True Love (3 page)

“He used you!” Izzy’d had to stand back and watch Eric cuddle up to Alix while she practically did his work for him. All the other males in their classes were intimidated by her. Her father was a successful architect, her mother a celebrated writer, and, worse, Alix’s designs won every competition, every prize, and were praised by the entire school. “And what did you expect from him when you were always in the top five in your class? I thought Professor Weaver was going to kiss your feet when he saw your last project.”

“He just appreciates designs that can actually be
built
.”

“Well, duh. That thing Eric designed before you started helping him couldn’t have been put together by the crew that built the Sydney Opera House.”

Alix gave a small smile. “It was rather like a spaceship, wasn’t it?”

“I expected it to go into orbit at any second.”

Alix seemed to be recovering but then her eyes turned sad again. “But did you see his date at the farewell party? She was barely twenty, if that.”

“Go ahead and say it,” Izzy said. “She was dumb. Really stupid. But that’s what Eric needs for his fragile ego. To make him go up, others have to come down.”

“I don’t know if you’re a therapist or a guru.”

“Neither. I’m a woman and I see things. You’re going to be a great architect and the only way you’re going to find love is with a man who is in a completely different field.” She was speaking of her
own fiancé, who sold cars. He didn’t know Pei from Corbusier from Montgomery’s latest organic masterpiece.

“Or I could find an architect who is so good he isn’t intimidated by me,” Alix said.

“Frank Lloyd Wright is dead.”

Alix gave another small smile and Izzy was encouraged to change the subject. “Didn’t you tell me there was a man living in the guesthouse of where you’re going to be staying?”

Alix sniffed as she bit into a chocolate muffin Izzy had bought for her. “The lawyer said that Miss Kingsley’s nephew is staying there and that he can answer any questions I have. Or if the house needs repair he can do it. He’s called Mr. Kingsley.”

“Oh.” Izzy’s voice showed her disappointment. “If Adelaide Kingsley was ninety-something when she died, that means her nephew is at least sixty. Maybe he’ll give you a ride on his electric scooter.”

“Don’t make me laugh.”

“I’m trying to. Is it working?”

“Yes,” Alix said, “it is.” She looked toward the snack bar. “Do they have any chocolate chip cookies?”

Groaning, Izzy silently cursed Eric the ex-boyfriend. As she went to the counter she muttered, “If I gain weight, I’m going to put hair gel in all his glue. His models will fall apart.” She was smiling as she took four big plastic-wrapped cookies out of a basket and paid for them.

By the time the ferry docked, Alix had stopped crying, but she still looked like a martyr about to be led to a stake.

Izzy, full of cookies and hot chocolate—she couldn’t let Alix eat alone—had never been to Nantucket and she was looking forward to seeing the place. With their big leather bags (gifts from Victoria) over their shoulders, they stepped onto a long, wide wooden wharf. Little shops that looked like they used to be fishermen’s shacks were filled with shirts with tasteful logos of Nantucket on them. She would have liked to stop to buy her fiancé some caps and sweatshirts
but Alix was plowing on, chin up, eyes straight ahead, looking at nothing, just walking.

Izzy saw some kids come around a corner, ice cream cones in their hands. Maybe if she could get Alix settled with a cone, she could do some shopping.

“This way!” Izzy called and Alix followed her. There was a little ice cream place on the edge of the wharf and Izzy sent Alix inside. “Butter pecan for me,” Izzy said.

Numbly, Alix nodded and went inside.

Izzy took out her cell phone and called her fiancé. “Not good,” she said in answer to his question. “And I don’t know when I’ll be back. The way she is now, she’ll climb into bed and never get out. I know,” she said. “I miss you too. Uh-oh. Here she comes. Oh, no! She’s bought herself a cone with three scoops of chocolate on it. At the rate she’s going she won’t need the ferry to get back. She’ll float. I think—”

Izzy broke off because a man walked between her and Alix. He was tall, a little over six feet, broad shouldered. He had a rough, graying beard and a tangle of hair that reached almost to his shoulders. He walked with long strides, and his jeans and denim shirt showed his toned body. He glanced at Izzy, seemed to dismiss her, then looked at Alix, who was walking toward her friend, her hands filled with two ice cream cones. He looked Alix up and down, seemed to hesitate for a moment, as though he were going to speak to her, but then he walked on and disappeared around the corner.

