Carolina Isle (Edenton 2)

R.J. didn’t have to buy anything. He read the script, then sent it to an L.A. agent and Lifetime TV bought it immediately. By the time the movie was ready to start filming, R.J. and Charley Dunkirk had bought most of King’s Isle, so the shooting was done there. During the filming, Sara’d been so upset when she was lowered into the cave again that R.J. had ordered she be given oxygen.

Now, in the pub, Sara raised her glass of juice. “To brilliant beginnings.”

She was referring to the way Ariel had started her script, with the story David had told her while he was in the hospital. The TV movie started with an eleven-year-old boy in a camp run by two marijuana-smoking hippies. There was no dialogue, only sixties-era music as the boy left camp and explored the island. When he saw a skinny little man with big ears slipping in and out of the rocks, David followed him. The camera showed David hiding and waiting, then when the funny-looking man left, David slipped between the rocks and saw the cave. That was before Fenny’s thirty-second birthday, so the cave was empty. The scene changed to show a young David in school, trying to come up with a story about what he did that summer. He remembered the cave and the skinny man with the big ears and wrote about it. The last scene was the story being awarded a prize and his proud mother posting the essay on the Internet.

After the opening, the credits came on and the first scene showed a spoiled, overdressed, overly made-up Ariel haughtily demanding that her sweet, overworked cousin exchange places with her. Ariel hadn’t written the script to make herself seem a snob, nor had she portrayed Sara as such a dumpling of virtue—but, as Sara said, she’d “tweaked” it. Defending herself, Sara said she’d made Ariel into a reverse Pygmalion. “You mean I went from upper class to your class?” Ariel said, making Sara laugh. Somewhere along the way she’d lost her feeling of being an outsider. She’d been welcomed with open arms in Arundel, and at last she felt she belonged somewhere.

There had been one argument, which Sara won. Right after the rescue, in a fit of giddy relief that they were safe, the cousins had laughed and cried—and told each other their stories. Ariel had told Sara about tearing apart her nightgown, then later tearing apart David’s trouser leg. Sara thought they were good scenes and had added them to the script. An argument ensued, but the scene stayed.

On the night the movie aired on TV, R.J. put up a screen the size of a barn in front of the courthouse on King’s Isle, then invited the whole town. When Ariel—played by Sara and seen from the collarbone up—tore open her nightgown and said, “I am a woman,” the cheers could be heard to Arundel. Ariel was so embarrassed she would have slid under her chair if R.J. and David hadn’t each grabbed an arm and kept her upright.

The crowd again cheered when Larry Lassiter and Eula Nezbit were hauled off in handcuffs, but when Judge Proctor was later arrested, the townspeople set off fireworks. Neither David nor R.J. knew the fireworks had been planned, so they laughed and cheered with the others.

After the Lifetime movie, R.J. announced that his own private movie studio had made a short film that he’d like to show them. Some people groaned because the barbeque was ready and a band was warming up.

Ariel and David looked at each other. Sara smiled knowingly.

What came on the huge screen was a black-and-white film that had been crafted to look like a 1930s silent movie. It even rolled a few times. With no dialogue and the movement choppy and awkward, there was Gideon being reunited with his grandparents. When R.J. had seen the beautiful, unique house the Nezbits were living in, he’d remembered seeing something like it at an art show he’d attended in New York when he was still in college. After the ordeal on King’s Isle, R.J. found the name of the architect, then contacted his parents. They said they didn’t know what had become of their son. After a breakup with his girlfriend, he’d said he wanted time alone and that he didn’t know where he was going or what he was going to do. That was the last they ever heard of him. R.J. figured that was when the young man had stayed on King’s Isle and built that house. His name was James Gideon.

No one knew what happened to him, but through DNA testing he was found to be Gideon’s father. As yet, they didn’t know who his mother was.

The film showed R.J. surrounded by books, as though deep in research. Of course the truth was it had taken him one ten-minute call to an old girlfriend to find out the name of the artist whose show they’d seen together so long ago.

The next scene was Gideon with his grandparents. He was great in front of the camera, alternately pantomiming great laughter, then huge tears. When R.J. handed Gideon a big book that said “Princeton” on it, the young man feigned more tears, then picked R.J. up. R.J. pantomimed loss of dignity so well that everyone laughed. By that time, there wasn’t a person on the island who hadn’t had some dealing with R.J. in purchase negotiations, so they knew him.

Next into the picture were the twins. R.J.’d had a big sign put on a derelict brick building that read COUNTY ORPHANAGE. A woman dressed like a Victorian matron was taking the screaming twins—who were great hams—from Sara. She was crying, pushing them away, then on her knees talking to them. The dialogue card said, “You will be fine. I’m sure they will love you very much.” Sara stood up, then cried on R.J.’s shoulder dramatically, while the twins were pulled, screaming, toward the orphanage. R.J. held Sara at arm’s length, and the dialogue card said, “No one can love them as much as we do. Let’s buy them.” When Sara kicked him in the shin, the audience howled with laughter. The card said, “Sorry. Let’s adopt them.”

The last scene was in color, a series of snapshots of Thanksgiving and Christmas. One picture was of David and Ariel with their new baby, Miss Pommy looking on in adoration. In her mind, she’d won. Another photo showed R.J. with Bertie on his shoulders, and Sara holding Beatrice. Gideon was with his grandparents at an absurdly long table, with masses of food before them. Sara, R.J., David and Ariel, and all the others were there.

The scene changed to motion and everyone at the table looked at the came

ra and raised a glass in a toast. “To King’s Isle,” they shouted.

The roar from the residents of King’s Isle was deafening. When the film ended, they got up and started dancing before the band began to play.

That was a month ago and now, R.J. and Sara, Ariel and David raised their glasses and said, “To us.”

Atria Books

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First Impressions

Jude Deveraux

Available in Hardcover from Atria Books

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First Impressions.…

Prologue

THE MOMENT HE SAW THE SMIRK ON Bill’s face, Jared knew he was going to be given a job he wouldn’t like. So what did a man have to do to finally be able to choose his own assignments? he thought for the thousandth time. Get shot? Naw, he’d done that three times. How about getting kidnapped? That had happened twice. Hey! How about being home so seldom that his wife leaves him for some other guy, a used car salesman who is now the father of their three kids? Nope. That had happened too. So how about getting too old for the field? Too late. At forty-nine, Jared felt that he’d reached that age about six years ago.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Bill said, holding his office door open for Jared to enter.

Groaning, Jared put on a pronounced limp as he hobbled toward the chair opposite Bill’s overloaded desk, WILLIAM TEASDALE on a plaque in front. Sticking his leg out stiffly in front of him, he ostentatiously rubbed his knee, as though he were in great pain.