True Love Read online

  “What’s that?” Alix pointed to a rectangle drawn beside the washhouse. Last night she’d been too sleepy to do more than look at the drawing.

  “It says SOAP. I guess Valentina stored her soap there.”

  Alix took the sketch, pointed the front of the house toward the sea, then looked to her right where the washhouse was drawn. There was no distance given, so it could be fifty feet or a hundred yards, as the property was quite large.

  The only thing near the washhouse was a funny little icon of two round circles with a rectangle connecting them with the word SOAP written beside it.

  Alix and Jared looked at each other, having no idea what the symbol meant, but it was west of the house so they walked that way. The centuries had covered the ground with fierce little bushes and it was slow moving through them.

  A short distance from the house, Alix saw a chest-high rock and another near it. There were some boulders on the island, left over from some long-ago glacier, and these two were only about six feet apart.

  “They’ve been flattened here,” Alix said, running her hand across the top of the first rock. Someone had chiseled out a place on the top surface and a matching one was on the other rock. It was subtle, not something a person would notice, but a tabletop could be held in the chiseled places.

  Jared looked at the map. “If this was a table—”

  “Or open shelves to hold the drying soap molds,” Alix said.

  “Right. Then the washhouse was …” He stepped over about three feet. “Here.” Reaching down, he scraped out a stone from the sandy soil. It was a round rock, the kind used in a fireplace, and under it was a very old piece of rusty metal. It looked to be the handle of a big washtub.

  Alix smiled. “Looks like Parthenia did draw a good map.”

  Jared gave a one-sided grin.

  “Petticoat Row rules again!”

  Jared laughed. “Stop bragging and let’s go get some shovels. This has to be dug out by hand.”

  Twig’s men stopped work on the chapel to help find the washhouse. Over the years they’d found many artifacts—coins, ivory, buttons—in the old houses they’d remodeled, but no matter how many things they discovered, each one was of interest.

  It didn’t take much digging to see that a building had once been on the site. There were a few pieces of charred timbers, broken china, more scrap metal. After about an hour, they had the stone of the basement outlined. They could see where the foundation of the big fireplace had been and started digging there.

  The men took turns, filling the bucket, then the wheelbarrow. Alix stayed under a tree with Tyler, trying to keep him occupied so he wouldn’t get in the way. At first she’d tried to keep him clean but soon found out that wasn’t possible. They broke for lunch and started again an hour later. It was slow going, as the old stones needed the dirt to hold them in place. Three times they had to stop to construct forms to fortify the stones. Two trips were made to Island Lumber to buy reinforcing materials.

  It was late afternoon when Jared called to Alix. “I think we have something.”

  She picked up Tyler and went to what was now an impressively large hole. Jared and Dennis, the tile setter, were at the bottom. Some stones had fallen out of the thick walls and the men were standing in rubble. Jared stepped back to expose what they’d uncovered. Just behind him, set deep into the stone, was a rusty iron door. All the men were standing over the hole, looking down, and watching. Dave, the cabinetmaker, passed down a crowbar to Jared. After a look at Alix, he pried the door open.

  She held her breath as he reached inside. Slowly, he pulled out a corroded metal box, the kind used for holding tea.

  He started to open the box, but then held it up to Alix. Bending, she took it, and waited until Jared was out of the hole and beside her. It took several minutes and a putty knife to loosen the lid. Even then Alix had to stick her fingertips under the rim and pull hard before the old box opened. Centuries were holding it together.

  When the top came up, she took a breath, glanced at Jared, then back down at the box. With a creak, the lid moved back on its hinges.

  Inside was a leatherbound book. Considering where it had been for the last two hundred years, it was in good condition. The cover was a little moldy but the pages hadn’t crumbled. But then it had been protected by the stone enclosure and the box.

  Alix reached inside as though she meant to take out the journal, but then she looked at Jared. Their eyes met and they seemed to speak in silence to each other. There were other people who deserved a first look at this book.

  With a smile, she nodded at him, and Jared closed the lid and took the box from her.

  “I think we should save this for your … relative, Caleb.” She was teasing because she had yet to find out who the mysterious Caleb was. “He’s the one who told me how to find the journal, so I think he should see it first.”

  “Hey, Jared,” Dave said, “isn’t Caleb the ghost in your house?” He was grinning. “Didn’t he cause a lot of people to drown and that’s why your family’s never used the name again?”

  Jared gave Dave a look to shut up but that didn’t quell him in the least. All the men were looking at them, waiting for Jared’s answer.

  He looked back at Alix, whose face had drained of color. She knew! “It’s time we got Tyler home,” he said. “Ready to go?”

  All Alix could do was nod.

  Tyler, who’d missed his nap, seemed to know his day’s adventure was about to be over, and he started running around like he’d drunk two cups of espresso. Jimmy headed him off, Eric blocked him, and Joel, who had twins, picked up the boy and handed him to Jared. Tyler acted like he was being imprisoned and wrestled against Jared, but he held the child tightly as he took Alix’s hand and led her to the truck.

  He opened the door, then nudged her inside. As soon as she was seated, Jared reached across her to strap Tyler into his car seat, then closed the door and walked to the other side. By the time he got into the driver’s seat, the boy had twisted around to face Alix and was sound asleep. She was staring straight ahead, holding on to the boy’s hand as though he were a life preserver and they were alone at sea.

  Jared glanced at her but Alix didn’t look away from the windshield. He started the engine.

  “Did I …? Is he …?” Alix’s voice was barely a whisper.

  Jared thought about going into a long-winded explanation, something that would calm her down. But he knew that in the end the answer would be the same. “Yes.”

  Alix took a deep breath, trying to grasp all of it. When Tyler moved in his sleep, she leaned over to put her cheek against his sun-warmed hair. “You told me about him, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “But I thought you meant a … a …”

  “Foggy light at the top of the stairs?” he said.

  Colorful visions ran through Alix’s mind. Dancing, laughing. What she saw, heard, even smelled. “I think maybe I really did see a scene from Parthenia’s wedding. Oh!” She looked at him. “Parthenia looks just like Jilly Taggert. I was upside down when I met her and I didn’t realize it then. And my father looks like her husband, John Kendricks, which probably means that—” Her voice was rising.

  Jared reached across the seat to take her hand and squeeze it. “It’s okay. Everything will be all right. I’m sorry you got pulled into this. Usually, only we Kingsleys can see him, and then only a few of us can. No off-islander has ever …” He trailed off.

  “Just me,” she said. “An outsider. What is that term I heard? Something about arriving on a beach?”

  “A washashore.”

  “That’s me. I just floated into everything.”

  Jared was still holding her hand as he pulled into the driveway. He shut off the truck, then turned to look at her. He knew he should start at the beginning and tell her about his grandfather from the shipwreck forward. But he didn’t. She didn’t need anything heavy right now. He looked from her to Tyler. “You two look good together.