Chapter Eighteen
Jack sat in the glass and steel office of his lawyer in Williamsburg as Ms. Lancaster helped revise his contract with the Nakamura Golf Course in Japan.
His growing investment in the Roost and Tucker’s Grove Golf Course meant he needed to remain here until October, which put him behind schedule in Japan.
Mr. Nakamura agreed to waive the late penalty, which was a godsend, and Jack needed to express proper appreciation in this flurry of contract renegotiations. He would have preferred to sign these forms online, but Mr. Nakamura was old school and wanted things on actual paper.
Ms. Lancaster set the revised timetable on the glass table before him, and Jack skimmed it quickly. “This is fine,” he said, signing his name with a flourish.
“I’ll have my secretary fax this over,” the lawyer said. “As soon as the revised timetable is signed by Mr. Nakamura, it will be official.”
Jack glanced at his watch. Alice was making Beef Wellington with a mushroom risotto tonight. When a woman like Alice Chadwick was pulling out all the stops on an intimate dinner for two, he didn’t want to be late.
“Can you send the signed documents to my hotel?” Jack asked. “I’m staying at the Tucker Inn.”
He had to move out of the Roost and into a hotel so the structural engineers could get inside to do their thing.
The Tuckers were still trying to keep Jack mollified, and had offered him a discount to stay at their fancy hotel in town.
Jack had been prepared to put Doc up too, but the old guy had finally patched things up with his wife and moved back home.
Alice couldn’t bear the thought of Jack eating fast food, so he went to her place every night for dinner.
They had now been dating for a month, and it was the best relationship of his life.
It was shameful the way he let her fuss over him.
She cooked his meals and set everything out on lace tablecloths adorned with flickering candles and antique dishes.
She preloaded television shows for them to watch in the evenings, then snuggled beside him on the couch, tracing little patterns on the back of his hand.
She laughed at his bad jokes, kept a stash of his favorite coffee blend in her pristine kitchen, and even taught him to waltz one evening—twirling him around her living room to the soft strains of a classical melody.
Jack couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so completely cared for, or so utterly charmed.
He loved walking beside her when out in public. In the hot humidity of Virginia in the summer, most people wore cut-off jeans and flip-flops, but not Alice. Her flowing skirts and lacy blouses were poetry in motion. She wore makeup and earrings and her hair styled beautifully.
And yet, she never nagged him about his rough edges anymore and seemed to genuinely appreciate a little rowdy humor.
The first time she came over to the clubhouse, where he was watching a baseball game with the crew, she was wearing a sundress with a wide straw bonnet.
He set down his beer, stood up, and hollered across the bar.
“Hey, Alice! Do you think I can burp the Star-Spangled Banner? Let’s see!
” He wrapped an arm around her neck, pulled her in close, and started belching.
By the time he got to “at the twilight’s last gleaming,” she was laughing so hard she had to wipe away happy tears.
Every few days they went to the Roost to check on progress.
The architectural plans for the new addition had moved on to the permitting stage.
The sloping land behind the Roost couldn’t accommodate the expansion, so they were going to move the old building to flatter ground two acres away where it would have the perfect view of Saint Helga’s Spring.
Grading specialists and a foundation contractor were prepping the land for the addition.
All of it required Jack to take out a million-dollar construction loan, but the enthusiastic endorsement of the bank confirmed Jack’s hunch that this was going to be a great investment.
Best of all was having fun with Alice. Her suspension from the college held, but she shook it off to throw herself into planning the Roost. She took delight in everything as they prowled around the Roost.
“Look at this old nail,” she marveled while rolling the bit of iron with its square shank and crudely forged head.
She found the nail while crawling in the attic and brought it down for him to admire.
“I’ll bet the blacksmith who forged this never imagined we’d be admiring his work three hundred years later. ”
That was the sort of daffy idealism he loved about Alice.
She found everything fascinating and insightful.
Heck, she even got him excited about the history of this place.
When she wasn’t at the Roost, she was on her computer looking through scanned archive files for any hint of a woman named Helga or the Widow Santos.
They both suspected she might be the same woman, but without proof, she couldn’t make much progress on solving the mystery.
The day the foundation was poured for the new Roost promised to be a long one.
Wooden frames and trenches outlined the perimeter of where the building would sit.
Stubby pipes jutted up from the ground for plumbing.
By the time Jack finished his work at the golf course, the mixer truck had already deposited the concrete into the waiting forms and workers used long-handled brushes to push it into every corner of the frame.
Alice sat on a wobbly wooden bench to watch, her elegant back perfectly erect, and he simply had to stop and stare.
Her profile was so perfect, so quietly feminine and serene she looked like she ought to be on a cameo.
How could she be this happy? Her career was in the toilet and people in town still whispered behind cupped hands wherever she went.
“Hey, pretty lady,” he called as he drew near, and a wide smile blossomed as she stood to welcome him with a kiss.
“Isn’t it fabulous?” she said with a nod toward the foundation.
