Ever After (Nantucket Brides 3)

“Fine.”

“Don’t give me that crap! How are you?!”

Jamie took a breath. “Good. I still don’t like how you got me here, but…it’s okay.”

“Ah,” Todd said.

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means that Jared called Aunt Jilly who called Mom who called me. Seems you made a fool of yourself over your physical therapist.”

Jamie rolled his eyes. “And here I thought I got away from the family hovering over me. Yeah, when I first saw her, I did have a moment of weakness. She’s pretty and built and…I don’t know. There’s something about her that I like. She’s smart and—Stop laughing!”

“I’m not,” Todd said. “Well, maybe I am, but not in the way you think. I—”

Jamie cut him off. “She wants to start on my leg tomorrow.”

Todd lowered his voice. “How much are you going to let her know?”

“As little as I can get away with. She thinks I’m some rich playboy. I think she believes I jet around the world from one fun place to another.”

“And you’re going to let her keep thinking that, aren’t you?”

“I’m going to encourage it,” Jamie said. “It’ll be a relief not to have to deal with pity. I gotta go. I need sleep.”

“Take your pills,” Todd said.

“I won’t forget. Do me a favor, will you? Call Mom and tell her to back off for a few days. Tell her I’m all grown up and can feed myself. I’m worried she’ll helicopter in baskets of groceries.”

“Then you’re planning on leaving the grounds to get food?” There was hope in Todd’s voice.

“Not yet!” Jamie snapped. “And stay off my back about it! Understand?!”

“I hear you,” Todd said softly. “So go to bed and I’ll deal with Mom. And Jamie…I, uh…”

“Yeah, me too,” he said, then clicked off.

Hallie awoke abruptly. The inside of her mouth was fuzzy and she had that swollen feeling of having slept in her clothes.

She turned on the bedside light and looked at her watch. It was just after two A.M. She got up, went to the bathroom, and rinsed her mouth. The first thing she was going to do in daylight was find her bags and unpack them.

As she was walking toward the bed, she heard what sounded like a moan. “Oh, great,” she mumbled. “More evidence that I’ve inherited a haunted house. Maybe I should give it to Shelly. I’d like to see how they would deal with her!”

With a yawn, she started to unfasten her jeans so she wouldn’t have to spend the rest of the night in them. But then she heard the sound again, only this time it was louder.

It’s him, she thought and ran toward the stairs. By the time she got down to his room, she could hear him making noises, sounding as though he were trying to escape from someone. There was a nightlight, the kind used for children, on the desk and in front of it was an orange plastic pill bottle. From the time she could read she’d helped her father with the drugs he sold. By the time she was in high school, she was reading the brochures about the latest medicines and paraphrasing them for her dad so he could sell them.

When Hallie read the prescription label, she knew it was a very strong sleep aid. If he’d taken two of these, a tractor could run over him and he wouldn’t wake up.

She looked at Jamie on the bed. He was rolling his head from side to side and his body was beginning to move. The bed was narrow and he was big. All it would take was one toss to the side and he’d be on the floor. Even though he had on his leg brace, a hard impact could re-injure him.

She went to his head and began to massage his temples. “Ssssh. Be quiet. Everything is all right,” she said softly, soothingly.

He calmed a bit, but the moment she took her hands away he began to turn in the bed.

“No, no,” she said. “Don’t do that.”

When he kept moving, she went to his side and made an attempt to hold him on the bed. She had to plant her feet firmly on the floor and push against his chest with both her hands. It worked and he didn’t fall out of bed. He rolled onto his back, and for a moment he was so calm that Hallie moved toward the door.