True Love (33 page)

Alix wanted to ask him what was going on, but she was too cold to think clearly, and her mind was on Izzy’s wedding. What were they going to do now? Of course they’d rebuild, replant, and drape cut roses everywhere. It could be done. She ran up the stairs to her bathroom—
their
bathroom, she thought—and began filling the tub.

Chapter Seventeen

J
ared went straight to the stairs that led up to the attic. He knew from experience that his grandfather was strongest at the top of the house. The large attic room was packed with trunks and boxes and old furniture, some of them containing items that had been owned by his grandfather. These earthly connections, here and in the front parlor, made Caleb more visible.

Jared also knew that his anger would draw his grandfather to him. Sure enough, when he opened the door to the attic and pulled the string to the overhead lightbulb, there his grandfather stood, hands clasped behind his back, fully ready for the coming argument.

“You did it, didn’t you?” Jared said, his jaw clenched. “You made the arbor collapse.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Don’t evade my question,” Jared snapped.

“I thought you had perfected question-evading.”

Jared glared at him, but then his face changed. All his life he’d seen the shadowy figure of his grandfather. One of his earliest memories was of seeing him bending over his childhood crib and smiling. Jared had never thought it was strange that he could see through the man. It was years before he realized that semitransparent men weren’t part of other people’s lives.

But right now he couldn’t see through his grandfather. At least not totally. He was clearer than Jared had ever seen him before. “What’s going on?” The anger was gone from his voice.

“What do you mean?”

Jared knew his grandfather understood him, but he motioned his hand up and down his body. “Why do you look like that?”

Caleb took his time in answering. “On the twenty-third of June I’m going to leave this earth.”

It took Jared a moment to understand what his grandfather was saying. “Leave?” he whispered. “As in die?” For all that Jared often made cracks about his grandfather finally leaving the earth, he couldn’t imagine a life without him. “I … I …” Jared began but couldn’t go on.

“You’ll be all right,” Caleb said gently. “You have a family now.”

“Of course I’ll be okay.” Jared was doing his best to recover from the shock. “And you’ll be … be happier.”

“Depends on where they send me.” Caleb’s eyes were twinkling.

Jared didn’t smile. “Why on Izzy’s wedding date?” Jared’s head came up. “Or did you make her set it then?”

“Yes, I did. I seem to be able to do more … things than I could. And I know considerably more. Something is going to happen. It’s …” He trailed off.

“What?!” Jared half yelled.

“I don’t know. It’s just that I can feel things changing. Every day I get stronger.” He held out his hand. “I can see my own body. Yesterday I saw myself in a mirror. I’d forgotten how handsome I am.”

Jared still didn’t smile. “
What
is going to happen?”

“I told you that I don’t know, but I feel … a sense of anticipation. I just know that my life … your life … the lives of
all
of us are going to change soon. You need to tell Alix what you and Ken have been plotting. You
can
build it in time for the wedding.”

“I’m not sure,” Jared said. “There’s not enough time.”

“You need to do it!” Caleb said, his voice adamant, fierce. “You know where her chapel goes, don’t you?”

“On the old house site.”

“Yes, you have it right.” Caleb listened. “Alix has the bathtub full. Go to her.” Caleb’s body was beginning to fade away. Not disappear in an instant as usual, but more like the sun beginning to set. “You need to find—”

“I know!” Jared said impatiently. “I’m supposed to find out what happened to Valentina.”

Caleb’s body was little more than a shadow. “I think that before you can find her, you should look for Parthenia.” He was gone.

Jared stood there a moment staring into the dim length of the attic. “Who the hell is Parthenia?” he muttered.

Shaking his head, he pulled the light string and went down the stairs. When he got to the bathroom, Alix was already in a tub full of hot water, six-inch-deep bubbles across the surface, her head just peeping above. She gave Jared a smile of invitation, but when he didn’t seem to notice, she sat up straighter in the tub. “What happened?”

Distracted, Jared removed his cold, wet clothing and put a leg into the water. “Damn! But this water is hot.”

“I think you need it. You’re white as a glacier.” As soon as he was in the tub she moved between his legs, her back to his front. “Tell me what’s bothering you. And don’t even think of saying that nothing is.”

Jared took a while before he spoke. Even though his life had been one of secrets and keeping things to himself, right now he wanted to tell Alix what his grandfather had told him. On Izzy’s wedding day,
Captain Caleb Jared Kingsley, who’d died over two hundred years ago, was at last departing this earth. It would
not
be a joyous day for Jared.

He couldn’t tell Alix that. But what he could tell her was what he and her father had been secretly working on for the last two weeks.

“I think we can build your chapel,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“Ken and I’ve been working on this in secret and he should get building approval very soon. It hasn’t been easy.”

Alix was silent as she listened to Jared tell what they had accomplished. Her father had taken measurements from Alix’s sketches and her model, and he’d spent an all-nighter drawing a floor plan and elevations.

“Then he sent them to New York to be made into blueprints. Stanley rushed it all through.”

“Your assistant,” Alix said.

“Sometimes I think Stanley is the boss.”

She turned to look up at him. “Now, why do I doubt that?”

He kissed her and she turned back around. Her heart was pounding. She was going to see one of her own designs built? She couldn’t really believe it.

“Of course Ken knew we had to make two designs.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Committees
never
accept the original proposal, so the first time around your dad turned in a caricature of your design, and with Dilys’s help—”

“What does she have to do with this?”

