True Love (24 page)

Jared dropped his shoulders, which he’d unconsciously raised to protect himself against her onslaught of questions. He gave her a dazzling smile. “It’s a new purchase, only been in my family for about seventy-five years.”

“Downright modern,” she said and they smiled at each other. He talked of the history of the house until they got back to Kingsley House, where he parked the old truck. They walked toward Main Street to Lexie’s.

Alix couldn’t help feeling nervous. What if the three women didn’t like one another?

Walking beside her, Jared must have picked up on her thoughts. “Anybody gives you any problems, let me know.”

She smiled at him in gratitude.

Chapter Twelve

“T
hey’re coming up the walk now,” Lexie said as she peeked out through the dining room windows.

Toby was making sandwiches for their guests. She and Lexie had been up early to start cooking for tomorrow’s picnic, so they’d already eaten. When Jared had sent his text that he and Alix were on their way, the two women had dropped everything and scurried to prepare.

“They look good together,” Lexie said. “She’s tall enough for him and he’s always liked red hair. I can see Victoria in her face, but she’s built like Ken.”

“Remember!” Toby said.

“I know. Don’t mention Ken. I think I’ll call him and tell him how annoying keeping this secret is. Better yet, I’ll let
you
call him.”

Toby smiled. Lexie could sometimes be rather abrupt. “What’s taking them so long?”

“Jared is hovering over her like he’s afraid someone’s going to run up and snatch her away. Now he’s pointing at the house and talking. I hope he’s not boring her with words like ‘crossbeams’ and ‘angles’ and … and whatever else he goes on and on about.”

“Alix is a student of architecture so maybe she likes that,” Toby said as she put her homemade sliced pickles on the sandwiches. She didn’t really know what either of them liked to eat so she put some of all of it on the bread.

“I’d feel better if he were telling her about her eyes,” Lexie said.

“That they’re like liquid pools of moonlight?” Toby suggested.

“Perfect!” Lexie said. “Uh-oh. She’s frowning. Please, I hope he’s not telling her about those little beetles that eat the wood. That’s a death knell to romance.”

Toby put the plated sandwiches on the dining table. “Why are you so determined to match Jared up with this young woman?”

“He needs someone,” Lexie said. “Jared has had too many deaths around him. Aunt Addy was the only constant he had left, and now she’s gone.”

“There’s you and all his other relatives, and he’s friends with most of the island,” Toby said.

Lexie let the curtain fall back into place. “But he’s split in half. Part of him lives in America and part of him is here. Did I ever tell you that I met one of his girlfriends in New York?”

“No,” Toby said. “What was she like?”

“Tall, thin, beautiful, intelligent.”

“That sounds wonderful.”

“I couldn’t see her on a Nantucket fishing boat and I certainly couldn’t imagine her in an old house with that green stove. What would she do if Jared Kingsley slapped down twenty striped bass and told her to clean them?”

Toby sighed. “Fall in love with an elegant Montgomery and find
yourself married to a sea-salt Kingsley. It wouldn’t be fair to either of them.”

“And then there’s Jared’s work habits. I can’t tell you how many times Ken or Aunt Addy sent me upstairs to wake him up and I found him in bed surrounded by a dozen rolled-up drawings.”

“Rather like Alix on the couch?” Toby asked.

“Exactly like that.” The two women smiled at each other. “What I want to know,” Lexie said as she walked to the front door, “is how Alix feels about him.”

“Let’s see if we can find out,” Toby said.

Lexie opened the front door.

Alix took the seat that Lexie pointed to at the beautiful old dining table. Jared was next to her while the two young women sat across from them.

When Lexie and Jared started talking about things Alix had never heard of, she looked at her sandwich. It had Swiss cheese on it, something she’d never liked. Dry old stuff. And when she tasted a bit of turkey, it was smoked, another thing she didn’t like.

While Lexie, Toby, and Jared talked, Alix pulled his plate next to hers and fixed the two sandwiches. She gave him the cheese and the smoked turkey, which she knew he loved, and she took his pickles and cheddar cheese. She took the olives off his plate and gave him her chips.

When the sandwich fillings and condiments were properly distributed, she cut each one diagonally and gave him back his plate. She switched drinks so she had the lemonade and he had the iced tea.

When Alix looked up, both Toby and Lexie were staring at her in silence.

“Sorry,” she said. “I missed what you were saying.”

“Nothing of interest,” Jared said as he looked at Toby. “You have any hot mustard? Alix likes that.”

“We do.” Toby got up to retrieve it from the kitchen.

Lexie was looking at Alix with great intensity. The resemblance between Jared and his cousin was evident: the strong jawline, the eyes that seemed to see through a person. Alix decided she wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of Lexie’s temper—something she was sure the woman had.

As for Toby, she wasn’t at all as Alix had imagined. From what Jared had said, Alix had envisioned some hippie earth mother in handwoven cotton and sandals made out of old tires. But Toby was quietly elegant, very pretty but in an old-fashioned way, rather like a medieval painting of a Madonna. She wore a lovely dress that Alix thought might have come from the same store where Izzy had shopped.

“Zero Main?” Alix asked, naming the shop.

“Yes,” Toby said, smiling. “My father visits me every few months, takes me there, and the owner, Noël, dresses me. Isn’t that one of her tops you have on?”

“Yes, it is,” Alix said.

“If you ladies are going to talk about Petticoat Row, I think it’s time for me to go,” Jared said.

Alix looked at him to explain that term, but Lexie answered. “When the men were at sea, the women ran the island, and where their shops were was called Petticoat Row.”

