Ever After Read online

  “Yeah, I know,” Jamie said and there was a flush on his cheeks. “But he and Hallie don’t get along. He keeps testing her.”

  “He thinks she’s a gold digger?”

  “He thinks she’ll leave me when she gets tired of my…of my…” He couldn’t finish or meet his father’s eyes.

  “What do you think?”

  “That if she’s smart, she’ll run away.” He was scratching one of the scars over his rib cage.

  “I think that if she’s smart she’ll overlook a few mosquito bites and see my son underneath.”

  “Thanks,” Jamie said and met his father’s eyes.

  “Are you hungry? Your mother yet again packed your refrigerator full of food. She’s becoming great friends with Dr. Huntley’s wife, Victoria. I think they’re going to collaborate on a book. A sort of murder mystery cum ghost story. Your mom found a lot of info about your Tea Ladies ghosts and gave it all to Kit.”

  Jamie nodded. He knew what his dad was doing. He was putting Jilly and Kit, the calmest people in the extensive family, together with his injured son. It was certainly well meant, but Jamie couldn’t suppress the resentment he felt. He needed to be singled out, but that didn’t mean he wanted to be. Poor, pitiful, damaged Jamie.

  “That all sounds great,” Jamie said as he got off the table. “Hallie and Uncle Kit had some meeting at two A.M. and now they’re friends.”

  “Did they?” Kane asked as he handed his son his clothes. “But Kit doesn’t talk to anyone.”

  “Everybody talks to Hallie and everybody likes her,” Jamie said, sounding almost defensive. He had his back to his father and didn’t see the smile that reached down to Kane Taggert’s very soul. This girl was putting life back into his son, and for that Kane was deeply grateful.

  “So I’ve heard. Raine can’t shut up about her.”

  “What does that mean? Two sentences?”

  “Four!” Kane said and they laughed, the tension between them broken.

  When Jamie was dressed, he flexed his shoulders and back. “I feel better after Hallie’s massage. You should let her work on you.”

  “I think I’ll give her a break. It seems like every male in the family has been over here. Come on, let’s go see what your mother left for us to eat.” He put his arm around his son’s shoulders and they walked back to the house.

  “Hi,” Hallie said as she saw Jamie enter the kitchen. After her nap, she could think more clearly—and right now she was remembering Jamie holding her against a wall. “Feel better?” she managed to ask.

  “Much,” he said.

  Hallie started to say more, but behind him came the big man.

  “I think you’ve met my dad.”

  “I have,” Hallie said as she shook his hand. “But I didn’t realize who you were. Mr. Taggert, would you like something to eat? But then I think it’s your wife who fills our refrigerator.”

  “Or Edith and her golf cart,” Jamie said, and he and Hallie looked at each other in a shared joke.

  “I’d love something,” Kane said and sat down at the table. He took a chair against the wall and settled back to watch his son and this young woman whom most of his family had been praising to the skies.

  He’d wanted to meet her the first day they’d arrived, but his wife, Cale, had nixed that.

  “She’ll know you’re studying her, judging her,” Cale said.

  “I just want to meet her, that’s all. No judgment.”

  “Ha!” Cale said. “You want to see if she’s worthy to be around your wounded son. You’ll be like Todd and make it into a criminal investigation. The poor girl will run away.”

  “And you wouldn’t question her?” Kane said, sounding more angry than he meant to.

  “I would scrutinize everything about her!” Cale shot back. She was quite small and her husband was very large, but she had never been intimidated by him. “I’d watch her like she was under a magnifying glass.” Her voice was rising. “If she said even a word that wasn’t kind and loving and gentle and caring to our Jamie, I’d tear her eyes out. I’d—”

  Kane pulled her into his arms. “It’s okay. We’ll both stay away.”

  Cale was trying to calm down. “Jamie and Todd have talked every day and I don’t know what the girl is doing, but Jamie likes her.” Since his injuries, they’d paraded half a dozen truly fabulous young women before him. “Brilliant Beauty Queens,” the family called them. Vassar graduates who’d given themselves pocket money by modeling. But Jamie had been so uninterested that Cale had consulted his doctor about any sexual injuries he might have. But, no, that part of his body was unscathed.

  Kane had been furious when his wife told him what she’d done. Thankfully, Jamie didn’t find out.

  Repeatedly, the family had been told to wait, to give Jamie time to recover. When Todd told them of his idea of taking Jamie away from his family’s loving home, away from their care and concern, everyone had fought him. But Todd had a couple of doctors on his side. Only after the family agreed to allow it had Jamie been told.

  At first he’d said yes, but as the day to leave approached, he’d started to back down. But somehow, Todd and Raine had persuaded Jamie to go.

  So now Kane was getting his first look at this girl. She was quite pretty and as curvy as a snowman. As he watched Jamie and Hallie at the sink, he couldn’t help thinking of the tall skinnies Jamie’s family had paraded past him. It looked like when it came to taste in women, it was like father, like son.

  Hallie put a tray of vegetables and dip on the table, and as Kane munched, he saw the way the two of them moved about the kitchen. Their voices were low, but then they didn’t seem to need many words, as they worked well together.

  There was an interesting moment after Jamie said something and Hallie laughed. They were standing at the sink, inches apart, their backs to him, and they looked at each other. Such electricity passed between them that Kane paused with a carrot halfway to his mouth.

  Somebody’s been in the cookie jar, he thought, then reached for his phone. He wanted to tell his wife that Jamie’s long spell of celibacy had been broken.

  But when Hallie turned and asked if he’d like iced tea or lemonade, Kane took his hand off the phone. “Tea,” he said and leaned back in his chair, unable to get the grin off his face.

  “What have you two been doing?” Kane asked when they were seated across from him.

  Jamie knew his father well and when he looked up, his eyes had a bit of a glint in them. Kane met his son’s eyes for only a second, and his smile widened. It was a silent message between them.

  Hallie started telling about Edith and the elaborate teas she brought them and how the woman talked to the lady ghosts.

  At first Jamie was quiet, letting Hallie tell the story, but when she got to Dr. Huntley’s visit he joined in.

  Kane sat back, listened, and smiled. He wasn’t much interested in the ghost story—though he knew his wife was—but he was very, very happy to see his son so animated.

  When they ran out of salad dressing, Jamie got up and retrieved a bottle from the fridge. It didn’t seem to mean anything to Hallie, but it was monumental to Kane. After Jamie came home, wrapped in bandages, his wounds healing, there had always been someone nearby to get whatever he needed. Now he was on crutches, his leg in that big, cumbersome brace, but he was doing his own fetching. Neither he nor Hallie seemed to think his physical problems were an excuse for him to sit and be waited on.

  “I nearly forgot,” Hallie said. “We have to move the dresser in the tea room.” When Jamie sat back down, she took his crutches and leaned them against the wall.

  “Why?” Jamie asked.

  She looked startled. “I just realized that I haven’t told you about my dream! I saw the ladies. After I told Uncle Kit about it, he said we have to get some Taggerts to move the dresser to see if what I dreamed was real.”

  “You told my uncle but not me?”

  Kane took a big bite of his sandwich to keep from laug