True Love (Nantucket Brides 1)

“Come on,” Jared said to Alix. “Let’s get you inside. You’re wet and you don’t have on any shoes.”

“I’m just concerned about—”

He kissed her forehead. “I’ll fix it. Okay?”

She nodded and they went back inside the house, while Ken went to the guesthouse to dry off.

Once they were inside, Jared told Alix to go upstairs and fill the bathtub with hot water. “I’ll join you in a few minutes.”

It would have been a sexy invitation except that Jared was frowning deeply.

“Is everything all right?” she asked. Her teeth were beginning to chatter.

“Yes,” he said. “I just need to … to get some towels. Go on, I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

Alix wanted to ask him what was going on, but she was too cold to think clearly, and her mind was on Izzy’s wedding. What were they going to do now? Of course they’d rebuild, replant, and drape cut roses everywhere. It could be done. She ran up the stairs to her bathroom—their bathroom, she thought—and began filling the tub.

Chapter Seventeen

Jared went straight to the stairs that led up to the attic. He knew from experience that his grandfather was strongest at the top of the house. The large attic room was packed with trunks and boxes and old furniture, some of them containing items that had been owned by his grandfather. These earthly connections, here and in the front parlor, made Caleb more visible.

Jared also knew that his anger would draw his grandfather to him. Sure enough, when he opened the door to the attic and pulled the string to the overhead lightbulb, there his grandfather stood, hands clasped behind his back, fully ready for the coming argument.

“You did it, didn’t you?” Jared said, his jaw clenched. “You made the arbor collapse.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Don’t evade my question,” Jared snapped.

“I thought you had perfected question-evading.”

Jared glared at him, but then his face changed. All his life he’d seen the shadowy figure of his grandfather. One of his earliest memories was of seeing him bending over his childhood crib and smiling. Jared had never thought it was strange that he could see through the man. It was years before he realized that semitransparent men weren’t part of other people’s lives.

But right now he couldn’t see through his grandfather. At least not totally. He was clearer than Jared had ever seen him before. “What’s going on?” The anger was gone from his voice.

“What do you mean?”

Jared knew his grandfather understood him, but he motioned his hand up and down his body. “Why do you look like that?”

Caleb took his time in answering. “On the twenty-third of June I’m going to leave this earth.”

It took Jared a moment to understand what his grandfather was saying. “Leave?” he whispered. “As in die?” For all that Jared often made cracks about his grandfather finally leaving the earth, he couldn’t imagine a life without him. “I … I …” Jared began but couldn’t go on.

“You’ll be all right,” Caleb said gently. “You have a family now.”

“Of course I’ll be okay.” Jared was doing his best to recover from the shock. “And you’ll be … be happier.”

“Depends on where they send me.” Caleb’s eyes were twinkling.

Jared didn’t smile. “Why on Izzy’s wedding date?” Jared’s head came up. “Or did you make her set it then?”

“Yes, I did. I seem to be able to do more … things than I could. And I know considerably more. Something is going to happen. It’s …” He trailed off.

“What?!” Jared half yelled.

“I don’t know. It’s just that I can feel things changing. Every day I get stronger.” He held out his hand. “I can see my own body. Yesterday I saw myself in a mirror. I’d forgotten how handsome I am.”

Jared still didn’t smile. “What is going to happen?”