“Still is,” Jared said as he stood up.

“That’s because the women did such a fabulous job of running everything, and still do.” Lexie looked up at him. “I want you to check the heater in the greenhouse, and there are rats burrowing under a couple of the flower beds.”

“Rats?” Alix asked.

Jared looked at her. “Thanks to our illustrious ancestors’ world travels, we have an extraordinary variety of rats on the island.”

They were all looking at Alix to see how she’d take this. Would she cringe and squeal in distaste?

“A rodent Galapagos,” she said.

“Right.” Jared smiled at her so warmly that Alix blushed. “Okay,” he said, “I’ll leave you girls to it. It smells good in here. Alix is a great cook and she has a wedding to plan and …”

Lexie and Toby were gazing at him in curiosity.

He looked down at Alix. “If you need anything, let me know.”

Alix stood up. “I will. You’ll be outside?”

“Yes, but after I fix the heater and wire out the rats, I’ll go home.”

“Big or little house?”

“Your choice,” he said.

“Big. I’ll wrap the last two fish in rosemary. I saw some growing in the back. Maybe you could put a couple of potatoes in the oven. Two fifty. Slow bake.”

“Okay.”

They stood there looking at each other, neither of them seeming to want to move.

Lexie and Toby sat across from them, watching Jared and Alix just standing there, gazing into each other’s eyes and saying nothing. They didn’t seem to know how to separate.

Shaking her head in disbelief, Lexie stood and threw up her hands. “I think I’m going to be sick. Jared! Go fix the heater. Alix! Go to the kitchen and help Toby stuff some mushrooms or whatever.”

Jared looked away from Alix to give his cousin a half grin. “And what are you going to do, Miss Dictator?”

“Pop over to the church to give thanks that
I
am still sane.”

“What does that mean?” Jared asked.

Still shaking her head at him, Lexie went around the table, reached up to put her hands on his shoulders, and shoved him through the kitchen to the back door. “Go outside. Breathe. I promise that Toby and I won’t hurt her.”

“Really, Lexie!” Jared said. “This is—” He cut off because she shut the door in his face.

Lexie went back through the pretty little sitting room into the kitchen, where Toby was at the counter. Alix was standing in the doorway looking like she wanted to run away.

“Lexie,” Toby said softly, “why don’t you walk down to Grand Union and get us some limes?”

Lexie grinned. “Want to get rid of me?”

“Yes,” Toby said.

Laughing, Lexie left the room and they heard the front door close behind her.

“Sorry for that,” Toby said. “Would you like to sit down?” The kitchen was a long galley type but on one wall a part of the counter had a couple of stools.

“I apologize if Jared and I were …” Alix didn’t know what to say. “He’s the only person I know on Nantucket and we’ve spent most of the time I’ve been here together. Well, not together-together, but …”

“You know how to zest citrus?” Toby asked.

“I’m not as good a cook as Jared said I was, but I can do that.”

Toby nodded to a bowl full of lemons, limes, and oranges. “I need a quarter cup of each one.” She held out the little multi-holed zester.

Alix was glad to get away from the topic of her and Jared.

“What do you think of Nantucket?” Toby asked.

“So far, it’s great.” Alix began to tell of her impressions. The word “beauty” was second only to the word “Jared.” What Alix saw was beautiful. All her other senses were covered by Jared. What he said, did, thought, were all part of Alix’s talk.

“Are you still going out with Wes tomorrow?” Toby asked.

“Why wouldn’t I?” Alix asked.

“I thought maybe you and Jared were becoming …” Toby trailed off. She knew about Ken’s hands-off order to Jared, but she wanted to know if they were overcoming that restriction.

“Oh,” Alix said. “You think Jared and I are on our way to being a couple. We’re not. I hope we’re friends, but we’re certainly work colleagues who are becoming friends.”

Toby looked at Alix in disbelief.

“No, really,” Alix said. “I think he and I gave the wrong impression.”

“But you’ve been spending so much time together. The whole island is asking what’s going on.”

“That’s not good,” Alix said. “Jared and I just work together. That’s all.”

“And the sandwiches?”

“What do you mean?” Alix asked.

“Switching food that each of you likes.”

“We’ve been working on plans, so we eat together and we’ve learned about each other.”

“But …?” Toby’s eyes were wide.

“Okay, I’ll be honest. At first I was interested in him in that way.” Her poem came to mind. “But he clearly let me know that nothing like that was going to happen. I admit that it hurt at first, but I’m okay now. And between you and me, I’m looking forward to going out with Wes. I could stand a little touchy-feely action. I’d like to remember that I’m a girl.” Alix took a breath, hoping her lie sounded convincing. She did
not
want to go on a date with another man. “Could we talk about something besides me?”

“Of course,” Toby said. “I didn’t mean to pry. It’s just that we’ve never seen Jared so interested in anyone before.”

Alix had no idea what to reply to that, so she changed the subject. “I told my friend Izzy that I’d help her set up her wedding here on Nantucket, but I don’t know where to begin. Jared said you would know what to do.”

Toby understood that Alix was politely asking her to back off. “Do you have a date set for the wedding?”

“I did, but I’m sure it’s going to change.” Alix didn’t explain why. For right now she wanted to keep Izzy’s pregnancy private. With a bit of a jolt she realized that “private” now seemed to include Jared.

Toby continued. “The first thing you need to do after you have the date is to get the colors your bride wants. Everything revolves
around her colors. If she wants any special flowers I’ll need to know well in advance so we can get them flown in.”