Logically, Hallie had no reason to fear her stepsister, but that wouldn’t keep her from doing so. Someday maybe Hallie could feel secure enough to stand up to Shelly, but for now Jamie was going to do what Braden had done for so many years and protect Hallie. He was going to put himself between the two women and do whatever was necessary to make Hallie feel safe.
When Jamie heard a car door slam, he was on his feet in seconds and at the front door before it opened.
Hallie threw it open. She was drenched! “The sky opened up just as I got out of the car.”
Jamie dropped his crutches onto the stairs and held out his arms to her.
“I’ll get you wet.”
He didn’t lower his arms and she went to him, the two of them holding each other close. Her head was on his chest and she could hear his heart beating.
“I went to the airport with them to say goodbye. Uncle Kit left with your parents, and Leland caught a flight to Boston.”
He kissed the top of her wet hair, then began leading her up the stairs as she kept talking.
“I hardly know Lee, but we had so many things in common. He’s an only child like I am. I’m going to meet the family at Christmas, but Lee and I made plans to spend Thanksgiving together.”
Jamie led her to the bathroom door, got a towel, and began drying her hair.
“Uncle Kit said he’ll join us. I think the huge celebrations of your big family are too much for him. He said he’s going to make the pies. And Lee is going to make the dressing.”
Jamie unbuttoned her wet shirt and pulled it off her.
“That leaves me with the turkey and vegetables and bread to do.” She looked at Jamie. “Unless you want to help.”
“I get dibs on yams and green beans,” he said as he unfastened her trousers and helped her step out of them.
“So I get the turkey.” Hallie’s teeth were beginning to chatter. “What’s your favorite bread?”
“Brioche,” he said as he led her to the bed and pulled back the covers.
“Mine too.” She started to get into the warmth of the bed, but Jamie stopped her as he removed her two pieces of underwear.
Naked, she looked at him and he pulled her into his big, warm arms.
“Did you miss me?” he whispered.
“Yes. Every minute. I think I talked about you a bit too much.”
Jamie stepped away from her long enough to remove his own clothing, then slid into bed. “What makes you think that?”
“Adam said he hadn’t noticed that you’d grown seven feet tall and made Superman look like a wimp.”
Smiling, Jamie opened his arms to her and as their bodies clung to each other, they began kissing.
It was Hallie who pulled away and pushed him onto his back. Her lips began to trace the scars on his body, kissing them, caressing them. Today his mother had told her how Jamie’s former girlfriend Alicia had been sickened at the sight of Jamie’s damaged body. She was repulsed by the scars and grafts, the indentations where parts of skin and muscle had been sliced away by flying pieces of metal.
But Hallie thought Jamie was beautiful. Her lips moved over him, across his chest, his arms, then lower and lower until she reached the center of him. Undamaged and perfect, she thought, but then she was beginning to see all of him that way.
When she took him in her mouth, he gasped, his head back, his eyes closed.
Minutes later she moved back up to his neck, to his mouth.
He moved her onto her back and began to make love to her, taking his time with her body as he slowly took her to new peaks of pleasure. When he entered her, she was more than ready for his long, slow, deep thrusts.
When he collapsed against her, Hallie held him, his head against her breasts, and stroked his hair as she thought about the day. Her morning had been great and she’d loved laughing with Jamie’s cousins. At the airport she’d been teary as she said goodbye to people who’d become her friends. Jamie’s mother had hugged her hard and his father’s hug had lifted her off the ground. “Thank you,” he said, then he’d abruptly set her down and run up the stairs to the plane.
Uncle Kit had kissed her hand. “We shall meet again soon,” he said.
It had been hardest saying goodbye to Leland. “Thanksgiving!” he’d called to her as he got on the plane.
