“Have you seen him go out on a date? Even once?”
“No, I haven’t,” Peregrine said, but he also hadn’t thought about it. He knew the cheerleaders sometimes used Shamus as the center for a pyramid, which meant that five pretty girls in short skirts climbed on him. But Peregrine had never heard Shamus say anything about the trick, certainly not in a lusty way.
“Which leaves Colin,” Peregrine said. When his wife’s face turned red with emotion, he knew he’d hit on the center of all her distress.
Alea sat down and lowered his voice. “That ‘boy’ is thirty years old.”
“He has Jean.”
Alea stared at him.
“You don’t think he and Jean will get married?”
“Married, then divorced,” she said.
Peregrine’s mouth dropped open in shock. “I thought you liked Jean.”
“I love her second only to my own daughter. I’ve enjoyed every minute I’ve spent with her. She makes me laugh. I love talking with her. She’s a joy to go shopping with. But she’s not right for Colin.”
“Don’t you think he should decide that for himself?” When she was silent, Peregrine stared at her. Her eyes seemed to be trying to tell him something, but he didn’t know what it was. How did all the things she’d just revealed relate to one another?
It hit him hard. “If you don’t care about trying to become a countess . . . You hired Gemma for Colin, didn’t you? This whole thing, buying all those old documents, remodeling the guesthouse, hiring a live-in researcher, it’s all been for Colin, hasn’t it?”
Alea looked at her husband as though he were extremely clever to have figured that out. “Our son takes his duties of being sheriff very seriously and he won’t look at a woman under his jurisdiction. Did I ever tell you about the time I was waiting in the car for Colin and that Dolores Costas appeared at her door wearing a pink negligee?”
About fifty times, Peregrine thought but didn’t say. He’d asked Colin about it, and he’d laughed. The woman was a single mother and her three-year-old had had a fever during the night, so she was in her pajamas and robe—which her daughter had thrown up on. Peregrine figured the truth was somewhere between the two stories, because many times he’d seen a woman make a play for Colin but be ignored. To Colin, all the people of Edilean were for him to watch over, and he would never consider making a pass at someone under his care.
Which is why Peregrine thought Jean suited Colin so well. His work in Edilean didn’t have regular hours. He could be called on to do anything, from getting a doctor to a pregnant woman during a snowstorm, to finding lost people in the wilderness area, to tracking a rabid dog. A normal wife would be unhappy about how much time her husband was away, but Jean had a flourishing career. She was too busy to worry when the man in her life wasn’t home by six.
“Do you know what Colin did?” Alea asked.
“I doubt if I have any idea.”
“He bought Luke Connor’s house.”
“The one he remodeled?”
“Yes.”
“That place is beautiful. What did Colin pay for it? Did he—?” Alea was looking at her husband hard. If their son had bought a house and was going to quit living in that awful apartment over his office, that meant he was getting ready to settle down, maybe to marry. Shouldn’t Alea be hap
py about that? Oh. Right. Peregrine had never thought about it before, but he couldn’t see Jean as anybody’s mother. He certainly couldn’t imagine her staying up all night with a sick child and the next morning answering the door wearing dirty pajamas. The truth was, he couldn’t imagine Jean living in Edilean.
“So now do you understand?” Alea asked.
“Did you and your boyfriend Freddy plan all this?” He knew his wife hadn’t seen the man who became president of their university in years, but it galled him that they kept in touch. Three times Frazier Motors had donated vehicles to the university to raise money. “If you don’t want to do it for Freddy, then do it for me. Please?” his wife had pleaded.
Alea gave her husband a one-sided smile. “Freddy and I did go over the qualifications of each applicant rather carefully. I didn’t want someone who was deeply attached to her family and would never consider moving to a small town. Wasn’t that girl Isla a major disappointment?”
“What about Kirk?” he asked in wonder. “No, don’t tell me. If three young women had shown up, Colin would have known in an instant what you were up to.”
Alea smiled warmly at him.
“And Colin likes Gemma,” Peregrine whispered.
“More than I ever hoped he would. When Freddy told me the girl tutored football players, I knew there was a real chance that something could happen between them.”
“So what now?” Peregrine asked as he looked at his watch. He was going to forget about work and go directly to golf. He needed some exercise to clear his mind.