Ever After (49 page)

H
allie kept looking at Jamie as she worked on his knee. He was lying on the massage table and staring up at the arbor. Neither of them was speaking.

But then last night they'd done a lot of talking. They'd ended up buying food at Bartlett's, then driving back to the chapel. It was a quiet place and that's what they needed.

The building was beautiful in the fading light. They walked past it to sit on the sand by the water.

Hallie was still feeling the effects of her confrontation with Shelly and she didn't know if she was happy or sad about it. What happened now?

Jamie sat down with his braced leg stretched out and he took care of the food while Hallie began to talk. He wanted to hear her side of her life. He didn't tell her what he and Braden had spoken about.

Hallie's side of the story was softer than Braden's version. Between the two, Jamie was able to see what had been a very lonely childhood.

But what he liked was that Hallie carried no bitterness or hatred about it all. She just wanted it all to
stop
. She especially wanted to quit worrying that Shelly was going to steal her boyfriend.

“You mean me?” Jamie asked. “I'm the bargaining chip?”

“You are,” she said. “If you and I are…you know.”

That led into a discussion of their future, and they agreed that they'd like to try being together.

“I'd just like to stay here for now,” Jamie said, “here on this magical island.”

“Me too,” Hallie said.

They made love on the beach. Slow, sweet love. Gentle, quiet, enduring love.

Afterward, they lay in each other's arms and looked at the stars, saying nothing, but both of them thinking about the future and where they would go from there.

It was late when they left and drove home. They slept together, cuddled, wrapped up in each other. And when Jamie's nightmares began, Hallie was there to soothe him.

In the morning they went about their usual routine, but they kept stealing looks at each other. Was this the person they would spend their lives with?

Hallie received a text message from Braden.

After she read it to Jamie, he made a call to Raine. The last of the Montgomery-Taggert family had left the island and were on their way home.

Jamie clicked off the phone. “I think you should be told something, but I'm not sure how you're going to take it.” He told Hallie that Shelly and Braden had spent the night together. Night as in one bed.

“Oh,” Hallie said and sat down on a chair at the kitchen table.

“Are you okay with this?”

“Sure,” she said. “It's just a bit of a shock.” She looked at him. “But, no, it's not. Not really. Braden never treated Shelly as a little girl, at least not after she reached puberty. What's that look for?”

“Raine said Braden asked him an odd question. He wanted to know if Raine knew where to buy a set of motorcycle leathers.”

Hallie and Jamie looked at each other and laughed at the vision of a lawyer in black leather with silver studs.

Jamie told Hallie of his talk with Braden and how he'd looked after her all her life. Jamie recounted Braden's attraction to Shelly but that he'd held off for the sake of Hallie and his mother.

“He did all that for
me
?” Hallie asked in wonder.

Jamie could see what a shock it all was to her and that she needed a way to relieve the stress. “Let's hit the gym.”

Hallie groaned. “How did I get stuck with a doctor-jock?”

“I'm not sure, but I think a couple of ghosts did it all. You and me, and maybe Braden and Shelly. Raine said that Braden kept talking about a storm last night that locked him and Shelly together in the tea room.”

They looked at each other and laughed.

And now Jamie was on the table and Hallie was finishing with his knee. It was nearly four
P.M.

After Jamie got dressed, they walked back to the house together. There, sitting on the kitchen table, was one of the lavish teas, with food piled high and a steaming pot of tea.

“Edith, I love you,” Jamie said as he washed his hands, Hallie beside him.

“I enjoyed your relatives' visit, but I'm glad to get back to normal,” Hallie said. “We need to thank Edith for all this and do something nice for her.”

“Shall we give her a trip away from her angry daughter-in-law?” Jamie suggested.

“I wonder how Betty and Howard did with all your relatives staying there? Especially the children.”

“I'm sure the Montgomery kids were perfectly polite, but Mom said Cory discovered the way into the attic and found a box full of magazines with naked men on the covers.”

“Ooooo,” Hallie said. “Will she share?”

“I think that—” He broke off at a knock on the back door. “Speak of the devil, it's Betty.”

He went to the door, Hallie just behind him.

“Hello,” Jamie said as he opened the door. “It's good to—”

“Have you seen my mother-in-law?” Betty demanded. “Has she been over here to see those damned ghosts of yours?”

“We haven't seen her,” Hallie said, “but she brought us another fabulous tea from your beautiful inn.”

“We should pay you for them,” Jamie said. “Tell me what you charge and Hallie and I will repay you. Plus a delivery fee.”

Betty frowned. “What are you two talking about?”

“The teas Edith brings over,” Hallie said. “But maybe you don't know about them. Sorry, but as Jamie said, we'll pay for them.”

“Tea?” Betty said. “Delivered to you by my mother-in-law? Brings them over often, does she?”

“Yes, fairly regularly,” Jamie said, leaning on his crutches.

“Remember the last time I was here?” Betty asked and they nodded. “The next afternoon Howard and I sent Edith to Arizona
to visit her daughter. She just got back this morning and she's already disappeared. I don't know who's been bringing you food, but it wasn't her.”