She stood there with Jamie’s cousins and watched the jet take off, then they turned to Hallie. She knew what they were asking. What did she want to do now? “Home,” she said simply. She wanted to see Jamie. They drove her back to Kingsley Lane and she was so anxious to see Jamie that she opened the car door while the vehicle was still rolling. Then, just as she got to the door, a quick summer storm nearly drowned her.
“Warm now?” Jamie asked, their bodies wrapped around each other.
“Yes,” she said.
He lifted onto one arm to look at her. “Something’s bothering you.”
“Nothing is.”
“You can tell me,” he said.
She took a breath. “Please don’t be jealous, but I just thought of Braden.”
He kissed her sweetly. “I’m not jealous of him anymore. Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“Of this. Of you and me. I’m going to have to break Braden’s heart. It’s just that he isn’t who I thought he was.”
Jamie turned onto his back and put her head on his shoulder. “Tell me,” he said.
“I guess I’ve always seen Braden through a child’s eyes,” Hallie said. “But then he’s always been so very good to me. Even when he was a teenager and a big shot at our school, he always had time for the little kid that I was. Sometimes the other football boys would laugh at him for giving me a ride home or asking me about my homework or fixing a toy for me. But Braden was always glad to see me.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m going to have to tell him that yet another female is turning down his marriage proposal. Oh, Jamie! He was so awful at the wedding! It was embarrassing to see him with your dad and your uncle Mike. I was so annoyed by him that when Leland showed up, I had him sit between Braden and me. I tried to be nice, but at the reception, all Braden could talk about was how glad he was that I was bringing the connection of your family to him. He said it was like my dowry.”
“He was obnoxious, wasn’t he?”
“Yes!” Hallie said. “That’s the perfect word. Why didn’t I see this when I was growing up?” She put her hand over her eyes. “The worst thing is going to be trying to explain to his mother. She and I…This sounds ridiculous, but we used to talk about how I’d grow up and marry Braden and she’d be my mother for real.”
Hallie looked up at Jamie. “What am I going to tell her?”
“Tell her that she has raised a son who is a man of honor. That he is willing to sacrifice what he wants in life so he doesn’t hurt other people. Tell her that she should be very, very proud of him.”
“Wow!” Hallie said. “What in the world did you two talk about this morning?”
“Just guy stuff.” He wasn’t going to answer that question and betray Braden’s trust. He started kissing her neck as his hand moved downward.
But Hallie moved away from him. “We have to get up because I need to work on your knee.” She got out of bed, picked up his T-shirt off the floor, put it on, and went into the bathroom.
“You seem to like wearing my clothes,” he said as he piled up pillows behind his head.
“And you seem to like going without them.”
“Beauty such as this shouldn’t be covered.”
She looked at him in the mirror. When she’d first met him he’d been so embarrassed by his scars that he didn’t want anyone to see them. But now he often pulled off his shirt—and every time he did, Hallie felt like melting. She no longer saw the scars, just the beauty of the man underneath them. “I agree completely,” she said, smiling at him.
“I think my leg is fine for today. You should come back to bed.”
“Absolutely not. The only thing your b
rother likes about me is that I’m good at my job. I don’t want to lose that accolade.”
“Why did you stand there and listen?” Jamie sounded more annoyed than he meant to.
“Ask Juliana and Hyacinth. I think they wanted me to hear.” Hallie went back into the bedroom. Jamie was stretched out on the bed wearing nothing but the big brace on his leg, a sheet corner across his middle. He was certainly glorious to behold! Honey-colored skin over muscles from the neck down. Abs that rippled. Thighs like tree trunks. He was like a god of old come to life.
“Hallie,” Jamie whispered.
Somehow, she managed to turn away and step into her closet.
“Damn Todd!” she heard Jamie mutter as she pulled out a clean T-shirt.
“Hallie?” Jamie said and there was a serious tone to his voice. “This morning Braden said something strange to me. He said he didn’t think you know that I’m a doctor. I told him that wasn’t true because Jared gave you my medical file—didn’t he?”
