“Yes?”
“I told Jared I was worried about you, so he had his assistant call your mother to find out about you. And it was Jared who had the phone sent to your hotel and he paid for it.”
For a moment Izzy was silent. When she spoke, her voice was that of a commander. “Alixandra!” Izzy said sternly. “That man is a keeper. If you have to use a sledgehammer on those pipes, do it! I have to go. I’m going to throw up.”
Alix turned off her phone, then was silent as she looked out the windshield and thought about what Izzy had told her.
“Happy for your friend?” Jared asked.
“Very. Izzy was born to be someone’s mother. When I’m down, she’s always there with chocolate and a listening ear. You couldn’t be a better friend than that.”
“Is she still planning on having the wedding here?”
“I think so, but it’ll be fairly soon—if she plans to still fit into the dress we bought, that is.”
“You can spend the afternoon talking to Toby about what you need.” He glanced at her. “You okay?”
“Sure. Fine.” She knew she needed to adjust to this new development. Her friend was not only getting married but she was going to have a baby, while Alix … “It’s just that I’m still getting over a breakup. You ever go through that?” She waited for his answer with her breath held. It was the first really personal question she’d asked him.
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “Every single one of them eventually said, ‘You love your work more than you will ever love me.’ After that, I always knew the end was near.”
“That’s kind of what Eric told me,” Alix said. “Not about love, but that I paid more attention to work than I did to him. I couldn’t make him understand that buildings have always been a big part of my life.”
“I can vouch for that,” Jared said. “You used to build three-foot-tall towers when you were just a kid. You and Granddad—” He stopped. His grandfather used to oversee little Alix in her placement of objects. And he told her where things in the house were. Under Caleb’s direction, she’d pulled pieces of scrimshaw and little enamel boxes, and even coins from places where they’d been hiding for a century or more.
“Your grandfather and I did what?” Alix asked.
He knew she meant his most recent grandfather, but he’d died not long after Jared’s birth. His mother’s father had died before that. When Jared was a toddler, he’d made his father laugh when he’d been shocked that one of his friends had a grandfather everyone could actually see.
“Sorry. Mixed up. You and Aunt Addy used t
o spend hours building things.”
Alix looked away for a moment as she felt like he wasn’t telling the truth. She didn’t remember Aunt Addy sitting on the floor and stacking things. But Alix wasn’t going to push it. She was learning that if she persisted she could get whatever she wanted to know out of him. But if she asked directly, he changed the subject. “So what’s Lexie’s house like?”
Jared dropped his shoulders, which he’d unconsciously raised to protect himself against her onslaught of questions. He gave her a dazzling smile. “It’s a new purchase, only been in my family for about seventy-five years.”
“Downright modern,” she said and they smiled at each other. He talked of the history of the house until they got back to Kingsley House, where he parked the old truck. They walked toward Main Street to Lexie’s.
Alix couldn’t help feeling nervous. What if the three women didn’t like one another?
Walking beside her, Jared must have picked up on her thoughts. “Anybody gives you any problems, let me know.”
She smiled at him in gratitude.
Chapter Twelve
“They’re coming up the walk now,” Lexie said as she peeked out through the dining room windows.
Toby was making sandwiches for their guests. She and Lexie had been up early to start cooking for tomorrow’s picnic, so they’d already eaten. When Jared had sent his text that he and Alix were on their way, the two women had dropped everything and scurried to prepare.
“They look good together,” Lexie said. “She’s tall enough for him and he’s always liked red hair. I can see Victoria in her face, but she’s built like Ken.”
“Remember!” Toby said.
“I know. Don’t mention Ken. I think I’ll call him and tell him how annoying keeping this secret is. Better yet, I’ll let you call him.”
Toby smiled. Lexie could sometimes be rather abrupt. “What’s taking them so long?”