”
He grinned. “Yes, I let other people drive. I figured you didn’t need the added stress. That’s all.”
“Oh.” She’d been duly chastised. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Now, let’s go. Didn’t you say their flight was coming in early the last you checked?”
She nodded. Instead of three-forty, it was now expected at three-twenty. “If you’re sure?”
“I’m positive. Now get in the car.”
They had a companionable ride to the airport, and before she knew it, they were following the signs for parking.
“There’s no cell phone waiting area,” she told Jack. “The short-term lot is free for thirty minutes. We can keep an eye on the time, but Scott should be texting me that they’ve landed before that.”
They’d no sooner parked when Allie got a text from Scott, and they promptly found the newlyweds waiting with their luggage.
“Thanks for picking us up,” Scott said when they were finally back on the road. Allie had done the reintroductions while Jack and Scott quickly stowed the luggage in the trunk.
“You’re welcome,” Jack said. “How was your trip?”
“We had a great time,” Emily said. She and Scott were both tanned and relaxed. “I didn’t want to come home.”
Emily hit the highlights of the trip and then asked, “So you two met at our wedding?”
Allie and Jack looked at each other. “News travels fast,” he quipped. Allie turned partway toward the backseat.
Emily smiled. “I vaguely remember seeing the two of you together, but then the entire wedding is pretty much a blur. I can’t wait to see all the pictures.”
“I have some I meant to email,” Jack told her. “And you actually may have seen me with Allie’s double. I brought Charlotte as my date.”
“You’re dating Charlotte?” Emily leaned forward as far as her seat belt allowed.
“No, she’s my neighbor. Just a friend.” He glanced at Allie, but she pretended she didn’t notice.
“Then are you two dating?”
“No.” Allie’s answer was instantaneous. “We’re just friends.” Then she mumbled, “But Mom might answer that differently.”
Scott laughed. “Is she up to her old matchmaking tricks again?” He squeezed his wife’s hand. “You know she set Emily and me up, don’t you?”
Allie’s eyebrows rose. “No, I didn’t know that. I thought you met through friends.”
“That’s partially true. Mom’s regular hair salon was booked, so she made an appointment to have her hair done by Emily.” Scott’s wife managed her own hair salon.
“She was so nice, and we hit it off immediately,” Emily gushed. “She invited me to the family’s Fourth of July picnic, and there was Scott. The rest is history.”
“Mom strikes again,” Allie grumbled.
Thankfully, Jack moved the subject away from Allie’s mom. “So you work around here, Emily, but you went back to Rhode Island to get married? How’d that happen?”
“I’ve always loved the mansions in Newport and the stories surrounding them. I go back every chance I get, and I’ve toured the homes that are open to the public so many times that I could probably give the tours myself.” She laughed. “So that’s where I’ve always wanted to get married.”
“Great choice. I love Newport.”
They were quiet for a few minutes until Allie blurted out, “I hate to revisit the subject, but I think Mom’s at it again. She pushed pretty hard for Jack to come this weekend. She was adamant that I give him a chance and that ‘not all men are like your previous boyfriends.’” Allie felt the need to voice her concern—plus, she knew she couldn’t battle her mother on her own. “Will you guys please, please, please help us out and not let her get too out of control? I cannot deal with her games right now.”
Scott grinned. “This could be fun. Maybe I’ll let you flounder for a while.”
“Hey!” Allie pouted.
“I’m kidding.” He looked at Emily. “Although, you have to admit that Mom knew what she was doing when she got us together.”
Allie was practically indignant. “Well, she’s wrong in our case, right Jack?”
He looked in the rearview mirror at Emily and Scott. “Absolutely. We’re just friends.” He glanced at Allie. “Right, buddy?”
“You bet, pal. Neither of us wants a relationship.”
Scott shook his head. “Won’t work. She will look at it as a challenge. I told Mom that I wasn’t the settling-down type either, but she proved me wrong. I’m sure you can come up with a plan to outmaneuver her or avoid her. You alway
s do.”
“We could take off for Providence as soon as we drop you two off,” Allie quipped.
“Not up to your standards,” Scott told her. “You can do better, Al.”
Allie wasn’t sure why she hadn’t thought of it sooner. The best way to get her mother off her back was to go along with her. “Jack, we should pretend we’re a couple.”
He flinched. “What? Are you sure?”
“That’s perfect, actually,” Scott said from the backseat. “Mom won’t know how to react.”
“But how is that the answer?” Jack asked. “She’ll think she got what she wanted.”
“Exactly.” Allie was really liking the idea. “Mom will think her work is done, and she’ll leave us alone.” Allie looked at Jack as he kept his eyes on the road. “What do you think?”
He shrugged. “You guys know her better than I do, but it could be fun. I guess.”
“Yeah, fun.” So much fun that her mother wouldn’t know what hit her.
A few minutes later, they were pulling into her parents’ driveway and unloading the car.
“Here she comes,” Jack whispered close to Allie’s ear when her mom came out the front door to greet them. “Let’s give her what she wants.” He slid his arm around Allie’s waist and settled his large hand on her hip. He pulled her tightly against his side, all the while pretending to whisper in her ear.
That’s all it took for Allie to get lightheaded.
If they were going to fool her mother, then Allie definitely needed to steel herself against the instant arousal Jack could invoke every time he was near.
* * *
A LITTLE WHILE LATER, Jack was on the covered cement patio with a glass of iced tea in one hand and Allie’s hand in the other.
Until Allie pulled out of his grip. “She’s not around right now.”
He kind of liked holding her hand, their fingers laced intimately, but he didn’t dare tell her that. “Your dad’s right over there.” He pointed to where her father was checking his gas grill. “Don’t we have to fool him, too?” Her dad scratched his head, his thinning gray hair neatly trimmed.
Allie shook her head. “He doesn’t care one way or the other. He only cares that Mom’s happy.”
Jack enclosed her hand in his again and gave her a penetrating look. “All the more reason for us to pretend in front of him, as well.” For good measure, he leaned close and kissed her cheek.