The River House

by Carla Neggers

  He smiled. It’d be good to see his father, too. The guy was a mess, but he was a happy mess—an incurable optimist. It was one thing he, Mark and Gabe all had in common.

  “Felicity MacGregor is also organizing a party for Kylie next week,” Russ said from the back seat, matter-of-fact. “It’s at Knights Bridge Free Public Library. She’s celebrating the publication of her latest badger book.”

  Gabe frowned. “Badger book?”

  Dylan grinned next to him. “We’ve got to get you caught up on Knights Bridge’s goings-on.”

  Russ explained the badgers. Gabe supposed Mark would get into the series now that he and Jess were having a baby. “I knew your wife was a children’s author, but I didn’t know about the badgers.”

  “It’s a good thing Felicity’s in town,” Russ said. “Kylie’s sister volunteered to organize the party, but Kylie wisely turned her down. Lila’s a vet—she can splint a broken leg on a dog, but if it was up to her, she’d leave the party to the last minute and open up cans of peaches and a box of vanilla wafers. Kylie wouldn’t mind, but it’s good Felicity is on board. Kylie says she’s taken on the badgers.”

  Gabe kept his hands firmly on the wheel. Badgers. Felicity. “Parties galore in Knights Bridge these days,” he said, leaving it at that.

  He, Russ and Dylan fell into silence. Gabe hadn’t figured out where he’d stay that night—he’d camp out on his father’s couch if he had to—but as Boston gave way to the Massachusetts countryside, he suddenly knew exactly where he would stay.

  It was irresistible, and it was long overdue.

  Three

  Felicity was sitting at her table on her deck fantasizing about absconding to Wyoming when a client in Boston phoned to reschedule a conference call. “I might have to go to Wyoming,” she said.

  But there were phones in Wyoming, and she set a date for next week.

  After she hung up, she opened her laptop and saved the updated files on the entrepreneurial boot camp. Organizing Gabe’s party, even on short notice, would be simple enough. She already had a venue, a caterer and a confirmed guest list. She doubted he’d care what she came up with. He was a master delegator, and he’d delegated her to handle his party. She could have kangaroos in pink tutus there, and he’d trust they were appropriate because she was the professional he’d hired to do the job.

  She regretted her comment about Wyoming in her email to Gabe but not much. It had felt good to say it out loud to her Boston client and act as if she was serious about clearing out of Knights Bridge while he was there.

  “Maybe I am serious,” she said.

  She looked up flights, hotels, camps and itineraries. She wanted to see Jackson Hole, the Grand Tetons, Yellowstone. She’d wanted to see them forever. Why not go now?

  Because she’d never imagined going to Wyoming without Gabe.

  She shook off that uncomfortable thought. She wished he’d cancel his appearance at the entrepreneurial boot camp, but she knew he wouldn’t. This was Gabriel Flanagan. He would keep his commitment.

  She’d manage. She knew she would, even as she checked out the sites in Jackson Hole. She’d been mad at him after his blunt lecture about her situation, but that anger was behind her. He had no role in her life. He wasn’t a positive or a negative. His visit to Knights Bridge for the boot camp and hiring her to handle the party weren’t anything out of the ordinary. Last-minute adjustments were part of her job as an event planner.

  She flipped through the photo gallery for a quality Jackson Hole hotel. “I can afford a suite,” she said.

  Well, two nights in a suite.

  The sun hit her laptop screen, and she gave up on absconding for the moment and went inside. The house had one main living area, where she often worked despite having taken over one of the three bedrooms for an office. She sat in her living room and switched to working on a final list of possibilities to present to Kylie for how to handle the badgers at next week’s launch party. The boot camp would be past her by then. Gabe would almost certainly have left town. It’d be a fun, relaxing evening.

  “Do not let Gabe worm his way back into your life,” Felicity said aloud. “Just don’t.”

  Not that he had that in mind. He’d had a lot going on the past few years with his work as a digital start-up whiz. She didn’t ask questions about him around town, but she’d pieced together the casual tidbits she’d heard, especially from Mark. After she’d stalked out of Gabe’s apartment three years ago, she’d resisted spying on him on social media. At first it’d been a struggle. Now she was never tempted.

  She sighed. “Well. Seldom tempted.”

  Sometimes she’d overhear a tidbit about him in town, and she’d feel the urge to find out what he was up to. She’d been tempted to ask Mark or Jessica, but she knew she couldn’t go backward—she had to keep moving forward. She and Gabe had made the break with each other three years ago. She’d decided it wasn’t in her interest or his interest for her to be a crutch for him or for him to be a crutch for her. That wasn’t what a real friendship was, and they knew—they couldn’t deny it any longer—that they couldn’t have a real friendship. Friendship would get in the way of relationships. Men for her. Women for him.

  “More like women for him.”

  Men and her...

  The truth was, there were no men and her. A dinner or a movie here and there but that was it. At first she’d blamed necessity. She’d had to focus on getting a roof over her head, paying bills, getting out of debt, learning the ropes of how to throw a wide range of meetings, conferences, parties and other events. Then she’d had to focus on keeping a roof over her head, putting away an emergency fund, staying out of debt and excelling at event planning—putting her own stamp on it. Then she’d had to focus on starting and running her own business. Moving to Knights Bridge. Buying a house.

