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  Alix got out of the truck. “I’ll go in with you and you can introduce me. I’ll need a hairdresser while I’m here.”

  “I thought you were leaving tomorrow,” he said as he walked around the truck.

  “So were you. Changed your mind?”

  “Now that I know you aren’t going to ask me for my wisdom, maybe I will stay.”

  “If I meet Jared Montgomery that’s the first thing I’m going to ask him, but Mr. Kingsley just seems to go fishing and …” She looked up at him. “What else do you do?”

  “I don’t know. It’s been years since I had any time off. All winter I went back and forth to New York and even now I have one project that my partner is on my case to do.” They had stepped up onto a little porch and Jared was holding the door open for her.

  Alix had to clamp her teeth down on the sides of her tongue to keep from asking what project he needed to work on. But a deal was a deal and she wasn’t going to break it.

  The salon was large and well lit. Jared introduced Alix to Tricia, who was small, trim, and quite pretty.

  “I don’t want him shaved,” Alix said, then turned red. “Sorry for being so bossy.”

  “I’m not allowed to anyway,” Trish said and explained that she didn’t have a barber’s license so she couldn’t shave Jared. For a few minutes the two women discussed what to do with his mess of hair and beard while he sat in the chair in silence. When they had it settled, Alix sat down in the empty chair in the next booth.

  It turned out that Trish seemed to have read every novel published in the last ten years. She and Alix kept up a steady stream of conversation while Trish trimmed, washed, and cut Jared’s hair. If he so much as said a word, neither woman noticed.

  When Trish finished, the two women stood side by side to inspect her work.

  Jared looked at least ten years younger, and the beard and long hair suited him very well. His whiskers were perfectly trimmed around his strong jawline and his hair reached down the back of his neck. There were gray patches in his beard and hair, but on him they looked good.

  Alix wouldn’t have thought it was possible, but he looked even better now than he did a couple of years ago when she and Izzy heard him speak. Alix couldn’t help looking over his head in the mirror at his lower lip.

  “Is it all right?” Jared asked, looking at Alix in the mirror.

  “Yes,” she said and turned away.

  At the register, Jared paid, they said goodbye, then left.

  “Grocery?” Jared asked.

  She opened the truck door. “I’m beginning to feel guilty taking up your time. Maybe you could take me to a car rental agency and I could get a vehicle.”

  “If you’re going to be here for a whole year maybe we should buy you a used car. I have a friend who has a VW for sale.”

  “I think I’ll wait on buying a car. When Mom gets here she’ll probably do something. What does she drive when she’s here?”

  “Nothing,” Jared said. “She walks to town to eat. There’s a grocery a few blocks down and she gets fruit there. She and Aunt Addy went out to lunch often, but then most of the time your mother was here, she worked.”

  “Oh, yes. Plotting her novels,” Alix said.

  Reading my family’s journals and making notes, Jared thought. One year Victoria sneaked in a portable copy machine. She’d used it only in the privacy of her bedroom, but his grandfather, Caleb, told Aunt Addy about it and there’d been a huge fight. Victoria had accused Addy of spying on her.

  When Jared was told of it, he’d laid into his grandfather for doing the spying. “Do you sneak around and watch her dress and undress?!” Jared had meant his words to be a put-down, but Caleb had grinned and said, “Oh, yes. But only for Victoria,” then he’d disappeared.

  It didn’t matter how Addy knew, Victoria was told to get rid of the copier or leave. Reluctantly, she handed it over to Addy. Last time Jared looked, it was still in a cabinet in the second parlor.

  “Yes, plotting,” Jared said at last. “Would you like to go to the grocery or not?”

  “I could use a few things.”

  He pulled into a parking lot that she recognized. Across the road was Downyflake with its big doughnut on the front. It was the first time she hadn’t felt lost.

  “Know where you are?” he asked.

  “Vaguely.”

  He reached behind the bench seat, pulled out a big flannel shirt, and handed it to her.

  “What’s this for?”

  “You’ll see.”

  The Stop and Shop grocery was the coldest one she’d ever been in and she quickly put on the shirt, which engulfed her.

  “You’re beginning to look like a Nantucketer,” he said, grinning.

  “Why do I feel like I’ve just been given a huge compliment? Right after being called a rum-drinking Kingsley sailor, that is.”

  Jared laughed. “Speaking of which, there’s a liquor store next door. Think we should visit? Get a case of dark rum for you, maybe?”

  “If I remember correctly, you drank as much as I did.”

  “But, alas, neither of us got drunk.” He walked ahead to pick up a couple of bags of baby lettuce.

  Alix held on to the cart, watching him. He’d just said his first almost flirty thing to her. Just minutes before she’d had to stop herself from drooling when she saw him in the mirror, but he’d continued to look at her the same way her father did.

  “So tell me about this date I’m having on Saturday,” Alix said. They were at the coffee and tea shelves and he was reading the packages.

  “Not much to tell. There are millions of daffodils on the island. There’s some story about a lawn mower nearly wiping them out, but they’re still here. There’s a parade of antique cars and a picnic out in ’Sconset.” He put two bags of coffee in the cart.

  “I take it you don’t participate.”

  “I did when I was a kid. My parents took me to it every year. My mom used to cover me in daffodils, then she’d put me in the back of an old pickup with my cousins. But when I got older I was too cool for any of that.”

  He was leaning on the cart handle and watching Alix put things in. They stopped at the big glass counter that held an assortment of meats and salads. Jared greeted everyone who worked behind it by name.

  “What do you want to get?” she asked without thinking, then said, “Sorry. It’s not like we’ll be sharing a lot of meals.”

  “Chicken salad,” he said, “and get me some of the ham for sandwiches. We forgot tomatoes. I’ll go back and get them. Oh! And get me some of that smoked turkey.” Turning, he went back to the produce section.

  Alix couldn’t help smiling. It looked like she wouldn’t be eating every meal alone after all.

  The rest of the grocery shopping was fun, but by the time they got to the frozen foods, Alix’s teeth were chattering. Jared put his hands on her upper arms and rubbed briskly. “If you’re going to live here, you need to toughen up.”

  They headed to the checkout, but Alix stopped at the magazines. She got a Nantucket Today and hesitated over an issue of a remodeling magazine. Jared picked it up and put it in the cart.

  “Later, you can tell me everything they’ve done wrong,” she said, smiling.

  “Didn’t you learn anything at school? You tell me.”

  They were unloading the cart onto the checkout belt.

  “Right. I’m going to tell an American Living—” His look cut her off. “What does a Kingsley sailor know about remodeling?”

  He gave her a smile of such sweetness that Alix’s knees began to give way.

  “You learn quickly, don’t you?”

  “I do when it’s in my own best interest. Did you get any eggs?” she asked.

  “No. They’re straight down that aisle, and be sure to open the carton to see if any are broken,” he said.

  Alix stood up from the cart and looked at him.

  With a sigh, he hurried down the aisle to get the eggs.

  When Alix fi