“Fabulous,” he agreed, gazing at her instead of the construction site. He loved the feel of her in his arms, and drifted his hands gently across her back. “You want to go into town and get something decent to eat? I hear there’s a new Italian place.”
She shook her head. “I’m going to stick around for a few hours. I’m worried about birds who might land on the wet concrete.”
He choked back a laugh. “The birds aren’t going to hurt the concrete. They’re too light.”
“I’d still rather stick around to warn them away. And look, I’ve brought a picnic for both of us. Want to stay and help me play scarecrow?”
That was how he spent a perfect summer evening on a blanket with the most beautiful woman in Virginia.
They ate pimento cheese sandwiches, freshly cut chunks of pineapple, and almonds, olives, and squares of smoked gouda cheese.
She set out homemade blueberry tarts and arranged everything so perfectly the spread ought to be featured in a magazine.
Every so often she sprang up to wave away birds that flittered around the foundation, which was completely ridiculous, but he enjoyed watching her.
He was too gentlemanly to point out that the only real danger to the foundation would come overnight if a deer got curious and walked onto it.
Heck, Alice would probably camp out all night to be sure Bambi didn’t get into trouble.
Alice was scampering after a pair of bluebirds that were swooping through the air when her cell phone rang. He tilted the phone to glance at the screen, which simply read Adam.
She had a brother named Adam. There were three brothers in the Chadwick family: a nice one, a scary one, and one who’d joined the French Foreign Legion and hadn’t been seen in years. Adam was the scary one. He was a lot older than Alice and a colonel in the Air Force.
“Yo, Alice!” Jack bellowed, his voice echoing across the rolling hills. It was far more effective in scaring the bluebirds away than Alice’s gentle hand flutters. “Adam is on the phone.”
Alice seemed a little spooked as she darted back to the blanket to accept the call. “Hey, Adam,” she said, still breathless from her mad dash to save the bird population.
“Who’s the new guy?” a voice demanded.
She had answered the call on speaker, but Adam couldn’t see them and she looked confused. “What are you talking about?”
“Mom was in Washington for a consultation about Federal Reserve policy and heard through the grapevine that you’ve been seen hanging out with a new guy in Williamsburg. Who is he?”
Alice shot a wide-eyed, panicked glance at Jack, her mouth contorted in a pained grimace, but her voice strove for calm. “Oh, Jack is a super-nice guy. Really funny and supportive.”
That might be the first time anyone described him so harmlessly, and Adam wasn’t settling for it.
“Yeah, fine. Mom and Dad want to meet him.”
“They do? Why?”
Adam cleared his throat. “Possibly because the last person you cavorted with turned out to be a drug addict who ruined your reputation. And they don’t think you’re serious about searching for another academic job. They want to know what’s going on.”
Alice stood and began pacing. “Adam, it’s impossible to search for a college position this late in the summer. New academic postings don’t get listed until later in the year.”
“Don’t change the subject. Mom and Dad want you to bring your new guy out to the River House this weekend. I’ll be there, and so will Quentin. We all want to meet him.”
Alice mugged another panicked face Jack’s way. “Oh, you know . . . Jack is very busy,” she dissembled. “He doesn’t have time for that sort of thing.”
“Look, Alice, Mom and Dad are already upset with you. Keeping this new guy a secret isn’t doing you any favors. You need to come down here, bring Jack along, and sort this out. Sooner rather than later, okay?”
The phone disconnected, and Alice sighed as she plopped down on the blanket beside him. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Adam’s bark is worse than his bite . . . well, actually that’s not true. He can be pretty scary. So can my parents. You don’t have to answer their summons.”
It sounded like she didn’t want her illustrious family to meet him. “Are you embarrassed to be seen with me?”
“No!” Alice rushed to say. “It’s just that command performances out at the River House can be pretty intimidating, and you are under no obligation to them for anything.”
First of all, what kind of family actually gave their house a name?
She’d told him that the River House was their “country estate.” It was close enough to Washington for weekend getaways, but still countrified enough for sailing, horseback riding, and other rich-people sports.
If her parents intended to give her grief for dating a guy like him, he wanted to be there.
“I’ll come with you to the River House.”
Surprise widened her pretty eyes. “You will?”
“Yeah, I will.” It was a test. If she balked, if she was ashamed of him because he didn’t have a cultured Southern accent or the sort of pedigree to impress her parents, he’d walk away from her right now. It would hurt, but he’d survived worse.
She sagged in relief. “Oh, Jack. Thank you. I would really love for you to come.”
“You would?” He tried not to let his surprise show. “Why?”
“Because I feel stronger when I’m with you, and you’re a great man to have in my corner. I’d be eternally grateful if you’d come with me.”
Her confidence filled him with a surge of electricity that lit his every nerve ending, and a strange sort of happiness descended. When she looked at him like that, it made him want to go to the ends of the earth for her. “Sure, Alice. I’ll come with you.”