That astonishing bit of information made Hallie feel like someone had knocked the wind out of her. She leaned back against the closet shelves to give herself a moment to recover. When she’d been given his medical report she’d been so upset over Shelly trying to steal her house that she couldn’t keep her mind on what she was seeing. But whatever the cause, no, she didn’t know that about him. Part of her felt angry that this had been hidden from her. Or maybe she was angry at herself for not figuring out something so very fundamental about this man.
But she wasn’t going to go the route of anger. She looked around the doorway at him. She well knew that humor worked best with him. “You mean you can get a job? Earn a living? That you aren’t going to live off a trust fund set up by some relative who probably had two jets?”
Jamie groaned. “You sure know how to wound a guy. I’m so hurt I may have to go back to the hospital.”
“You can’t perform surgery on yourself?”
“Actually, I did sew up this one. It wasn’t very deep, so I took care of it.” He ran his hand across a scar that ran down the side of his left arm. “It happened a few weeks before the explosion. I was afraid that if anyone saw it, I’d be sent home.”
Hallie moved back into the closet so he wouldn’t see her face. Suddenly, her joke didn’t seem very funny. She could even envision Jamie sewing his own wound. She stepped back into the bedroom. “So. You have any other big secrets?”
Jamie knew that this was the moment when he should tell her that Shelly would be there in about three hours, but he couldn’t do it. As much as he didn’t like to admit it, Braden seemed to know Hallie well and he didn’t want her to “freak out” as he’d said she would. Smiling, he put his hands behind his head. “You don’t seem to have noticed that Todd is my identical twin.”
Hallie scoffed. “Todd is four inches shorter than you are and has a roll around his middle. You should get him to go to a gym sometimes.” She sat down on the bed beside him, and as she ran her hand over his chest, her face was serious. “Do you think you can work in a hospital?”
He knew she was referring to his PTSD. It was better but certainly not cured. “No,” he said honestly. “Not yet, but I might be able to manage part-time in a small clinic. It would have to be in a place with few doors and few patients and—”
Hallie kissed him. “One day at a time. Eventually, you’ll be able to do it all.”
“Will you be there with me?”
She started to say yes, that she’d follow him wherever he went, that she couldn’t imagine a life without him, but she didn’t say that. She wasn’t going to put everything inside her on the surface. Not yet anyway. She got up and with laughter in her voice, said, “If that’s an invitation, where’s the champagne?”
“It’s coming. You like oval diamonds, right?” he said.
Hallie stared at him. She’d thought he meant dating past when his leg was healed, that they’d get to know each other in a more ordinary way, that sort of thing. But he seemed to mean something more permanent. “Yes, I do,” she said softly, then turned away. “I, uh…” She couldn’t think what to say. “I’ll meet you in the gym,” she said at last and hurried down the stairs.
Chapter Twenty-two
An hour later, Jamie was just stepping out of the outdoor shower beside the gym when he saw her. There was no mistaking who she was. Shelly was just as Braden had described: very tall, thin, with lots of blonde hair that stood out around a very pretty face.
What wasn’t pretty was the way she was looking at him. He had on only a towel and the brace, an outfit he’d been wearing often lately. But the way this woman was looking at him made him feel, well, naked. Exposed.
He’d seen men look at women in that way, their eyes moving up and down, measuring their physical attributes like they were racehorses.
But Jamie couldn’t remember a woman scrutinizing him in that way. His first instinct was to cover himself, but he didn’t. He stood up straighter, his shoulders back, feet together.
Her eyes came back up to his and what he first saw there was anger, but then she changed and gave a little smirk, as though he wasn’t worthy of her attention.
In an instant, she turned on her high heels and went toward the house, where Hallie was.
Jamie’s only thought was that he had to get to Hallie before this woman did. He had to protect the woman he loved.
But when he took a step forward, he tripped on a stepping stone and went down hard on his uninjured knee. When he tried to get up, his brace caught on the stone and entangled him. His towel was on the ground a foot away and when he reached for it, a gust of wind caught it and sent it sailing.
