Caleb put himself in front of the door.
“No,” Jared said again and reached through his long-deceased grandfather to turn the knob, then went outside.
Jared got all the way to the guesthouse before he stopped. He mumbled curse words as he stood there, knowing that his grandfather was watching, and worse, knowing that he was right. As Jared went toward the gate, he raised his hand in a very old gesture.
Caleb chuckled. He’d known his grandson would do the right thing. He just had to be pushed hard—something Caleb was good at doing.
Jared’s cousin Lexie lived just a few houses away and he hoped that at this hour she’d be asleep so he could use that as an excuse not to bother her. Last summer he’d restored an old greenhouse on the property. For years it had been buried under several feet of vines and briars and poison ivy. He’d tried to talk her into letting him bring in a dozer and level it all. “Then I’ll buy you a brand-new Lord and Burnham greenhouse,” he’d said.
But neither Lexie or her roommate, Toby, would have any of it.
“You’ve been away from Nantucket too long,” Lexie said. “We were recycling and reusing before it became fashionable.”
“My whole house is reused and recycled,” he’d snapped, not liking being accused of having off-islander tendencies.
In the end, the two women won because Jared had made the mistake of asking Toby what she wanted to do. Toby was tall, slim, blond, with
a dreamy look in her blue eyes. Ethereal, fragile. There was an otherworldly air about her that could turn grown men into mush.
“I rather like the idea of an older greenhouse,” she’d said as she smiled up at Jared.
“Then I’ll do it,” he said.
Lexie had thrown up her hands. “I ask and you argue. Toby asks and you give in instantly.”
“What can I say, little cousin?” Jared said. “Toby is magic.”
“Whatever,” Lexie said. “If it gets you to do the work and pay for it, that’s all that matters.”
Toby worked in the best florist shop on the island, while Lexie was a PA to a man she described as a “helpless idiot.” When he wasn’t on Nantucket and demanding her attention, Lexie planned to help Toby raise flowers that they could sell to shops around town.
Jared had sent a text message to Jose Partida, who owned Clean Cut Landscaping, and he hadn’t blinked an eye at the daunting job of cleaning up the poisonous tangle.
When the debris was cleared away they saw that there wasn’t much left of the old greenhouse, but Lexie expected her cousin to put the pieces back together.
“This thing is rotten,” Jared said. “A new one—”
“I want you to do it,” Lexie said. “I want you to be a Kingsley—if you can remember how—and put it back together yourself. Or have you become too much of an off-islander to put on a tool belt?”
For a moment Jared thought about strangling his cousin, and he pondered ignoring her challenge, but he didn’t. Instead, he’d called New York and postponed what he was doing for a rich client. He went to the drawing board in the guesthouse and spent three days designing a garden for flowers and berries.
As Lexie had requested, Jared put on a tool belt and worked with contractor Twig Perkins’s men to put the old greenhouse back into working order. They also installed raised beds, made a compost area, and added a seating place for clients.
When it was all done, Toby stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. “Thank you,” she said.
After Toby left, Lexie said, “If you’re so enraptured with her, why don’t you ask her out?”
“Toby? That would be like dating an angel.”
“I get it. And you’re too much of a devil.”
“At last someone truly understands me. I get any thanks from you?” He tapped his finger on his cheek.
“That’s not the side Toby kissed,” Lexie said as she planted one on him.
“I’m never going to wash the cheek she touched ever again.”
Lexie groaned. “Come on and help us fill the pots full of dirt.”