Alix understood that Jared didn’t want to hear more about her and Caleb. When she’d said he was jealous she was teasing, but maybe it was true. He had no reason to be, but she didn’t want to upset him, whether he was being entirely reasonable or not. “Izzy is doing well. We exchange half a dozen emails and texts a day and call every other day. She’s almost stopped throwing up, but now she says she’s eating everything in sight.”
Jared pulled into the parking lot of the Stop and Shop. “I have to make a quick call to the office,” he said. “Would you mind getting groceries, enough to last for at least three days?”
“No clothes but lots of food?”
“I’ll eat it off your bare belly,” Jared said, and Alix laughed as she got out of the truck. As soon as she left, he phoned Ken.
“How is she?” Ken asked as he stepped outside to take the call. Jilly was in the guesthouse making tea and sandwiches.
“She has no idea what she saw,” Jared said.
“My daughter danced with a ghost but she doesn’t know it?”
“That’s right,” Jared said. “And it seems that my granddad showed her some vision of the past. She saw Valentina’s cousin getting married.”
Ken was still trying to adjust to the idea of the ghost being real. He looked up at the back of the big house, his eyes searching every window. But he saw nothing—and he was glad of it. He didn’t think he’d much like seeing a ghost. “Are you going to tell her the truth about what happened?”
“Hell, no!” Jared said. He didn’t want to say that his grandfather was leaving the earth on Izzy’s wedding day. It was too painful to think of, and he doubted Ken would understand. Outsiders loved phrases like “eternal rest,” as though that solved everything. Get rid of the ghost and everyone would be happy—except for the people who love him, that is. “I don’t want her seeing him again, so I’m going to do my best to keep Alix by my side every minute.”
“That’s what you’re doing with my daughter anyway,” Ken said, sounding like the father he was.
“Don’t get on my case!” Jared snapped, then calmed himself. “I need something to distract her. As much as I’d like to be alone with her, that’s not going to keep her from talking—and thinking. If she keeps on like this she’s going to figure it all out.”
Ken knew he was right. “All she needs to hear is that the name Caleb was used only once in your family and she’ll know. My girl is smart.”
“Too smart,” Jared muttered, looking around at the packed parking lot. Cars were on the grass, in the roadways. During the summer season, getting groceries meant taking your life in your hands. “What do you think of Jilly?” When Ken didn’t answer, Jared said, “Are you still there?”
“I’m here,” he said. “Do you believe in love at first sight?”
“A month ago I didn’t,” Jared sa
id. “You ought to get Jilly to talk. Cale said her late husband was—and I quote—a ‘lying, thieving monster.’ It seems the bastard stole Jilly and her kids’ entire inheritance.”
“I hope he rots,” Ken said under his breath. “Wait a minute! Are you talking about Cale Anderson? Victoria says she makes a nest on the New York Times best-seller list, then sits on her eggs until they hatch into movies.”
Jared chuckled. “Thanks, I needed a laugh, and that’s the right Cale. Listen, I need help distracting Alix. She’s really digging at this.”
When Ken spoke, his voice was cautious. “Don’t forget that at the end of the year she’ll leave your house. After she’s gone, you won’t have to worry about her ever again seeing the ghost.”
“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that,” Jared said. “I just have to keep Alix occupied until Izzy’s wedding, then everything will change—and, no, I’m not going to tell you why. After that, Alix is mine. Forever. Not just for a single year.”
“Okay,” Ken said, his voice full of his joy at hearing that. “I’ll talk to Jilly and see if she has any ideas on what might take my very curious daughter’s mind off your ghost.”
“You told Jilly about my grandfather?!”
“I did,” Ken said, “and don’t give me any grief about it or I’ll call Victoria and tell her about Caleb.”
Jared took a moment to imagine that horror. “I have to go. You and Jilly need to come up with something fast.” After he hung up, as he waited for Alix, he tried to come up with a distraction, but couldn’t. When he saw Alix approaching with a full grocery cart, he went forward to help her.
At Dilys’s house, they’d just unloaded the last of the groceries when a car pulled in behind the truck. A pretty blond woman was driving and in the backseat was a little boy, about two, belted into a car seat and crying at the top of his lungs.
Jared bent down to look at the woman through the passenger window. Alix stood behind him.
“Jared! Thank goodness I caught you!” she said over the noise of her son. “Dilys isn’t here so I have no sitter. I hate to drag Tyler around and you know how much he hates shopping, but I have no one to look after him. With his dad away fishing, fighting the seas to earn money to support us, it’s hard for Tyler and me to—”
“All right!” Jared said. “You don’t have to beat me up.”
Alix had no idea what he was talking about, but she watched as Jared opened the back door, unbuckled the car seat, and the child nearly leaped into his arms. From the way the boy immediately stopped crying, it was obvious he and Jared were well acquainted.