She felt him kiss the top of her head and move even closer. “Last night you earned the name of American Living Legend,” she murmured as she fell back asleep.
“Alix? Are you upstairs?”
She heard the voice again, so very familiar. “Just another minute,” she said, her eyes still closed.
But then they opened abruptly. “It’s my dad,” she whispered.
“So it is,” Jared said, his arms holding her tightly.
She turned over to face him. “It’s my father. You have to leave. He can’t see you and me … together. You have to climb out the window.”
Jared lay back in the bed but he didn’t open his eyes. “When I was sixteen I was too old to do something like that. And now … Besides, we have to tell your father sometime.”
At that thought, a feeling of panic ran through her. If her mother found her in bed with a man, it wouldn’t matter. But not her father. He believed in honor and integrity and … and not finding his daughter in bed with a man she wasn’t married to. She tried to conceal her anxiety from Jared. “I know you’ll meet him,” she said with as much patience as she could manage. “But not yet. Let me soften him up first. Please?” She put her hand on his face.
When he opened his eyes, he saw the fear in her eyes. “All right,” he said, “but later we need to talk about a few things.”
“Isn’t that what women usually say?” she whispered.
“They do, and in my experience, those words mean that she wants a declaration of undying love.”
“Oh? And how many times have you given it?”
There was a tap on the door. “Alix,” Ken said, “unless you’re like your mother, I’m coming in.”
“No!” she said loudly. “I mean, I am.” She lowered her voice to Jared. “He’s referring to the fact that my mother sleeps—”
“In the nude,” Jared said as he got out of bed. “Every male on this island knows that and dreams about it.” He pulled on his jeans and picked up his other clothes off the floor.
Alix slipped on a T-shirt and went to the window. She was about to unlock it when Jared, on the other side of the bed, reached behind Captain Caleb’s portrait, unlatched something that made a click, then swung the big frame out.
Alix was aghast—mainly because the architect in her hadn’t seen that the portrait was hinged and covering an exit. It took a moment to recover from her shock, then she rolled across the bed to get to him. Behind the portrait was a doorway with a narrow, dirty staircase leading down.
“Alix?” her father said, louder this time.
“Just a minute, Dad, I’m getting dressed.” She looked back at Jared and whispered, “Is that so the Captain could sneak in and out of Valentina’s room?”
“It was put in so the maid could empty the chamber pot and nobody’d have to see her do it.” After a quick kiss, Jared started down the stairs and Alix pushed the door shut, but she didn’t lock it in case he wanted to return.
She looked up at Captain Caleb’s portrait. “The secrets you hide!”
“Alix,” her father said from the other side of the door, “I just got a call that I need to answer. Take your time getting dressed and meet me downstairs.”
Alix let out a sigh of relief that showed how tense she’d been. How in the world was she going to tell her father about her and Jared? And what would she tell him? That they were lovers and she had no idea what would happen in the future?
At that thought, she could imagine her dad’s groan, see his look of hurt, and worse, feel his disappointment. “So you’ve added yourself to the entourage of the Great Jared Montgomery,” he’d probably say.
She listened at the door and could hear her father talking quietly, then his footsteps went down the stairs. Good, she thought, as she needed time to think—and to shower. As much as she didn’t want to, she was going to have to remove all evidence of last night from her body. She wanted to savor her memories of the night, but right now she couldn’t indulge herself. Dealing with her father came first.
She spent a long time under the hot water and thinking about how she was going to present Jared to her father. “If you’ll just get to know him as a man and not by his reputation,” she’d say. Or “Maybe he can be quite arrogant in America, but—” No, that wasn’t right. She’d have to explain that remark. She’d just say “off-island.” “Off-island, he might be so arrogant that he tells clients to take what he designs or get out, but here on Nantucket …” No, that wouldn’t work either. “Arrogant” was too strong a word.
She shampooed her hair. What if she reminded her father that she was a grown woman and could make her own decisions? Great, she thought. Start off with everyone angry. Her dad would hate Jared if Alix suddenly became belligerent and demanding.
When she got out of the shower, she was no closer than she had been to figuring out how to deal with this.
“Maybe they’ll like each other,” she said aloud as she picked up the blow-dryer, but then gave a little laugh. Her gentle professor father and tuna fisherman Jared? No, that would never happen. But maybe Montgomery and her father could … But then there were all those women Jared had been seen with. No, that wouldn’t work either.
As she took her time with her hair and in dressing, she couldn’t help wondering what Jared was doing. Had he run away on his boat? Anything to escape having to face a girl’s father. But he’d seemed to be utterly unafraid, so maybe…