Izzy stood there staring after the man, her eyes wide, her mouth open. Her phone was still to her ear and Glenn was talking but she wasn’t hearing him.

When Alix reached her, Izzy said in a whisper, “Did you see him?”

“Who?” Alix held out Izzy’s cone to her.

“Him.”

“Him who?” Alix asked with no real interest.

“HIM!!”

From Izzy’s phone came Glenn’s shout, “Isabella!”

“Oh, sorry,” she said into the cell. “I just saw him. Here on Nantucket. I have to go.” She clicked off the phone, took her cone from Alix, and dropped it into a nearby trash bin.

“Hey!” Alix said. “I could have eaten that.”

“You didn’t see him?”

“I didn’t see anyone,” Alix said as she bit into her ice cream. “Who did you see?”

“Montgomery.”

Alix paused, her lips on the piled-high ice cream. Big chocolate chunks stuck out the sides.

“I saw Jared Montgomery walk right past here.”

Alix pulled her mouth away from the ice cream. “
The
Jared Montgomery? The architect? Designed the Windom building in New York?”

“Who else would I mean? And he looked at you. He almost stopped to speak to you.”

“No,” Alix said, eyes wide. “He couldn’t. He didn’t.”

“He
did
!” Izzy said. “But you—”

Alix dropped her triple cone in the bin, wiped her mouth, and grabbed Izzy’s arm. “Where did he go?”

“There. Around the corner.”

“And you let him get away?!” Alix dropped her friend’s arm and hurried forward, with Izzy close behind. They arrived just in time to see the bearded man standing on a beautiful white boat, with a cabin below. He was smiling up at some girl on the dock who had on indecently short shorts. That it was a cool day didn’t seem to make any difference to her. He smiled at her, a grin of such warmth that Alix thought it rivaled the sun. He took the bag the girl handed down to him, then sped off alone, leaving dual waves of water behind him.

Alix fell against the weathered shingles of a building. “It
was
him.”

Izzy leaned back beside her, both of them staring at the boat that was quickly disappearing in the distance. “His office is in New York.
So why do you think he’s here? Vacationing? Building something divine?”

Alix was still staring out to sea. “It really
was
him. Remember when we heard him speak at that hotel?”

“Like it was yesterday,” Izzy said. “When he smiled at that girl just now, I was sure it was him. I’d recognize those eyes anywhere.”

“And that bottom lip,” Alix murmured. “I wrote a poem about it.”

“You’re kidding. I never saw any poem.”

“That’s because I didn’t show it to you. It’s the only poem I’ve ever written.”

They stood there in silence, not sure what to do or say. Jared Montgomery was their hero, a man whose designs were legendary in the architectural world. To them he was the Beatles, all the vampires, and Justin Bieber rolled into one.

Izzy was the first to recover. To her left was a young man tying up his old boat. She stepped over to him. “Do you know the man who just left in that white boat?”

“Sure. He’s my cousin.”

“Reeeaaallly?” Izzy asked, sounding as though that was the most interesting thing she’d ever heard in her life. “What’s his name?”

Alix had come to stand beside her friend and they were looking at the man with their breaths held.

“Jared Kingsley.”

“Kingsley?” Alix asked, puzzled, then her face fell. “He isn’t Jared Montgomery?”

The man laughed. He was not bad-looking, but his clothes looked like they hadn’t been washed in a while. “Oh. It’s like that, is it?” He was obviously teasing them. “He’s Kingsley here but he’s Montgomery in America.”

“America?” Izzy asked. “What does that mean?”

“There.” The man pointed across the water. “In America. Where you just came from.”

Both Izzy and Alix smiled at the idea that the island of Nantucket was a separate country.

Izzy wanted to make absolutely sure he was the man they thought he was. “Do you know what he does for a living?”

“He draws house plans. He drew a garage for me and it’s a nice one. I rent out the apartment over it in the summer. You girls need a place to stay?”

It took the two young women a moment to digest the idea that one of the greatest architects in history had been reduced to “he draws house plans.”

Alix spoke first. “No, thanks. I’m—” She broke off because she didn’t want to tell this stranger her business.

He smiled as though he knew what they were thinking. “If you girls are interested in him, you’d better get in line. And you’ll have to put it off because ol’ Jared’s going to be out for at least three days.”