Cursing, he struggled to get upright without a crutch, then looked down at himself. He couldn’t burst into the house with no clothes on. He managed to hobble back to the gym and grab his sweatpants. When they caught on the back of his brace and he couldn’t pull them up, his cursing grew angrier and louder.
It seemed to take forever to get his pants on and pull a T-shirt over his head. He grabbed his crutches and started for the house. The back door was locked. He banged on it and yelled to Hallie but no one came to open the door. Maybe they went upstairs, he thought and went around to the front door. It was also locked.
He had to go nearly full circle before he saw that the tea room doors were unlocked and he went inside. When he heard voices, he quickly went through the pantry to the kitchen door and looked inside.
Shelly was sitting at the kitchen table and Hallie was pulling things out of the refrigerator and putting them before her stepsister.
The scene made Jamie frown, but he understood about families and habits. When he and his brother were together, they seemed to know what each other was going to do before it was done. But Jamie hated seeing Hallie wait on Shelly.
He stepped forward, meaning to go into the kitchen to stop it, but the door closed in his face. When he tried the knob, it was locked. As he’d done outside, he knocked on the door and called for Hallie to open it from her side, but nothing happened.
It took Jamie just seconds to get across the room to the other door into the house, but it too was locked.
He gritted his teeth in frustration. He had no doubt that the two spirits of the house were doing this. “Is this what you did the day Hallie overheard Todd and me in the kitchen?” Jamie asked aloud, but there was no answer.
He hopped across the room on his crutches, back through the pantry, and as he knew it would be, the door was open a few inches. It looked like he was supposed to watch and listen, the darkness of the pantry hiding him from their sight.
Jamie looked at Shelly sitting at the table. He’d heard so much about her beauty that he was curious. He’d seen the professional photos she’d sent him and he’d thought she looked good but in a cool, remote way that didn’t appeal to him.
Now as he looked at her, he thought of the old saying that beauty was in the eye of the beholder. Maybe Hallie and Braden saw Shelly as breathtakingly beautiful, but t
o Jamie she was far from it. She was tall and thin, shapeless really. His professional eye saw that she’d spent too much time in the sun. She wasn’t going to age well.
Jamie thought Hallie was much prettier. He loved her curves, the shape of her face, the way she smiled at everyone. Hallie’s hair was thick and soft and he knew it always smelled good, even when she was sweaty in the gym.
As he looked at the two women, he couldn’t see why anyone would think Shelly was the pretty one. To him, Hallie beat her stepsister in all aspects of mind, talent, beauty, and personality.
Inside the kitchen, Hallie was doing her best to listen to Shelly. She’d been preparing a late lunch for herself and Jamie when Shelly had shown up. Like some black magic, she just seemed to appear in the Nantucket kitchen.
And once Hallie saw her, it was as though all the sunshine disappeared. It was like the doors and windows suddenly locked and the pretty little house became a prison. She hadn’t seen or heard from Shelly since the day she’d come home and Jared had been sitting in her living room asking Shelly to sign some papers.
Hallie kept putting things on the table. Better that than sitting down and trying to talk with Shelly. She could argue for hours at a time, but all Hallie wanted was to get rid of her fast. Please, please, she thought, let Jamie stay outside. Don’t let him come in here and see Shelly. Hallie didn’t think she could bear seeing the two of them laughing and talking, flirting. Doing the things all men did with Shelly.
“I came here to work things out with you,” Shelly was saying. “But then I’m always apologizing to you.”
“You have never apologized to me,” Hallie said and was instantly annoyed with herself for taking the bait Shelly was dangling.
“I’m sure that’s the way you see it. For once, could we just talk and not fight?” she said, looking around. “This is a nice house, but it will take a lot of work to get the garden up to what your grandparents had. I guess that’s what you plan to do.”