Ever After Read online

  Hallie took her time dressing. She got out the new clothes she’d bought at Zero Main and spent a lot of time with her hair.

  While she was dressing, she remembered her dream of the Tea Ladies. Usually, dreams faded from memory, but not this one. She remembered every second of it. As she used her curling iron, she thought of the drawings that had fallen behind the dresser.

  She had to see Jamie! Had to tell him about her dream and they had to pull the big cabinet out from the wall to see if the drawings really were there.

  When she was dressed and started down the stairs, she could hear voices and laughter. Had more of the Montgomery-Taggert family arrived? But, no, the same beautiful men with the two children were in the kitchen, with one addition.

  Jamie was sitting at the table looking as though he was working hard to control his temper. Beside him was a man Hallie had never seen before, but she already knew he must be a Taggert. He wasn’t as tall as Jamie but did look somewhat like him, though he was heavier and not nearly as good-looking.

  When Adam saw Hallie, he stopped talking and stepped back. Ian, then Raine, did the same thing. The children clung to Raine, watching Hallie in absolute silence. They formed a path so she could get to the table and the two men sitting there.

  What in the world is going on? she wondered as she walked forward. Jamie wasn’t looking at her.

  When she reached the table she stopped. The new guy was looking up at her in question, as though waiting for something.

  “Hi,” she said. “I’m Hallie, and you are—?”

  “Todd,” he said and stood up to shake her hand. “I’m Jamie’s brother.”

  After that, everyone started talking at once. Except for Jamie, that is. He got up on his crutches and without even a glance at Hallie opened the door into the pantry and went inside, shutting the door behind him.

  Hallie wanted to go after him and tell him about her dream, but she was surrounded by gorgeous men whose only goal in life seemed to be to please her. She was asked what she wanted for breakfast. As they began to make it, she saw that her fridge had again been filled with food.

  One by one the men told her about ailments and injuries they had and asked her advice on how to treat them. She was asked what she charged for a massage.

  After breakfast the men—except for Todd and Jamie—escorted her to the gym so she could begin working on them. They were a happy trio and she enjoyed their company, but at the same time she kept wondering where Jamie was.

  At lunch she managed to catch Cory as the child was running through the garden. “Where is your brother?”

  “Which one?” the little girl asked. She had a wooden sword and was waving it about in the air. “I have five of them.”

  “Really?” Hallie asked. “Jamie. Where is he?”

  “With Todd. They’re always together.”

  “Could you please find Jamie and tell him we need to work on his knee?”

  “He won’t come,” Cory said. “Todd won’t let him.” She went tearing off through the garden.

  Hallie saw that the big red gate had been propped open so the family staying at the B&B could come and go easily. Ian told her that guests were also staying at Kingsley House, Toby’s house, and at various hotels all over the island. He said all this as though it were something ordinary, but to Hallie, with her one and only non-blood relative, it was anything but. When she remembered Jamie’s jokes about how he knew all about cousins and could supply relatives of any size, gender, age, etc., she couldn’t help laughing.

  At the time, Adam was on his stomach on her massage table, his long, beautiful body stretched out and covered only by a small white towel over his behind. He was a nice man, with a dry sense of humor, and he’d complimented her on how she’d helped relieve the tension in his shoulders.

  “We saw the kitchen implements on the sheets outside,” he said. “Did you find them in the house?”

  Hallie’s mind filled with all that had happened before finding the artifacts. It would be too much to tell about a couple of matchmaking ghosts and her vivid dream about them. Besides, that was something she and Jamie shared.

  Instead, she told of the locked doors and how Dr. Huntley had given them the key and they’d found a dirty room inside.

  Adam turned onto his back, again with only the towel over him. “And you and Jamie cleaned the place? Did you enjoy doing it?”

  “We did,” she said, smiling as she ran her oiled hands over his chest. He was in good shape, she thought, probably ran as well as did some sort of martial arts. His muscles were relaxed; he didn’t hold the tension that Jamie did. He was an easy man to work on, to talk to, and probably to get to know.

  But he wasn’t Jamie.

  After lunch—eaten outside with Adam, Ian, Raine, and the children—she set to work on Ian. He was in as good a shape as Adam and as likeable. Whereas Adam had an intensity about him that was almost intimidating, Ian was all smiles and laughter.

  At three Raine got on the table. By that time Hallie was frustrated from her failure to find Jamie. She hadn’t seen him or his brother since before breakfast.

  She smiled at the sight of Raine’s big body. It was more like Jamie’s. “Where is he?” she asked as she began trying to get deep down into his muscles. She didn’t explain who “he” was.

  “With Todd,” Raine said. Of the three men, he talked the least, but she had an idea that he saw and heard the most.

  “Is he hiding from me?” she asked, her hands paused in their work.

  “My guess is yes,” Raine said.

  “And the lot of you are trying to keep me entertained so I don’t notice?”

  “Yes,” he said simply.

  Hallie wanted to think that she wasn’t hurt by Jamie’s behavior, but she was.

  “Jamie has—” Raine began.

  She knew he was going to say “problems,” but she didn’t want to hear it. “Bad manners,” she said and felt a chuckle from Raine.

  “Very bad,” he agreed.

  She did the rest of the massage in silence, mostly because she needed all her energy to dig into Raine’s thick, heavy muscles.

  The men insisted on taking her out to dinner and they all went to Kitty Murtagh’s. It was like an old tavern and Hallie enjoyed herself, but she missed Jamie.

  At that thought she wanted to bawl herself out. Every female in the restaurant was looking at her with envy. With the way the children went from her to Raine and back again, it looked like they were a married couple and the kids were theirs. In fact, more than once she caught Raine looking at her from under his lashes in a way that made little chills run up her spine. Of the whole group of gorgeous men she’d met, he was by far her favorite. She liked his quietness, his humor, and the way he listened. In other words, whatever about him was like Jamie, that’s what she liked.

  By the time they got back to the house, the men were discussing who was going to sleep on the cot downstairs. At first she thought perhaps they believed Nantucket was a dangerous place, but then she realized that they were worried about Jamie’s nightmares.

  Maybe they were being protective of him or maybe of her. Whichever it was, she didn’t like what they were saying.

  Against their protests, she ran them all out of the house. The two Montgomerys seemed ready to stay anyway, but Raine led them away.

  When she went upstairs she hoped Jamie would be there, but he wasn’t. The house was eerily quiet and she didn’t like that. He had been there since the first day. It was their house, not just hers.

  As she took a shower, she tried to get herself under control. She’d known from the beginning that Jamie Taggert wasn’t for her. All day his cousins had mentioned schools and countries and events, even sports, that she’d only read about. Once Jamie’s leg was healed he’d get on the family jet and she’d never see him again. At best, she’d get a Christmas card.

  When she got out of the shower, she put on a pair of pajamas instead of her usual big T-shirt and headed for her bed