True Love (58 page)

Authors: Jude Deveraux

Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #General, #Contemporary, #Paranormal, #Contemporary Women

BOOK: True Love

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“Speaking of which, does Victoria know the truth about you?” Jared asked. For all of his grandfather’s complaints, Dr. Huntley’s body was looking a great deal healthier than it had a few weeks ago.

“She pretends to know nothing, but she’s always been one to keep secrets to herself.”

“Like how she knew about the wedding?” Jared’s head came up. “Did you know she knew about that? Or did you tell her?”

“I may have helped, but it wasn’t difficult to guess what she was up to.”

“I certainly didn’t see it!”

“You weren’t meant to, but that doesn’t make you less of a man.
Valentina has often put me in places I didn’t want to be.” He smiled. “Now it’s time for you to go to your wife. And need I tell you that I want grandbabies right away?”

“I’ll give it my best effort,” Jared said as he got up to leave. He started to say more, but didn’t. He wanted to know how his grandfather was doing at his job, and more about how he was adjusting to being alive again. He had thousands of questions and he planned to get to them all, but not now. “I’m glad you came home,” Jared said.

“So am I,” Caleb answered.

Jared paused at the door. “Tell me, now that you have Valentina back, was she worth a wait of two hundred and two years?”

Caleb smiled. “You waited thirty-six years for Alix. How much longer would you have gone?”

He didn’t hesitate. “Forever.”

“Yes,” Caleb said. “You will wait for True Love forever.”

TO SEA FOREVER

Acknowledgments

S
pending time on the island of Nantucket has been an experience like none other, and I’d like to thank a lot of people.

Betsey Tyler has written books on the individual histories of houses on Nantucket, books I greatly admire. As fellow historians, she and I hit it off at our first meeting and she lent me a book that was very helpful.

Nat Philbrick answered my questions about research and inspired me with his great books. I am in awe of his research! His wife, Melissa, talked to me about weddings and what’s happening on Nantucket. They are both delightful company!

Nancy, a.k.a. Nancy Thayer, and Charley Walters. They drove me around the island, took me to Daffy Day, and put on the most
wonderful dinner parties at their beautiful old house so I could meet people. It was kind and generous of them.

Twig Perkins and all his gorgeous, intelligent, funny (GIF) men. Twig answered all my many questions about the HDC and building permits, and gave me some insider hints. Plus he and his GIF men did a fabulous job of remodeling for me—even though each man made me prove myself to him. Twig stood back and laughed at it all. Oh, the joy of hearing, “She’s right.”

Twig’s wife, Jude, and I met while I was on a garden tour. She has chickens and a fabulous house. Our names being the same has caused great hilarity.

Julie Hensler for architecture. Julie was in her glorious garden digging up flowers and I interrogated her about becoming an architect. I thought I knew everything, but I asked her just to be sure. After I found out that I knew nothing about the schooling needed, she took me on a tour of a Harvard classroom.

Dave Hitchcock (one of Twig’s GIF men) for helping me with the fishing and showing me his beehives. And for shortening all the furniture in my office so it fit a normal-size person.

Jimmy Jaksic let me tag along to one of the weddings he was putting on. I kept asking everyone if they knew of a wedding planner I could interview, but no one did. Then one day I was in my side yard and said hello to my neighbor. We started chatting and I found out Jimmy was a wedding planner. I almost jumped over the fence to start asking him questions.

Tricia Patterson takes care of my hair and entertains me with stories of what’s going on around the island. So far, I haven’t found a book she hasn’t read.

Jose Partida and his men (also GIF) of Clean Cut Landscaping took on the horrendous job of bulldozing my little half acre and putting in a beautiful garden. They helped me fight the War of the Deer (we lost) and Jose was always dragging me away from my pages and telling me I work too much.

Georgen Charnes for supplying me with lots of books for the
research of the glorious island of Nantucket, and for sending me maps and journals. Scott Charnes for taking me out on his boat. Cassie for being her perfect self.

Zero Main is real and the clothes are wonderful! Noël lets me stand in a dressing room, brings me lots of clothes to try on, and tells me what looks good.

Downyflake. I don’t know what I’d do without Downyflake. I sit there and write while they serve me and it’s wonderful! Some of my best ideas have come to me while eating my eggs and cranberry muffin. And the excellent staff entertains me with stories of what’s happening on the island.

John Ekizian, my publicist. John runs the Facebook pages, but more than that, he makes me laugh. He is the absolute king of one-liners. He’s made me laugh so hard my stomach muscles get sore.

Linda Marrow, my dear, beloved editor who has the magic ability to instantly see what’s wrong with something and how to fix it. Her comments are short and to the point and exactly on the spot. She has a true talent!

By the way, the real name of the historical society in Nantucket is NHA, Nantucket Historical Association. I changed it to NHS because I didn’t want to offend anyone by putting a former ghost in as the director.

I would especially like to thank my Facebook buddies. I was dragged into the social media world kicking and screaming. I did
not
want to do it! I only agreed when I was told that I could tell about my daily experiences in trying to write a novel. I wouldn’t have to just post that everything was happy and easy, but could say when my fictional characters and circumstances in the publishing world were driving me crazy. I wanted to be
real
, not what people seem to think of writers, that we sit around and wait for ideas to come to us, then casually write them down. Even with that in mind, I still worried about what seems to be the new American pastime of anonymously slaughtering
people on the Internet. What a shock I was in for! The people—mostly women—on my site have been truly wonderful! They have been so supportive that it has given me new vigor in my writing. They often make me laugh and have sympathized with my complaining when I had some obstacle put in my way. They answer my daily questions with such insight that all day I think about what they’ve said. Since they have been with me through every step on this book—even to knowing its true title—I have set up a file on my website that contains a lot of the documents that I created so I could write this book. There’s a map of Kingsley Lane, a genealogy chart, before and after rewrites, and even scenes that didn’t get into the book. I just want to say thank you to all of them. You are great!

About the Author

J
UDE
D
EVERAUX
is the author of forty-one
New York Times
best-sellers to date, including
Moonlight in the Morning
and
A Knight in Shining Armor
. There are more than sixty million copies of her work in print worldwide.