“Then who was it?” Hallie asked, puzzled. She stepped aside so Betty could see the table with the opulent tea set up. There were a couple of tiered trays full of sandwiches and cookies, cakes and pastries.

“As you can see,” Jamie said, “there's a lot of food and the big pot of tea. Maybe someone else from your inn is delivering it.”

Betty looked from one to the other. “You two are as crazy as my mother-in-law. There is nothing on that table but a bunch of empty dishes.” She put her hand on the door. “I think my mother-in-law should go back to Arizona. It's saner there.” With a shake of her head, she left, closing the door firmly behind her.

Jamie and Hallie looked at each other, then very slowly turned toward the table.

Moments before they had been hungrily eating the wide variety of foods and drinking tea that never grew cold.

But now they saw empty dishes. They were sparkling clean, but then they had often washed and stacked them, ready for whenever Edith came by and picked them up.

There was no food and no steam coming from the teapot.

When Jamie and Hallie looked back at each other, their eyes widened as they realized that for weeks they'd been eating nothing. And without saying it aloud, they knew that each feast had been prepared by hands that no longer existed.

Hallie was the first to speak. “So now we see why I lost weight.”

For a moment Jamie looked as though he didn't know what to say, but then a bit of laughter escaped him.

“The Ghost Diet,” Hallie said. “Think it will catch on?” She
too began to laugh. Within seconds, they couldn't hold back. They fell into each other's arms and their laughter filled the house.

And inside the tea room, two beautiful young women smiled at each other. Yet again, they had helped True Love find itself.

T
hree months after Jilly's wedding, an email from Shelly came through. Hallie drew in her breath. “She and Braden have set a wedding date for next January and she wants me to be her maid of honor.”

“What are you going to do?” Jamie asked.

“Decline, of course. She only asked me so I'd do all the work for the wedding while she does nothing. Absolutely not.”

“Having relatives isn't all fairy tale happiness,” he said. “I think you should give yourself some time to think about what you want to do.”

Hallie thought that was good advice, so for three days she thought about nothing else. The first day she felt only anger. Of course she'd refuse! How dare Shelly even ask? But by the second day Hallie began to consider the repercussions of her actions. If she did attend Shelly and Braden's wedding, would it be
with a heart full of anger? Did Braden deserve that? Would she cry with Braden's mother about the horror of his marrying someone like Shelly?

By the third day Hallie knew she had to make an effort at attaining peace. She left Jamie in Nantucket and flew back to her house outside Boston. Things there were worse than she'd imagined. Braden's mother was despondent to the point of depression. She was sure that her son was ruining his life—and she told him so often. Braden was working sixteen-hour days to keep his mind off the problems of his personal life. And according to him, Shelly was living in fear that at any minute he was going to break up with her. Nothing he said reassured her.

Hallie decided she
had
to help Braden and his mother. First of all, she spent hours talking with Braden. She wanted to be sure that he loved Shelly and wasn't just infatuated with her looks. She heard of his long-term love, and he told her about Shelly's side of her childhood hurt. It took a couple of days and many telephone talks with Jamie, but Hallie adjusted to this new knowledge.

Hallie thought about sitting down with her stepsister and having a heart-to-heart talk. But what would that be like? Bringing up years of accusations? “You broke my doll!” “Your grandparents loved you but not me!” “You stole my boyfriend!” “You got to play when we were kids, but I didn't.”

No, that would accomplish nothing.

After some very long talks with Jamie, then with his aunt Jilly, Hallie decided to use the coming wedding to bridge some of the gaps between people.

Hallie went to Braden's mother and put on the show of her life. She took half a dozen bride magazines with her and, crying rather copiously, said that Shelly wanted her to plan her wedding, but Hallie didn't know how.

Within ten minutes, Mrs. Westbrook was organizing a wedding. It took Hallie two days before she managed to get Shelly
into her place. She and Braden's mother became obsessed with flowers and cakes and gowns and even the crystals on the shoes. When Shelly told her future mother-in-law that she'd dearly love to have a baby right away, the bond was sealed.

In the ensuing peace, Braden called Hallie and said, “I love you.”

Hallie laughed. “So did you decide on peonies or roses?”

“Who cares? Really, Hallie, Mom and Shelly are shopping together and making baby plans and—” He took a breath. “Thank you.”

“What I did was nothing compared to what you and your mom did for my life. Are we friends?”

“Forever,” Braden said.

As soon as she clicked off, she called Jamie. “I'm coming home tomorrow.”

All he could say was a heartfelt “Yes!”

As she flew back to Nantucket, she knew she was leaving behind a lifetime of anger and resentment. She didn't think she and Shelly would ever be true friends but neither would there be deep hatred. There would be shared holidays and exchanges of triumphs and failures. Somehow, they would manage to leave the past behind.

That night, as she lay in bed with Jamie, she told him everything she was feeling.

“It's all normal in families,” he said.

As winter approached, Hallie and Jamie began talking about their futures. They'd made no decisions about where to live or if Jamie could go back to medicine or how Hallie was going to work. Should she set up a private clinic? Work for a hospital? It was growing colder on the island and they knew that many stores and services would soon be closing. There wouldn't be a lot of work for Hallie.