True Love (Nantucket Brides 1)

Smiling, Jared started walking again.

Alix ran to catch up with him, tripping once over the uneven sidewalk. He turned down an alleyway that didn’t look wide enough to get a motor scooter down, but there were cars parked on both sides. He was walking fast, his long legs eating up the distance.

Alix nearly had to

run to keep up with him.

Abruptly, he stopped at a house that was close to the road, reached into his pocket to withdraw his keys, and unlocked a door. Alix followed him inside.

“I think the electricity is on,” he said as he felt along the wall and flipped a switch.

They were in a downstairs kitchen, an old brick wall to the right. Through the doorway she could see what was probably a dining room with a big fireplace on the far wall.

Jared was glad to see that finally the faraway look had left Alix’s eyes. The house seemed to have overridden her thoughts about his family and her mother’s novels and how they were connected.

“This house is quite old,” Alix said, her voice low and full of the reverence such a house deserved. She looked into the far room, saw the huge fireplace, then looked back at the old kitchen. There was an old Tappan range, a scarred and chipped sink. The cabinets had been made by someone who had never heard of a mortise and tenon joint.

“Maple cabinets and granite?” Jared asked.

“I’m not sure I’d go that far, but I’d—” She broke off as she remembered who she was talking to. “Whose house is this?”

“My cousin’s. He wants me to do a design for a remodel, he’ll do the work, then sell the house. Want to see the upstairs?”

She nodded and they went up the steep, narrow stairs to see a rabbit warren of rooms. The house had been added onto in a very haphazard way. Some of the rooms were beautiful, but others had been cut apart by ugly Sheetrock partitions.

Jared sat down on an old couch that was propped up in the back by phone books and waited while Alix wandered from room to room. He saw her looking up at the top of the walls and knew she was figuring out what was old and original, and what had been thrown up in the sixties in an attempt to make as many bedrooms as possible.

He let her have about twenty minutes, then the growling of his stomach made him stand up. “You ready to go or should I go home and get you a measuring tape?”

“Like you don’t already have the whole floor plan on paper,” Alix said.

Jared gave a one-sided grin. “Maybe I do. I’m starving. Let’s get something to eat.”

“We have lots of groceries and we could—”

“Takes too long. Let’s go to The Brotherhood.” He led her outside by another door and into what looked to be a horribly overgrown garden.

“Are you going to do the landscaping?”

“Not me,” he said as he began walking, Alix close behind him. “I thought I’d try to sweet-talk Toby into doing it. Keep it in the family.”

“Oh? I didn’t realize she was related to you.” Alix couldn’t help feeling an itty bitty bit of joy at hearing that the Toby whom everyone loved was off limits to him. She was glad her feelings weren’t in her voice.

But Jared did hear it. “She’s related through my heart, not by blood,” he said as he put his hand on his chest and gave a deep sigh.

“You idiot!” Then she realized what she’d said—and who she’d said it to.

Jared laughed. “Only about Toby.” He opened the door to the restaurant for her.

Shaking her head, Alix went in ahead of him and entered an old-fashioned pub sort of place, only she knew the walls and fireplace were real. “Nice,” she said.

They were escorted to a booth in the back, with Jared saying hello to people as they walked through the restaurant.

“You couldn’t sneak around and have an affair on this island, could you?”

“A few people have found ways,” he said as he looked at the menu, “but they’re usually found out.”

The waiter came and they gave their orders, and Alix thought about what he’d said. “I bet Aunt Addy heard all the gossip. Even if she rarely left the house, she had people over often and they’d tell her what was going on. Maybe my mother heard about—”