“Thanks,” Izzy said.

“If you change your mind, I’m Wes. Just think of the direction of the beautiful Nantucket sunset and that’s me.”

Izzy and Alix went back around the building to the ice cream shop. They were both starry-eyed. Stunned.

“Jared Montgomery is also Jared Kingsley,” Alix finally managed to say.

It dawned on Izzy what was in her friend’s mind. “And you’re staying in Kingsley House.”

“For a year.”

“Do you think he’s the Mr. Kingsley who lives there
with
you?” Izzy’s eyes were so wide they were circles. “That he’s the man who’s supposed to help you if you have any problems with the house?”

“No. I mean, I don’t think so. I couldn’t imagine such a thing.”

“But you hope so!” Izzy put her fingers to her temples. “I foresee plumbing disasters by the dozen. You’ll forget and turn on the water and douse him. He’ll have to remove his clothing and you’ll be wet too, then you’ll look at each other and tear your clothes off and—”

Alix was laughing. “I won’t be
that
blatant but I could see … maybe dropping a packet of my latest designs that just happen to land faceup and right at his feet.”

“That’s good,” Izzy said. “The fabulous sex can come later. First let him see what you can do in the way of architecture, then you sit back and let him take over and be the man. That’s a good plan.”

Alix was dreamy-eyed. “He’ll tell me that he’s never seen such innovative and well-thought-out designs in his life. He’ll say that I have a talent like he’s never seen before and he wants me with him every moment so he can teach me everything he knows. An entire year with my own private tutor. A year of learning and—”

“That’s it!” Izzy said.

“What is?”

“This whole will thing,” Izzy said. “Your mother said that this old woman who you never even met—”

“Mom says she and I spent a summer with her when I was four. And I guess they stayed in touch.”

“Okay, she’s a woman you don’t remember meeting, but she left you her house for a year. Victoria said it was because you wanted the break before you got a job. I’ve always thought the whole thing was fishy, because the old woman—”

“Miss Kingsley.”

“Right. Miss Kingsley didn’t know when she was going to die. For all she knew she could have lived to be a hundred and you’d be running your own company by then.”

“Maybe,” Alix said, “but only if I pass my tests.” It was an inside joke among architecture students that they spent longer in school than doctors, and at the end was a series of agonizing tests. But when they got out there were no jobs. “I don’t get your point.”

“I think Miss Kingsley, and probably your mother too, wanted you to meet the unmarried architect nephew, Jared Montgomery. Or in this case, Kingsley.”

“But if she’d lived to be a hundred, by that time he could have half a dozen kids.”

“Why let facts ruin a good story?”

“You’re right,” Alix said. “Miss Kingsley wanted me to meet her nephew, so she—with my mother’s encouragement—put me in the
house next to him. Of course he lives and works in New York and is probably only here two or three weeks a year, but what does that matter to a whopping good story?”

“Are you saying you don’t think your mother had an ulterior motive for getting you into this old house?”

Alix knew her mother far too well to say no to that. The truth was that Alix didn’t care why or how this had been arranged. All that mattered was that she was being given this unbelievable opportunity. And was it actually possible that Jared Montgomery would be living right next door to her? In a guesthouse on the same property? “I will pick his brain clean,” she said. “I’m going to learn everything he knows, from design down to the drains. Remind me to send my mother roses. Come on, let’s go to the house.”

“No more ice cream?” Izzy asked.

“Are you kidding? Let’s walk fast and work up a sweat. Why did you let me eat all that chocolate?”

“Of all the ungrateful—” Izzy began but Alix’s laugh cut her off. “Very funny. Pardon me for not laughing. We have three days before he returns so we have a lot of work to do.”

“And I hear the shopping on Nantucket is good,” Alix said.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Izzy said. “I’ll do the shopping. You need to work. This is going to be the presentation of your life.”

“I do have a few ideas in my head,” Alix said, and Izzy laughed, as Alix always had an abundance of design ideas.

As they started walking, the first thing they noticed, now that the specter of what-Eric-did-to-Alix was no longer hanging over them, was the incredibly beautiful view of downtown Nantucket. The street was cobblestones, difficult to walk or drive on, but so very beautiful. The sidewalk was wide and laid with bricks. Over the centuries the trees and the settling of the earth had made them undulate and flow in an artistic way.