For All Time (Nantucket Brides 2)

On that first day after the dinner party, he’d waited for Toby to wake up. He imagined how she’d slide into his arms and … well, she’d tell him she loved him.

But she stayed in bed so late that Graydon went out with Daire to work off excess energy. While he was outside sweating, Toby got up and ran off with Alix. Not that she’d left a note for Graydon, but his aunt Jilly stopped by and told him where Toby was.

“Everyone is worried about her,” Jilly said. “They think she’s too close to you and that when you leave she’ll be crushed.”

Graydon opened his mouth to defend himself, but how could he? Would he tell the story of how he’d been back in time with Toby? Admit that those were the happiest hours of his life? That he wanted to stay in a time when the barber was the dentist? When so-called doctors bled sick patients to get rid of “ill humors”?

But he knew he’d go back in a minute. Without a second thought—and his vehemence scared him. Before he met Toby, he would have said he was a happy man. He had everything anyone could want. But now … Now he was becoming more dissatisfied with his life, his future, by the hour.

That first day after their night together, he’d waited impatiently for Toby to return. He’d tried to keep his mind on the business of Lanconia, but he couldn’t do it. At one point Rory bawled him out, saying he didn’t seem to remember what it was like to work 24/7. “You get the vacation and I get the work,” he said, and hung up.

Usually, his brother’s anger would have upset Graydon. He would have called him back, apologized, and put his mind fully on the needs of his country. But he didn’t do that. Instead, he’d gone outside to water the greenhouse and the flower beds. His mind was full of Toby—of when she would return and what they would do about what had happened to them. About their night together.

All that day he went over and over every second of their time together. He thought of every moment, every word, every touch.

By the time Toby returned, Graydon was frantic with worry. He planned to politely ask her to go upstairs with him so they could talk in private.

But that’s not what happened. Instead, when he saw her, all courtesy, all reserve, fell away and he grabbed her in his arms. It seemed to be months since he’d touched her and he couldn’t get enough. He didn’t know what he would have done if Daire hadn’t dropped a pile of books onto the hard floor. The resulting boom had startled him enough to let up on his grip of Toby.

Graydon had stepped back to look at the faces of everyone. Lorcan was shocked, Daire was disgusted, and Toby wa

s looking at him as though she’d never seen him before. That was when he realized that she remembered nothing of their time together.

In the following week he’d done everything he could to make her remember. He’d searched the Internet until he found music such as he’d heard that night. He cooked food like he’d eaten, then retold the story of Tabby and Silas Osborne and said how much better it would have been if she’d married Garrett Kingsley. He recited bits of dialogue. He sketched people and scenes, including the wedding ceremony, and showed them to Toby. He’d even asked her to walk to the same church with him, but the sight of it brought back no memories. Nor did a visit to Kingsley House. The only obstacle he encountered was when he tried to get her to go inside BEYOND TIME with him. She refused to step a foot inside.

But it didn’t matter because she remembered nothing. She looked at, listened to, tasted all that he offered, but nothing jogged her memory.

By the end of the week, Graydon began to think that it had indeed been a dream.

By the weekend, he was beginning to settle down and he could joke with Toby about all that Victoria was giving her to do.

On Saturday afternoon Jared stopped by to tell them he and Alix were leaving, but Graydon was the only one home. Daire, Lorcan, and Toby had gone on a sailing tour around the island. Daire had never been on a boat before, and the women had teased him about whether a whale would come up under the boat and turn it over. “I hear they swallow people,” Toby said, straight-faced. “It’s their revenge for all that harpooning.”

Lorcan had been on a boat only once before but she joined Toby in the teasing. Graydon had to remain behind because some American businessmen wanted to talk about possibly opening a shoe factory in Lanconia. Graydon had done all the preliminary work with them and had to be there to answer their questions, through Rory, about water, materials, and labor.

Jared’s knock came just as Graydon had finished the fourth call with his brother, and it was a welcome relief. “Alix and I have to get back to New York,” Jared said, “and I wanted to see if everything here was all right.” He was looking Graydon up and down, as though he was trying to figure out what he was still doing in Nantucket and if he was intentionally trying to break Toby’s heart.

Graydon offered Jared a beer, and they took the drinks outside. “How are you and Toby doing?” Jared asked bluntly.

“Great. I’m in love with her but she thinks I’m the best girlfriend she’s ever had. She asks me about wedding dress designs and whether I like yellow roses or pink ones better. I’ve kissed her but she tells me to behave myself.”

“Yeah?” Jared asked and his face began to relax a bit.

“When we leave I think all three of us Lanconians are going to be crying, but Toby will be glad to get her house back.”

Smiling, Jared drank from his beer.

Graydon knew that what he was saying wasn’t fully the truth, but it wasn’t exactly a lie either. Maybe he was just voicing what he’d been feeling in the last few days.

“You leave when?” Jared asked.

Graydon winced at his cousin’s tone. He wasn’t used to people trying to get rid of him. “Week and a half,” he said.

Jared didn’t say “Good,” but his eyes did.

As they went back into the house, Graydon suddenly remembered talking to young Alix—Ali—about her house designs. “Is there a portrait in your house of a young woman, about twenty-three, possibly in a large, heavy frame?”

“Yeah, there is. It’s one of the pictures in the attic. My grandfather wanted it hung downstairs, but all the women said the frame was big and ugly so it stayed hidden away. How do you know about it?”