Ever After (Nantucket Brides 3)

But she didn’t move.

When he tapped lightly on her door she didn’t respond, but then it was as though Todd’s words were screaming in her head. Playing over and over.

“Hallie?” Jamie said. “I made us some tea. It has lots of milk in it, the way we like it.”

Don’t be a coward, she told herself, then she got out of bed. She grabbed her robe from the back of the closet, put it on, and opened the door.

To her dismay, Jamie was shirtless. He had on gray sweatpants that were barely hanging on to his hips. A tiny tug on the drawstring and they’d fall to the floor. In spite of all his scars, he looked so good her heart started pounding. If Todd’s words weren’t in her head, she would have dragged him back to bed with her.

But she didn’t. Instead, she smiled pleasantly and took both mugs of tea from him. “How did you manage to get up the stairs on crutches with these in your hands?”

“Juliana and Hyacinth carried them up for me.”

She didn’t laugh, and when he took a step forward as though he meant to go into her bedroom, Hallie slipped past him to the sitting room. She sat down on the window seat, put one mug on the sill, and began sipping from the other.

She saw the frown he gave as he turned and took the other end of the seat. “Aren’t you cold like that?” she asked.

“I’m still sweating. I did two workouts today. The first one was with Todd and Raine.”

My enemy and my supposed lover, she thought but didn’t say. “I’m sorry I didn’t work on your knee today.”

“What you did this morning was the best therapy I’ve ever had.”

“I guess I’m good at my job.” She heard the underlying anger in her voice.

“Are you okay? Did something bad happen?”

“I think I’m a little homesick,” she said. “I guess being around your family makes me miss my own. My dad’s birthday is in a few days and I really miss him. He and I used to drive from Boston to Fort Lauderdale to see my grandparents. We’d spend a week at a time with them.”

“Did you?” He sounded surprised. “You never talk about your father or your stepmother, or Shelly.”

“I guess I don’t. Maybe it was because my mother had passed away, but it made my dad and me closer. He bought me my own cell phone when I was just five and he called me every day. When I got older, he included me in his work. By the time I was ten I was pretty much his secretary.”

“Isn’t that asking a lot of a child?”

“I loved it!” Hallie said. “It made me feel needed. He’d call and say someone had a question about some drug. He knew I’d have read all the info on it so I had the answer. My teachers used to laugh at the way I rattled off the scientific names of prescription drugs. There was an anti-drug campaign at my school and I was called on for advice.”

“I had no idea,” Jamie said.

He was leaning back against a cushion and he looked so very good. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him. The only light was from the open door into her bedroom, and it showed the curves of his muscles. How easy it would be to put her mug down and slide forward. She knew how his skin would feel under her hands.

But, no, the words that were in her head were stronger.

He ran his hand over his bare stomach. “You know, I think I’ve lost weight too.” When Hallie didn’t remark on that, he said, “What about Ruby?”

Hallie gave a little laugh. “She was a character! She never cleaned anything, couldn’t cook, didn’t understand the concept of organization, but she was fun! If it snowed, she’d drag Shelly and me outside to build a snowman and we’d drape it with every piece of costume jewelry Ruby had. Our snow lady would have four-inch-long rhinestone earrings and a tiara.”

Jamie was looking at her in surprise. “I got the idea that things in your family were different. What about your stepsister?”

Hallie took a moment to answer. While she could sugarcoat Ruby and her father, she knew she wasn’t creative enough to gloss over Shelly. “We learned to live together,” Hallie said. “But then I always had Braden and his mother nearby, and they made it bearable.”

“Braden seems to have been a big part of your life.”

Hallie saw the way Jamie’s jaw muscles tightened at the mention of the name and she was glad of it. “Yes, he was. Whenever Shelly pulled one of her tricks on me, Braden was there to make me laugh. He’d tell me how smart I was and how people liked me so very much. He’s a truly honorable, caring man.”

“I guess you’ll be glad to see him when he gets here,” he said softly.

“I look forward to it very, very much.” When Hallie glanced at Jamie she saw what looked like pain in his eyes. If she hadn’t heard what Todd said, she would have told him that even when she was an adult, Braden always treated her as a child.