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Authors: Jude Deveraux

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BOOK: Ever After
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“I have no idea. I just got here last night and I slept late this morning. When I got up, I looked around a bit, then came out here to see the gym. I was just returning when Jared found me.”

“But I saw you with an older woman. You looked like friends.”

“That was Edith and we'd just met. She lives in the B&B next door, so the gate probably leads there. Her son and daughter-in-law run the place, but I think she visits here often.”

“Maybe she was a friend of Mr. Bell's and misses him.”

“Could be, but she didn't say so. Tell me exactly what your stepsister did.”

“No,” Hallie said. “I'd rather not go into that. I really would like to have a look at your knee. And from the way you're holding your shoulders, I think you're carrying a lot of tension. I'd like for you to get on the table and let me see what's going on with your body.”

“As tempting as that sounds, I'm hungry and you must be starving. Did Montgomery feed you?”

“We ate on the plane.” Hallie watched as he awkwardly stood up. It looked like she wasn't going to get him on the table today. His leg was encased in the heavy brace and she knew that the slightest movement of his knee without it would cause him intense pain.

“Let me help you,” she said.

“Gladly,” he answered. He stood on one foot while she got the crutches and helped him put them under his arms, and they began to walk back to the house.

“So tell me about your injury.”

“Skiing. Being stupid. Nothing unique.” He paused. “It's going to take me a while to remember all the things I told Shelly and that you don't know. My aunt Jilly is getting married here on Nantucket soon and Edith was telling me that my family has booked all the rooms of the B&B for that week.” He stopped on the walkway. “I have a lot of relatives and they'll be all over this place. Hordes of them. Like fire ants covering their territory.” He looked at her. “If that idea horrifies you, let me know now and I'll keep them out.”

“I don't think it will bother me, but I've never had a large family so I don't know for sure.”

“Okay, but when they get here, if at any time they're too much for you, tell me and I'll send them away.” Jamie looked around at the garden. In front of them was an enormous oak tree with an old bench under it. “What are you going to do with this place?”

“I haven't had time to think about it. When I woke up this
morning my only concern was getting some papers to my boss before he left for the weekend. It was my last assignment for him. Next week I was supposed to start a new job. Anyway, when the papers weren't in my bag, I had to go back home to get them. Minutes later I was being told I owned a house on Nantucket and soon after that I was on a private jet.” She looked up at him. “Which I believe is owned by your family.”

“True,” he said, “but not by me. My dad believes kids should pay their own way.”

Hallie knew he meant to sound like an average guy, but not many people had their own private physical therapist. And from the healthy look of him, almost anyone could have helped him. His injury wasn't unusual, and certainly not life threatening. She could see no reason for him to be isolated with a therapist. He could have stayed at home with his family and been driven to an hour-long session five times a week and he would have done well. “Why do you want to be here?” she asked. “Rehabilitation of your knee could be done anywhere. You don't have to—”

“Oh, look, Jared has already come to check on me. If you don't give me a good report, he's threatened to beat me up.”

“I'd settle for lifting you onto the massage table,” Hallie said and went forward to greet Jared and reassure him that Jamie Taggert had been a perfect gentleman.

Jared listened, glared in warning at Jamie—who smiled back at him—then left, and they went into the kitchen.

Hallie opened the refrigerator door and looked inside. It was packed full of containers of food, all carefully labeled. Fruit and salad greens were in the crisper, and the freezer was also full. “Who did this?”

“My mother sent someone to fill it.”

“I thought your mother was…gone.”

“Stepmom, then,” he said. “But she's always been my mother, so…” Trailing off, he saw the weariness in her eyes.
He led her to the old kitchen table. “You've done enough today, so you sit and I'll microwave us a meal.”

“But it's—”

“Your house and you're the boss? You can claim all the power tomorrow, but tonight I'll take care of you. What food do you like?”

“Obviously, anything.” She was referring to the extra pounds she had on her. Her plan had been that she would start a regular exercise program as soon as she was in her new job.

“What's obvious is that every ounce has gone to exactly the right places.” He gave her such a warm look that Hallie almost blushed. “Sorry, please don't tell Jared on me.”

Hallie searched for another point of conversation. “Jared told me your mother is the mystery writer Cale Anderson.”

“She is. She and my widower dad married when my brother Todd and I were just kids.” It wasn't easy for him with the crutches, but Jamie was managing to get packages out of the fridge and carry them to the counter by the sink. He was beginning to like this woman. Yes, he was
very
physically attracted to her, but there was more than that. How many people would unexpectedly inherit a house in one day yet still put her patient first? As far as he knew, she hadn't even looked at all the rooms. Instead, his welfare seemed to have been her first thought.

“What was it like, growing up with someone so famous?”

Jamie smiled. “Fame has never meant much to Mom. She writes because she likes doing it. When we were kids she used to have my brother and me act out scenes of her books so she could see how they'd work. Todd and I never thought anything about it until one day when we were in the third grade and some candy went missing. At recess we set up an interrogation room and asked some hard questions. That ended up with three kids crying in the principal's office. And later, little Chrissy McNamara stepped up onto a pile of books and gave me a bloody nose.”

