Ever After (Nantucket Brides 3)

Jamie looked at Shelly sitting at the table. He’d heard so much about her beauty that he was curious. He’d seen the professional photos she’d sent him and he’d thought she looked good but in a cool, remote way that didn’t appeal to him.

Now as he looked at her, he thought of the old saying that beauty was in the eye of the beholder. Maybe Hallie and Braden saw Shelly as breathtakingly beautiful, but t

o Jamie she was far from it. She was tall and thin, shapeless really. His professional eye saw that she’d spent too much time in the sun. She wasn’t going to age well.

Jamie thought Hallie was much prettier. He loved her curves, the shape of her face, the way she smiled at everyone. Hallie’s hair was thick and soft and he knew it always smelled good, even when she was sweaty in the gym.

As he looked at the two women, he couldn’t see why anyone would think Shelly was the pretty one. To him, Hallie beat her stepsister in all aspects of mind, talent, beauty, and personality.

Inside the kitchen, Hallie was doing her best to listen to Shelly. She’d been preparing a late lunch for herself and Jamie when Shelly had shown up. Like some black magic, she just seemed to appear in the Nantucket kitchen.

And once Hallie saw her, it was as though all the sunshine disappeared. It was like the doors and windows suddenly locked and the pretty little house became a prison. She hadn’t seen or heard from Shelly since the day she’d come home and Jared had been sitting in her living room asking Shelly to sign some papers.

Hallie kept putting things on the table. Better that than sitting down and trying to talk with Shelly. She could argue for hours at a time, but all Hallie wanted was to get rid of her fast. Please, please, she thought, let Jamie stay outside. Don’t let him come in here and see Shelly. Hallie didn’t think she could bear seeing the two of them laughing and talking, flirting. Doing the things all men did with Shelly.

“I came here to work things out with you,” Shelly was saying. “But then I’m always apologizing to you.”

“You have never apologized to me,” Hallie said and was instantly annoyed with herself for taking the bait Shelly was dangling.

“I’m sure that’s the way you see it. For once, could we just talk and not fight?” she said, looking around. “This is a nice house, but it will take a lot of work to get the garden up to what your grandparents had. I guess that’s what you plan to do.”

“Shelly, what do you want?”

She gave a great, dramatic sigh. “I can see that nothing has changed; you’re still hostile. All right, I will tell you. I honestly didn’t think you’d mind if I took on the responsibility for this old house. You’re always saying that I never help you with anything, but when I did offer to help, you acted like I’m a criminal. I thought you liked where you lived. You never hid the fact that you’ve always been madly in love with Braden. It’s all I heard while I was growing up. It was embarrassing watching you make a fool of yourself over him.”

Hallie knew that what Shelly was saying about Braden was true. It was quite possible—probable even—that if she’d received the package from Jared first, she would have sold the Nantucket house unseen.

Shelly opened a container of olives and nibbled one. “I really thought you and Braden would end up together. That’s what his mom and you plotted, didn’t you?”

Hallie sat down at the table and looked at her stepsister. Shelly continued. “Never in my life would I have believed that you’d ever leave Braden. I thought you’d die in that house, just waiting for him to return and notice you.”

“So you’re saying that you wouldn’t have tried to steal this house if it hadn’t been for my caring about Braden?”

“Caring!” Shelly said. “It was more like an obsession. Face it, Hallie, you’re not exactly the adventurous type. You lived in one house all your life. Even after all that schooling you had, you got a cheap job nearby just so you wouldn’t have to leave him. You just sat there and waited for Braden to return and sweep you away to some future you dreamed about.”

Hallie had her head down. Shelly’s words were so true that she was beginning to feel awful. But then this was the way it had been since her father came home and announced that he’d married a woman who had a daughter. Her dad said Shelly was going to become Hallie’s best friend.

But that had never happened. Instead, she’d found herself “talked to” by Ruby, lectured about how Hallie should give Shelly more and more and more. When Shelly was older, she’d done her own talking, turning things around so that Hallie was always in the wrong.

Yes, Hallie had been obsessed with Braden, but now she realized that she’d needed that dream of a happy future in order to survive.

Sometimes there are moments in people’s lives when they suddenly see things differently. Call it an aha moment, an epiphany, whatever. It’s a time when a person breaks. As Hallie looked at her stepsister, she decided that she’d had enough. She was no longer going to be afraid of her stepsister. If Shelly turned on whatever she did to attract men and if Jamie followed her like all the other males did, so be it. Hallie had had enough!

“You’re right,” she said to Shelly and there was a tone in her voice that she knew she’d never before used with her stepsister. It was the one that made reluctant patients get on the table. There was kindness, but it was backed by an unbreakable firmness.

“You’re right that I was afraid of…adventure, as you call it. After you and Ruby took over my family, I was scared of leaving the only security I’d ever known. In your drive to win no matter what, you and your mother made what had once been a peaceful home into a battlefield. You drove my grandparents away and made my father hate to return.”

Shelly was looking at her in surprise. Hallie didn’t usually fight back. Ruby had taken all that out of her. But Shelly quickly recovered. “It’s this guy who’s turning you against your own family, isn’t it? I guess he’s the one you lost all the weight for.” Her words were sly, as though she knew something Hallie didn’t. “I saw him outside. He’s so torn up most women wouldn’t want him. But he’s rich so I don’t blame you for going after him.”

Hallie didn’t lose her temper at the accusation, and most important, she didn’t go into defense mode. “If that’s what you want to believe, go ahead.”

A wave of anger went across Shelly’s perfectly made-up face. Hallie knew that in the past that look meant her stepsister would take some revenge. A toy, a computer, a new piece of clothing, something would be ruined—and of course Shelly would deny having done it.

“Look, Hallie,” Shelly said in a voice that others would hear as caring, “I’m younger than you are, but I’ve seen more of the world. Do you think this guy with his messed-up body will want you after his leg heals? You think his rich family won’t snub you? One thing I’ve learned is that wealthy people only marry other rich people. Believe me, I’ve tried to change that, but it doesn’t happen.”

“And if someone who looks like you can’t get a rich man, there’s no hope for me, right?”

Shelly glared at her. “You always twist whatever I say, don’t you? You’re always so clever! But I know more about men than you do and I’m just warning you, that’s all.”