True Love Read online

  Alix was glad to get away from the topic of her and Jared.

  “What do you think of Nantucket?” Toby asked.

  “So far, it’s great.” Alix began to tell of her impressions. The word “beauty” was second only to the word “Jared.” What Alix saw was beautiful. All her other senses were covered by Jared. What he said, did, thought, were all part of Alix’s talk.

  “Are you still going out with Wes tomorrow?” Toby asked.

  “Why wouldn’t I?” Alix asked.

  “I thought maybe you and Jared were becoming …” Toby trailed off. She knew about Ken’s hands-off order to Jared, but she wanted to know if they were overcoming that restriction.

  “Oh,” Alix said. “You think Jared and I are on our way to being a couple. We’re not. I hope we’re friends, but we’re certainly work colleagues who are becoming friends.”

  Toby looked at Alix in disbelief.

  “No, really,” Alix said. “I think he and I gave the wrong impression.”

  “But you’ve been spending so much time together. The whole island is asking what’s going on.”

  “That’s not good,” Alix said. “Jared and I just work together. That’s all.”

  “And the sandwiches?”

  “What do you mean?” Alix asked.

  “Switching food that each of you likes.”

  “We’ve been working on plans, so we eat together and we’ve learned about each other.”

  “But …?” Toby’s eyes were wide.

  “Okay, I’ll be honest. At first I was interested in him in that way.” Her poem came to mind. “But he clearly let me know that nothing like that was going to happen. I admit that it hurt at first, but I’m okay now. And between you and me, I’m looking forward to going out with Wes. I could stand a little touchy-feely action. I’d like to remember that I’m a girl.” Alix took a breath, hoping her lie sounded convincing. She did not want to go on a date with another man. “Could we talk about something besides me?”

  “Of course,” Toby said. “I didn’t mean to pry. It’s just that we’ve never seen Jared so interested in anyone before.”

  Alix had no idea what to reply to that, so she changed the subject. “I told my friend Izzy that I’d help her set up her wedding here on Nantucket, but I don’t know where to begin. Jared said you would know what to do.”

  Toby understood that Alix was politely asking her to back off. “Do you have a date set for the wedding?”

  “I did, but I’m sure it’s going to change.” Alix didn’t explain why. For right now she wanted to keep Izzy’s pregnancy private. With a bit of a jolt she realized that “private” now seemed to include Jared.

  Toby continued. “The first thing you need to do after you have the date is to get the colors your bride wants. Everything revolves around her colors. If she wants any special flowers I’ll need to know well in advance so we can get them flown in.”

  “Flown in?” Alix said. “That’s not the kind of wedding Izzy wants.”

  “Nearly everything on the island is flown in or put in a truck then driven onto a ferry. You need to be sure of what your friend wants, and be aware that brides often change their minds. I’ve seen girls come in wanting something simple, then later deciding that they have to have thirty grand’s worth of purple orchids.”

  “Thirty …?” Alix picked up a lime; she’d finished the oranges. “I think that kind of thing is for the people who live in the twenty-million-dollar houses.”

  “Or more. Right now there’s a house in Polpis asking fifty-nine million.”

  Alix could only blink at her.

  “What about you?” Toby asked.

  “About me, what?”

  “What kind of wedding do you want?”

  “One with a groom.”

  Toby laughed. “But really, you haven’t thought about it?”

  “Not the wedding itself, no, but Izzy’s happiness with her fiancé has made me think about things. What about you? You have a man in your life?”

  “No one permanent.”

  Alix hesitated before she spoke. “I thought maybe you and Jared were … you know.”

  “That Jared and I were having an affair?”

  Alix kept her eyes on the lime in her hand. “Maybe in the past?”

  “Oh, heavens no! Jared’s like a big brother to me. Has he been using me to try to make you jealous?”

  “Of course not! We’re not like that at all.” But when she thought about it, she had felt jealous of the way he’d rhapsodized about the angelic Toby. “Maybe he was.” Alix couldn’t help smiling. “Does he have many ex-girlfriends on the island?”

  “Not at all. Lexie said there was a girl in high school, but she married his cousin.”

  “That could be anyone on the island.”

  “Just about. But from what I gather, this particular cousin and Jared don’t have much to do with each other even today. They live in Surfside.”

  “I take it that’s on Nantucket?”

  “It sounds like you’ve learned that only Nantucket exists.”

  Alix laughed. “To Jared, that’s certainly true.”

  That afternoon, after Alix left, Lexie returned and the two women discussed what they’d seen and heard.

  “She said that?” Lexie asked. “Alix said that she was hoping for some ‘touchy-feely’ time with my testosterone-laden cousin Wes?”

  “When it comes to testosterone, I think Jared can probably hold his own,” Toby said.

  “If he weren’t tied down by Alix’s father, he could,” Lexie said. “This is not going well.”

  “I’m afraid I have to agree,” Toby said. “Who are you calling?”

  “Wes. Break out the beer. I’m inviting him over for tea and talk.”

  “What are you planning to do?” Toby asked. “I don’t think Jared will like—”

  “Let me handle my cousins,” Lexie said, then gave her attention to the phone. “Wes? This is Lexie. Toby and I want you to come over.” She paused. “Of course now. Next you’ll be asking for a printed invitation. And, yes, it has to do with your date with Alix.” Lexie clicked off the phone. “He’ll be here in ten minutes.”

  Toby thought she might never get used to the informality of Nantucket. People popped in and out of each other’s houses all day. One day she was nearly knocked down when a door opened inside the house. It was the plumber coming up from the basement. He’d entered through the exterior door—which as far as anyone knew had never been locked—fixed the dripping pipe, then had gone up the stairs into the house to make sure the toilet was no longer leaking. That no one knew he was in the house seemed to bother no one but Toby.

  “Look, Wes,” Lexie said. It was twenty minutes later and she and Toby were on the couch across from him. Toby had made sure the young man had been furnished with beer and pretzels, and he was waiting to be told why he’d been summoned.

  “The whole island knows you’re still in love with Daris Brubaker,” Lexie said. Daris was the woman Wes had wanted to marry, but six months ago they’d had a big fight—which no one knew the cause of—and Daris had told Wes to get lost. Since then he’d dated nearly every unmarried woman on the island.

  Lexie waited for Wes to say something, preferably to tell what had happened between him and Daris, but he just drank his beer and said nothing. “But she dumped you, probably because you’ve got a roving eye. You only asked Alix out to get her back and, of course, to try to show up Jared.”

  Wes was unperturbed by her criticism, nor was he volunteering any information. “So what’s your point?”

  “I don’t want to beat around the bush,” Lexie said. “What’s it going to take to get you to call Alix and get out of this date?”

  “It’s not going to happen. My dad’s driving his old Chevy in the parade, and—”

  Toby spoke up. “Jared will design a house for that land you own, and he’ll do it for free.”

  Lexie looked at her with wide eyes. They all knew that Jared charged