True Love Read online

  Jared gave a one-sided grin. “Maybe I do. I’m starving. Let’s get something to eat.”

  “We have lots of groceries and we could—”

  “Takes too long. Let’s go to The Brotherhood.” He led her outside by another door and into what looked to be a horribly overgrown garden.

  “Are you going to do the landscaping?”

  “Not me,” he said as he began walking, Alix close behind him. “I thought I’d try to sweet-talk Toby into doing it. Keep it in the family.”

  “Oh? I didn’t realize she was related to you.” Alix couldn’t help feeling an itty bitty bit of joy at hearing that the Toby whom everyone loved was off limits to him. She was glad her feelings weren’t in her voice.

  But Jared did hear it. “She’s related through my heart, not by blood,” he said as he put his hand on his chest and gave a deep sigh.

  “You idiot!” Then she realized what she’d said—and who she’d said it to.

  Jared laughed. “Only about Toby.” He opened the door to the restaurant for her.

  Shaking her head, Alix went in ahead of him and entered an old-fashioned pub sort of place, only she knew the walls and fireplace were real. “Nice,” she said.

  They were escorted to a booth in the back, with Jared saying hello to people as they walked through the restaurant.

  “You couldn’t sneak around and have an affair on this island, could you?”

  “A few people have found ways,” he said as he looked at the menu, “but they’re usually found out.”

  The waiter came and they gave their orders, and Alix thought about what he’d said. “I bet Aunt Addy heard all the gossip. Even if she rarely left the house, she had people over often and they’d tell her what was going on. Maybe my mother heard about—”

  Jared put a paper napkin and a pen in front of Alix. “So what would you do with that house?”

  “You’re trying to distract me, aren’t you?”

  “I just thought your own future would interest you more than your mother’s past. I guess I was wrong.” He reached out to take the napkin away.

  Alix put her hand over it and began to sketch the layout of the house. “When I was a kid my dad used to take me to visit houses, then when we got home he’d have me draw the floor plan.”

  Jared wanted to say that her father had done the same thing to him, but he didn’t. When Alix found out the truth, he really hoped she wouldn’t be angry at him for not telling her that her father also spent a lot of time on Nantucket.

  The restaurant was dark and he looked at the top of her head as she drew. Dilys had said he was “comfortable” with Alix and it was true. Maybe it was because they’d both been taught by her father, or maybe it was because they were interested in the same thing. Whatever it was, he enjoyed being with her.

  But it wasn’t easy to suppress his physical desire for her. He liked the way she moved, liked to watch her lips when she spoke. He kept having fantasies of touching her—and it wasn’t easy to keep his hands off her. In the grocery when she’d been so cold he’d wanted to put his arms around her. But all he’d done was put his hands on her arms and rub. On the street he’d turned her toward the house. They were tiny touches, and he shouldn’t have done them as they just made him want her more.

  “Is this right?” she asked as she pushed the napkin toward him.

  He barely glanced at the drawing, but then he’d been doing this since he was a teenager. “This wall isn’t right. It should be over here.”

  “No, you’re wrong,” she said. “The fireplace is there.” She drew it.

  “Your scale is off. Wall here, fireplace there.” He didn’t draw it, just ran his fingertip where the lines should be.

  “Absolutely not. You are—” She broke off, yet again thinking of who he was. “Sorry. I’m sure you know better than I do.”

  “What is that disgusting thing you called me?”

  She had to think what he meant. “An American Living Legend?”

  “That’s it. That makes me sound like a pre-Revolution artifact.” He held out his hand. “I’m warm. Flesh and blood. I can make mistakes.”

  Alix put her hand on his and his fingers closed over her hand. For a moment her eyes locked with his and sparks seemed to fly through her body.

  They broke contact when the waiter brought their sandwiches.

  “So how would you remodel it?” Jared asked as soon as they were alone again.

  Alix looked down at the sketch and forced herself to put her mind back on it. “It depends on what the owner wants.”

  “He left it up to me,” Jared said. “It’s for resale.”

  “Carte blanche. What an intriguing idea. My dad said the hardest part of being an architect was dealing with the clients. Think Montgomery had any problems in that area?”

  “I think he told them that if they wanted a Montgomery design they had to do it his way or get out.”

  “That’s a road to starvation.”

  “It was a better economy back then, and he had enough anger in him to pull it off.”

  Alix looked across the table at him. The restaurant was dark, very atmospheric, and his eyes had a look that she couldn’t read. She could imagine that his anger, talent, and looks were a lethal combination.

  Jared was having a difficult time remaining still when Alix looked at him like that. If she were any other woman he would have said, “Let’s get out of here,” then taken her home and to bed. But this was Ken’s daughter.

  “You don’t have any ideas for the remodel?” He sounded as though he was disappointed in her.

  Alix looked down at the drawing and tried to control her frown. She felt almost like she’d just had a man tell her no, that she’d made a pass at him and he’d turned her down. She told herself to get a grip. For all she knew he had a serious girlfriend, maybe even a fiancée.

  But still … he could have pretended he was interested.

  “If I were Montgomery,” she said firmly, “I’d change this door and widen these dormers. Inside I’d remove this wall and this one, and in the kitchen I’d put the sink over here.” She made marks as fast as she talked, and when she finished she looked up at him.

  Jared was staring at her with wide eyes. It was exactly the way he’d planned the remodel, even down to the sink position.

  It took him a moment to recover. “How would you do it?”

  “Softer,” she said. “Less invasive. Leave the kitchen alone except to put an island here. Take out the downstairs wall, and upstairs, take out the frame walls here and here.”

  “And the exterior?”

  “Leave it alone but add a room here. Dig down so it doesn’t block the upper windows, then put windows all along the south side. Door and stairs up into the garden here.”

  She halted. The drawing was barely readable with all the marks on it. “That’s what I would do.”

  Jared could only stare at her. If he’d fallen into a rut so deep that a student could predict what he was going to do, that was bad. But then this student was what he once was—and her design was better than his.

  It ran through his mind that he should leave the island immediately, get away from this upstart girl who thought she was better than the famous Jared Montgomery.

  In the next second, he leaned back in his chair and smiled.

  Alix had seen the emotions pass across his face and for a moment she thought he was going to walk out of the restaurant and she’d never see him again.

  “It’s yours,” he said, still smiling at her.

  “What is?”

  “The house. It’s yours to redesign.” He’d told his cousin he’d do the work for free but he wasn’t going to tell her that. “I’ll make sure you get credit for it and you can put it on your résumé.” He leaned toward her, his face serious. “Which I truly and sincerely hope that you’ll submit to my company when you apply for a job. It will have my personal endorsement on it and since I own the place, I’m quite sure that you’ll be employed b