Jack waited until the roof was safely deposited onto the structural support that had been built to hold it. Over the next few hours, a dozen construction workers scrambled over the house to begin dismantling the second floor. Old nails werepulled, hammers banged, and mortar knocked to the ground. All they could do was watch as the professionals took over.
Alice, being Alice, came prepared with a picnic lunch for them. There was fried chicken, pasta salad with artichokes, and a peach pie with a lattice crust. All of it was packed in a wicker basket lined with a blue-and-white-checkered fabric. No paper plates for Alice. Her basket came with china plates and silverware strapped to the inside lid, and real wine glasses. She spread a blanket across the lumpy grass, and once all the food had been taken from the basket, she spread another cloth atop the flat basket lid to serve as a table.
“We’re attracting attention.” He smiled. “This is probably the fanciest picnic anyone has ever seen.”
“Nonsense,” Alice said as she raised her glass of white wine in a toast. “You’re in Virginia. Picnics are an artform here.”
They toasted and watched from a distance as work continued on the Roost. Everything was unfolding according to plan, but Jack kept a wary eye as more members of the press continued to arrive.
Alice was pleased with how her picnic was the perfect accompaniment to watch as work began on the Roost. Who could be anxious on a perfect autumn day with a picnic basket worthy of aBetter Homes & Gardensmagazine spread? The glass of pinot grigio had helped, and now she successfully adopted Jack’s confidence as she watched the crane lift one log after another from the second story of the Roost.
It was going to be okay. The decaying Roost had been on its last legs, and now a team of experts was here to rebuild it better than before. Jack would be working on a golf course in Japan bythe time the renovation was complete, but she would send him photos and invite him to return for its grand opening next year.
Jack elbowed her. “Do you recognize those guys?” he asked, nodding to some photographers standing near Micky Hayes and the rest of the local news crew.
They didn’t look familiar. Instead of a shoulder-mount television camera, these guys had cameras with long zoom lenses.
And one of them was pointing it ather. She scrambled to her feet and reached for her basket, preparing to leave. Jack got up, too.
“You don’t know them?” he asked, his voice grim.
“I don’t, but Sebastian Bell is in town, and I have a very bad feeling about this.” Tension gathered tighter as the other two men pointed those awful zoom lenses at her. Now even the local news guy had trained the video on her.
“I’ll take care of this,” Jack said. “This is private property, and I’ll get them to back off.”
Alice turned her back to the photographers and scrambled to clean up the remnants of lunch. She tossed the remainder of the wine and dumped the glasses into the basket. A wine stem broke, but it didn’t slow her down because the reporters were strolling toward her. All of them!
She flung the plates and the chicken bones into the basket. It would make a greasy mess but she needed to get out of here, and no, she couldn’t abandon the basket. Littering would add fuel to the social media hail of condemnation. Gingham fabric could be washed, but another round of intrusive photos would haunt her forever.
“Miss Chadwick?” one of them asked.
“ProfessorChadwick,” Jack corrected, and she winced. He meant well, but could she still consider herself a professor afterbeing fired? It was one more thing the paparazzi could skewer her for.
“ProfessorChadwick,” the skinny guy corrected. “Do you have any comment on what Sebastian Bell posted about you this morning?”
Her stomach dropped. She’d uninstalled every social media app from her phone, so how could she possibly know what Sebastian said?
“I haven’t read anything,” she murmured, wadding up the picnic blanket and avoiding their eyes.
“It was a video,” the skinny guy said. “He couldn’t have been nicer. You really haven’t seen it?”
Micky got his cell phone out and started scrolling. “Here it is,” he said, turning the phone to her. There was Sebastian, looking remarkably casual in an open-collared white shirt, hair perfectly tousled, with a half-pained, sheepish look of charm as he spoke with a female reporter.
“Falling in love with Alice Chadwick is the best thing that ever happened to me. She didn’t deserve any of the garbage that happened to her while I was in rehab. When I go to my grave, my biggest regret on this earth will have been letting Alice down.”
The breath left her in a whoosh. Sebastian could always turn an elegant phrase, but this statement and apology were pitch perfect.Sebastianwas perfect.
Well, he was still a rogue and a scoundrel and possibly battling a drug addiction, but he was as smoothly elegant as ever. It hurt to see.
The reporters kept their cameras trained on her, ready to record anything she said. What could she say? Sebastian had left her speechless.
“She doesn’t have anything to say,” Jack said. “This is private property, and I need you folks to leave.”
“Professor Chadwick, if Sebastian was here, what would you like to say to him?”
She still stood mute, helpless to express the tangle of emotions roiling inside, and Jack stepped up to the plate.
“Alice is too polite to say anything, but she’d like to punch him in the jaw,” Jack said bluntly. “Sebastian Bell hung her out to dry while he lounged in the south of France. A few pretty words can’t blot that out.”
