Ever After (Nantucket Brides 3)

As soon as she clicked off, she called Jamie. “I’m coming home tomorrow.”

All he could say was a heartfelt “Yes!”

As she flew back to Nantucket, she knew she was leaving behind a lifetime of anger and resentment. She didn’t think she and Shelly would ever be true friends but neither would there be deep hatred. There would be shared holidays and exchanges of triumphs and failures. Somehow, they would manage to leave the past behind.

That night, as she lay in bed with Jamie, she told him everything she was feeling.

“It’s all normal in families,” he said.

As winter approached, Hallie and Jamie began talking about their futures. They’d made no decisions about where to live or if Jamie could go back to medicine or how Hallie was going to work. Should she set up a private clinic? Work for a hospital? It was growing colder on the island and they knew that many stores and services would soon be closing. There wouldn’t be a lot of work for Hallie.

One night they were sitting on the bed, each with a computer on their lap. “Holy—” Jamie said, his eyes wide.

Hallie looked at him. “What is it?”

He turned his laptop to face her. On the screen was a photo of a house with a deep porch and a glassed-in room.

“Is it the one from your dream?”

“Yes,” Jamie said and they exchanged looks. “It’s exactly the one I imagined.”

Without saying anything, they both knew who was behind this. After months in the house, they no longer commented on what the Tea Ladies did. They’d had Caleb and Victoria Huntley to dinner twice and Caleb had talked about the ladies as if he’d known them personally. When Jamie and Hallie spent a long weekend in Colorado with his family, Caleb had asked if he could house-sit. Later he said he’d had a lovely visit with the ladies.

By that time Hallie and Jamie were so used to things being moved, needlework that finished itself, doors that opened and closed by themselves, that they didn’t question a mere conversation.

Leland had visited once and Hallie had loved getting to know him better. When Leland showed up, he had a box of information about what happened to his ancestor after he’d been made to leave Nantucket. It was the story of a man with a broken heart that never fully healed.

The three of them spread all the documents out on the tables in the tea room, turned out the lights, and left them there. The next morning everything had been neatly stacked on one table, but a photo of a portrait of Leland as an old man was missing. There was a card beside the papers. In pretty, old-fashioned handwriting, it said

THANK YOU,

JULIANA HARTLEY

Jamie and Hallie thought the card was very sweet, but Leland said, “I need a drink.”

For the rest of his visit, Hallie and Jamie refrained from mentioning the resident ghosts.

Hallie looked at the picture of the house on the computer screen. “I like it. What does Uncle Kit say about it?”

Jamie read the email. “He’s bought a big old house for himself in a small town in Virginia. He says that when he saw this house—and it’s for sale—he thought of you and me.”

He read more of the email. “Ah. Here it is. I knew Uncle Kit had an ulterior motive. He says the town has only one doctor. It did have two, a father and son, but last year the father died. Now the son is having to work long hours on his own and he needs help.”

He looked at Hallie. “Uncle Kit says this town is near a big lake with many houses on it. According to him, there are lots of injuries to people who sit all winter, then in the summer think they’re still teenagers. He says a physical therapy clinic would do well there.”

Jamie’s eyes were intense. “What do you think?”

“I like the idea very much,” she said. “What about you? Think you’re ready to be a doctor again?”

“I think maybe I’m ready to try. Part-time, anyway.” Pausing, he looked at her. “If you’ll be there to help me, that is.”

“Yes,” she answered, her eyes serious. “I will go with you wherever you want to go. Or stay here with you.”

For a moment they looked at each other, then their computers were pushed aside, and they were in each other’s arms.

They knew that wherever they went, whatever they did, they wanted to do it together.