Ever After Read online

  “Do you cover up with long sleeves just for outsiders?” she asked.

  “No!” He pulled the lid off. “I have to cover up around my family. If I don’t, the aunts get teary and start asking if they can get me anything. The uncles pat my shoulder and say this country is lucky to have men like me.”

  “And your cousins?”

  “They’re the worst. They say, ‘Jamie, why don’t you sit there and watch us have fun?’ Or ‘Our game of Ping-Pong won’t be too loud for you, will it?’ ”

  Hallie was trying not to laugh. “Ping-Pong?”

  “Well, maybe not that particular game, but I’m sure not invited to play rugby with them.”

  “But somebody got you to go skiing.”

  “That was Todd. Tough love that put me back in the hospital.”

  “Sounds like your family was right to coddle you. But then the skiing is what got you here.” She wiggled her toes on his lap.

  “Yeah, it did. So maybe I owe my brother. Just please don’t tell him that.” Jamie leaned forward as though he meant to kiss her.

  But Hallie pulled back. “So what’s in the box?”

  “Just papers. You know, you wouldn’t be nearly so cold if you moved to my end of the couch. I’m a very warm person.”

  “I’m not cold at all. I want to see what Uncle Kit brought us.”

  “Speaking of him, what did you slip my uncle when you two thought no one was looking?”

  “You saw that?!”

  “Of course. So what was it?”

  She told him of the envelope with Kit’s name on it. “Do you think that tonight at dinner he’ll tell us what was inside it?”

  “If he does, it’s only because he’s mad about you.”

  Hallie laughed. “I don’t think so, but thanks for the compliment.”

  As Jamie held the box up, they looked inside it. There was a thick envelope on top and under it were a lot of loose papers, most of them photocopies.

  “Shall we divide things?” Hallie asked. “You take the envelope and I’ll take the papers?”

  “No. We can do it together. No more secrets.”

  “I like that,” Hallie said. “So what’s in the envelope?”

  He unlooped the string from around the two dots. “I bet this is from Aunt Jilly.”

  “I don’t see how she could do this. If she’s getting married in just a few days, wouldn’t that be her major interest?”

  “She’s never liked the chaos of big family events. Raine’s mother is here and she could organize a war. Aunt Jilly probably gave her a helpless look and Aunt Tildy took over. Then Aunt Jilly probably hid somewhere with a computer and did a lot of searching—and was happy doing it.” He pulled out the papers. “By the way, whoever gets Raine gets his mother.”

  “After watching him move that heavy dresser, it might be worth it. I thought that T-shirt of his might rip apart. The Hulk come to life!” She gave a dramatic sigh.

  “Did you?” Jamie said, then gave a stretch and lifted his arms above his head, making his biceps double in size.

  Hallie pretended she didn’t see him, but the room suddenly grew warmer. She tossed the towel from her neck and let the blanket slip down. Holding her hand out, he put a folded paper on it.

  It was a genealogy chart like the one she’d seen on the plane coming over, but this one branched differently. Instead of just going down through her father to Hallie, this chart went to another side of the family.

  Hallie sat up straighter. “Am I reading this right?” She bent forward to show Jamie. “This says I have a relative, a living one.” She pointed to the entry. “He’s also named Leland and he’s thirty years old.”

  Jamie was staring at her. He couldn’t grasp the concept of having no known relatives.

  “Is he a cousin?”

  He took the chart and looked at it. “You two share the Leland Hartley who married Juliana Bell, so yes, that makes you distant cousins.”

  “Wow!” Hallie said as she fell back against the couch. “I wonder what he’s like? Where he went to school, what he does for a living.” She gasped. “Maybe he’s married and has children! I could be an aunt.”

  He didn’t have the heart to point out that the man’s kids would also be her cousins. But then in his family “aunt” and “uncle” were often courtesy titles.

  Jamie picked up a paper from the pile on his lap. “Let’s see. The Leland Hartley in this generation grew up in Boston and graduated from Harvard with a degree in business. Afterward, he worked on a farm for three years so he could—Hmmm, I can’t seem to make this out.” He was teasing her.

  Hallie took the paper out of his hand and read aloud. “He’s a landscape architect. He travels all over the U.S. and designs parks. He’s not married, no children.” She looked at Jamie. “He has a website for his business.”

  Jamie was truly enjoying her wonder and excitement. “Too bad he’s so ugly.”

  “What?!”

  He handed her a photo Jilly had run off from the website.

  Leland Hartley was a very good-looking young man. And what’s more, he looked like a younger version of her father. The hair and clothes were different, but the two men were nearly the same. She looked up at Jamie.

  “He looks enough like you that he could be your older brother,” Jamie said.

  For a moment there were tears glistening in Hallie’s eyes. “I want to meet him. After your leg heals I’ll go back to Boston and…” She didn’t finish because she didn’t want Jamie to think that his rehabilitation was hindering her.

  “See this?” He held up a big cream-colored envelope. “Know what it is?”

  “No. Should I?”

  “It’s an invitation to Aunt Jilly’s wedding. There’s a note from her and she suggested that you write a letter, include a copy of this chart, and invite your newly found cousin to the wedding.”

  It took Hallie moments to realize what he was saying. “That’s a wonderful idea! Oh, Jamie! You are great. Your whole family is fabulous.” Bending across the papers spread out on him, she put her hands on each side of his face and kissed him hard, then got up.

  “You can do better than that,” he said.

  Hallie was standing in front of the fireplace and didn’t seem to hear him. “Where will he stay? If he can come, that is. He might be on a job and can’t make it. Or maybe he wouldn’t be interested in meeting some distant cousin. Should I tell him about the ghosts? No! Definitely not. He’d never come if I told that. Maybe…” She looked at Jamie.

  Jamie was smiling at her enthusiasm. “I know! I’ll sic Mom on him. She’ll call him and tell him about you and she’ll get him to come. She’s very persuasive.”

  “She’d do that? For me, I mean?”

  There was so much to answer in that question that he didn’t know where to begin. Hallie had made Jamie laugh, and for that he knew his mother would do anything for her. “Yeah, she’ll do it. But she’ll want to hear every detail of the story, so be prepared.”

  Hallie put her hands behind her back and began to pace.

  Jamie smiled as he watched her, amused by the deep frown of concentration she was wearing. But after a few minutes his smile began to fade. He could afford to laugh about this idea of wanting a family because he had one in abundance. But what would it truly be like to have no one?

  When he was in Afghanistan, the thought of family and home kept him going. At every mail call there were letters from his family. His parents wrote constantly. His mother’s letters were full of funny, loving stories about everyone. His siblings, even little Cory and Max, had sent him drawings, gifts, and food.

  When he saw that some people with him never received any mail, he’d sent a plea to his mother to get the relatives to write to them. Within a week, Montgomery-Taggert letters were coming in by the bagful.

  Jamie watched as Hallie picked up the paper that told about her one and only cousin and read it again. She seemed to be memorizing it, studying it, trying to get a real person ou