“You're kidding!”

“I'm not. I was in love with her until I entered high school.”

Hallie smiled. “How much trouble did you get into?”

“After the dust settled, everyone agreed it was all Mom's fault. Dad was mad at her for an entire twenty-four hours. That may have been a record.”

“So you had to stop acting out police procedurals?”

“Not at all,” Jamie said. “Todd and I just learned to keep our mouths shut.”

Hallie laughed hard. “I can see it all. She sounds like fun.”

“She is. Dad is the disciplinarian, but Mom believes childhood should be a joy and that's how she made it.”

“How nice for you,” Hallie said, with feeling in her voice.

Jamie put a plate of sliced roast beef, two warmed vegetables, and salad in front of her. “What about you? What was your childhood like?”

“My dad sold pharmaceuticals and he traveled constantly. After my mother died, her parents moved in with us and Dad traveled even more.”

“I'm sorry,” Jamie said. “You must have missed him a great deal.”

“No, actually, we didn't. My grandparents were wonderful. We had a huge backyard and Grams and Gramps were fabulous gardeners. We grew all our own vegetables and most of the fruit. I—” She broke off, seeming to be embarrassed.

“You what?” He put his plate on the table and sat down across from her.

“I was the center of their lives. What I did, who I liked and didn't like, girlfriend fights, boys—they wanted to hear about all of it. I had slumber parties and big birthday parties. And when Dad came home we treated him like visiting royalty. We were thrilled to see him arrive and breathed a sigh of relief when he left.” She paused. “I think maybe I was the happiest child
on earth. But they moved to Florida a year after Dad married Ruby.”

“Do you see them often now?”

“They passed away before my dad died, within months of each other. I still miss them.” She took a bite of green beans. “These are good. Where did your mom get all this?”

“She's no cook, but she's great at finding where good food is sold. So where did your stepsister come in?”

Hallie waved her fork about. “That was later. Dad married Ruby when I was eleven, and she and her daughter moved into the house. We need to start on your treatment first thing tomorrow.”

“All right,” Jamie said. He could tell that she didn't want to talk about her life after her stepmother's arrival. “What exactly are you planning to do to me?”

“I have to see your injury first.” The shirt he had on was big and concealing, but it couldn't hide the muscle underneath. “You look like you know how to pick up a dumbbell.”

“Oh, yeah. That's from Dad and his brother. When they were young they competed in power-lifting matches.”

“Did you compete?”

“Never had the time,” he said.

“What took up your time?” She saw his face change, as though he was about to tell her something but decided not to.

“Would you like some cheesecake?” He had eaten three helpings of everything.

Hallie looked away to hide her expression. Rich kid, she thought. He didn't want to tell her that his time was taken up by skiing and other pleasures. So be it, she thought. She wouldn't push him to tell what he didn't want to.

She moved her nearly empty plate away and stood up. “I'm worn out and I think I'll go to my room. Will you be all right?”

“I'm fine. I swear that I can bathe and dress myself.”

There was a bit of tension in his voice, but she ignored it. She was too tired to wonder what was bothering him. She reached for her plate to take it to the sink, but he took it from her.

“I'll clean up, and I'll see you tomorrow.”

“And I'll look at your leg.” She covered her yawn. “Mmmm. Sorry. See you in the morning.” The house was so new to her that she had to think about where the stairs were. She had to go through the living room and past Jamie's narrow bed to get to the front stairs.

At the top she looked right and left. Each doorway led to a bedroom. She wished that when she first saw the rooms she had chosen which was to be hers. She stepped left, but it was almost as though she heard two female voices say, “No.”

She went to the right and felt a sense of calm, as though the old house was smiling at her. There was a pretty chorus of voices who whispered, “Hyacinth.” Maybe she should have been frightened, but it was almost as though she was being welcomed. Smiling, she thought how she needed to undress, take a shower, and find her nightclothes in her suitcase. For that matter, she needed to find her luggage.

It was still daylight out, but between the eventful day and overwhelming emotion, she was worn out. The big bed beckoned and she threw back the covers to expose crisp white sheets. The bed was high off the floor and she had to throw her leg up to get on it. She told herself that she was just going to test the mattress. Were the pillows any good?

She put her head down and was instantly asleep.

Jamie finished putting the kitchen back in order and had just sat down in the chair at his desk when his cell buzzed.

“I've been trying to get you all day!” his brother said. “Can't you carry the damned phone with you?”

“I came here to get away,” Jamie said, unperturbed by his brother's anger.

“From them, but not from
me
,” Todd said and when Jamie was silent, he backed down. “All right, do whatever you want. What's she like? Other than too beautiful to be real?”

“It's not the girl you saw in those photos,” Jamie said. “The blonde is the stepsister. Jared didn't tell me the details, but she pulled a con and tried to steal the house.”

BOOK: Ever After
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