“She’s on the board. My name can’t be on the plan because she’s my cousin, but she and Ken aren’t related, even if they once were …”

“Were what?” Alix asked, then held up her hand. “Don’t tell me. I can guess. So what did she do?”

“Raised a ruckus, said the plan was horrible, and threw it out. Then the next week Ken put on his meek face and presented the real one. Dilys led the group in saying the new one was much better.”

“And it passed?” She held her breath.

“Yes, but to get it through so fast there are strings attached.”

“Oh,” Alix said, deflated.

“It’s to be an accessory building, meaning that it has no kitchen or bath, no plumbing at all. It can’t be seen from any public road or path but that’s not a problem. Later we can …” He trailed off. He’d been about to say that later they could build a house there. A rental maybe. Or … He hardly let himself think this, but maybe it would be a house for the Eighth and his family to live in.

“Where exactly on the land would it be built?”

“On the old house site,” Jared said quickly.

“You think that’s a good idea? It might be like building on a Native American burial ground.”

Jared thought that was probably exactly why his grandfather wanted it built there, but he didn’t say so. When they started digging, he’d make sure Alix wasn’t there. If his guess was right, they might find a centuries-old body there, and he didn’t want Alix seeing it. “Maybe we’ll find some artifacts and donate them to the NHS.”

The only word Alix heard of that was “we.” “Do you actually think this could be done in time for the wedding? That Izzy could get married in a chapel?”

“In
your
building?” Jared said. He was finally beginning to recover from what his grandfather had told him, but it did cross his mind that Caleb was leaving the earth because Jared had found Alix.

He kissed her cheek as his hands began to move over her body. “Excited?”

“Of course.”

He took her shoulders and turned her to face him. “How do you feel about your own creation going from paper to something you can see and feel? That you can walk inside of? Be surrounded by?”

“It feels … wonderful!” she said, her head back. She turned to put her legs around his waist. “It feels like I’ve climbed the highest mountain, leaped toward the stars, that I’ve gone from the moon to the sun. It’s like I’m tripping across rays of sunshine.”

“Speaking of mountains …” Jared said as he kissed her neck and set her down before him, letting her feel how much he desired her. “I’ll go off-island.” He kissed her throat. “And get the materials and bring them back in a truck.”

“What kind of bricks will you get?” she whispered.

“Handmade.”

“Oooooh,” she said. “You certainly do know how to turn a girl on.”

His lips went lower. “I know a blacksmith in Vermont who can make door hinges like the ones you drew. Celtic meets thirteenth-century Scotland.”

“You’re driving me mad with desire. What else?”

“A bell.”

She pulled away to look at him. “A bell?” she whispered.

“Hand-cast. I have a warehouse full of things I’ve collected. I always knew that someday I’d need a bell.” He was kissing her breasts.

“The door!” she whispered urgently. “What about the door?”

“Seasoned oak. Three inches thick.”

“I can’t stand any more. Take me. I’m yours.”

His hands began exploring her body, the smoothness of the soapy water making each touch a caress. He roamed over her thighs, always moving upward, his hands going to the center of her. Alix put her head back, her neck on his shoulder, and his lips touched her cheek.

“You are beautiful,” he whispered. “All pale, golden skin. Sometimes, I feel as though I’ve known you forever.”

Alix liked his words, but she sensed that there was more involved in his words. For the first time, she felt that the great and powerful Montgomery
needed
her. Turning, she put her arms around his neck, her bare chest against his. “I’m here,” she said as she kissed his chin. “I’m not planning to leave.” She kissed his mouth, her tongue just touching his lower lip. “Soft and succulent,” she whispered.

He pulled away from her. “What did you say?”

“Luscious and firm.” She pulled his lower lip between her teeth.
“Beguiling, enticing, calling to me.” She ran her tongue over his whiskers, feeling the stiff prickles of them. “A Siren’s song, Pied Piper’s flute.” She kissed his mouth, then moved her lips to his lower one. “I dream of it asleep, awake. To touch it, caress it, kiss it.” She put her lips to his. “The tip of my tongue,” she whispered and followed the words with action. “Breaths mingling.” For a moment she opened her mouth under his, then pulled his lip into the warm cavity of her mouth. “To draw it in, to caress it, to feel it against my own. Ah,” she said in a throaty whisper. “Jared’s lower lip.”

When he looked at her, his eyes were dark with lust. That blue fire she’d come to love. In the next second he stood up in the tub, lifting her with him, his arm tight around her as he took her out of the tub and carried her into the bedroom. He stood over her, nude, and looked down at her warm, wet body, and the smile he gave her made her grow even warmer.

“There are parts of your body that I especially like too,” he said as he stretched out beside her.

“Such as?” she asked as he began kissing her neck, his hand at her waist.

“I’m better with action than words.”

“Are you?” she whispered. “Then perhaps you should show me.”

“I would love to.” He began to move down her body, his mouth following his hands.

Chapter Eighteen

“Y
ou’re sure you’ll be all right without me?” Jared asked Alix for what had to be the twelfth time. It was seven
A.M.
on a Wednesday and they were at Downyflake awaiting their breakfast. The very pretty Linda had waited on them and the always cheerful Rosie had stopped by to chat. It was the fifth or sixth time they’d been to the restaurant and Alix had run into a few acquaintances that Jared didn’t know. Knowing people separately from him made her feel like she was beginning to belong on the island.