  Would Gabe regard buying this house, on his family’s old campsite, as a fork in his eye?

  If I ever come back to Knights Bridge to live, it’ll be to the river. But I’ll never come back.

  He’d assured her she didn’t have to hate Knights Bridge and he’d be fine if she came back here to live, but that was different from buying this place.

  No question. He’d see her living on his grandfather’s old campsite as a fork in his eye. Had Mark told him she’d bought the house? Was that why Gabe had decided to appear at the boot camp at the last minute?

  She shook her head. No. If she could count on one thing never changing about Gabe Flanagan, it was his practical nature. The house and their shattered friendship hadn’t been a factor in his decision to do the boot camp and sponsor the party.

  Why was she getting herself worked up, anyway? Mark could have told him, Oh, yeah, Felicity’s a party planner now, why don’t you hire her? And Gabe could have said, Done—let her know, will you?

  She gave up on work, shut down her laptop and drifted back outside, taking the deck stairs to the strip of lawn bordered by the woods on the steep riverbank. She took a deep breath, trying to stay in the moment and focus on the smells and sounds of the waning afternoon. She glanced at the open brick fireplace, still intact from when Gabe and Mark’s grandfather had built it decades ago. Mark must have taken care for it to have survived construction of the house. She hadn’t had a fire in it yet.

  She brushed the fireplace’s worn brick, remembering another hot summer day. She and Gabe had met at their favorite swimming hole on the river after their jobs, hers at her father’s air-conditioned bank, his ripping apart a hot attic for an addition on a house near the village. They’d leaped into the river, laughing, enjoying the cool, clear water—by mutual agreement not talking about their impending departure for college. Afterward, they’d spread out a blanket from his car in front of the old fireplace. As daylight slipped away and the night turned cool, they’d built a fire.

  Felicity could smell the wood smoke as if she we
re eighteen again, stretched out next to Gabe. Her heart raced, as it had that night—this time, though, because she knew what had come next, not because of her reaction to Gabe touching her bare thigh. He’d never done that before, and it’d been their undoing. The campsite was isolated, the night brightened only by the flames of the fire and the spray of stars above them.

  Heat rose in her cheeks as that crazy night came back to her in all its clothes-tearing, laughing, exploring, reckless glory. What had she and Gabe been thinking?

  Of course, they hadn’t been thinking.

  She’d worried they’d end up rolling down the riverbank given their exuberance. He’d been completely absorbed in the act at hand, and she’d followed him over the brink. There’d been a lot of fumbling, awkward touching and panting, a few nervous laughs, and then it was over, the virginity threshold never to be crossed again.

  By dawn, they were back to being friends. Or at least Gabe was. She’d gone along with him and had pretended their night together hadn’t been that big a deal.

  “That wasn’t...you know. Anything. Right, Felicity?”

  “Right, Gabe.”

  She remembered his sexy half smile as he’d narrowed his eyes on her. “I didn’t know I’d be your first.”

  She’d pretended not to hear him, and a few weeks later, they left their small, out-of-the-way hometown for college. She was positive no one else knew about their night together. When she’d returned home that morning, her parents assumed she’d camped out with girlfriends and lectured her about being sure she’d put out any campfires, stressing the importance of being responsible. Gabe had reported his parents hadn’t even realized he hadn’t come home. He’d shrugged off their obliviousness. “It’s okay, Felicity. It’s not like it’s news they’re flakes.”

  Live-for-the-moment, beloved and talented flakes. Mickey Flanagan could fix the fussiest imported car but on his own schedule. Lee had never been without a smile at the local assisted-living facility, where she’d worked as a licensed practical nurse. Dreamers, Felicity’s father had called them, not without affection. Mickey had dropped out of college as a mechanical engineering major to travel. He’d never gone back. Born and raised in quiet Knights Bridge, he’d returned home after he’d satisfied his wanderlust, got a job as a mechanic and married a local girl. They’d had two sons together, both of whom had vowed to put action behind their dreams—which to them meant getting out of Knights Bridge.

  Gabe had dropped out of college himself after his mother’s death from an aggressive form of breast cancer. Mark had already been working as an architect in Boston. Their father had quit his job and gone on the road again, eventually returning to Knights Bridge and opening up his own shop specializing in vintage motorcycles and sports cars.

  She and Gabe had never been destined to be anything but friends, and now not even that. He was a client. Nothing more, nothing less. That summer night with him was in the past. If they hadn’t talked it over then, they sure weren’t going to now. She wished they’d run into each other at the country store or at the mill on one of his visits and had gotten their reunion—however it would go—past them. Now they’d see each other at a high-profile event.

  They’d be fine, Felicity thought, annoyed with herself for her angst. They’d be cordial with each other. Neutral.

  Hey, Felicity, good to see you.

  Yeah, you, too, Gabe.

  She headed back up to the deck. The afternoon had turned hot and muggy. She usually didn’t mind the heat since it rarely lasted long and she knew she’d be wishing for a hot day come January. Right now, though, the weather only seemed to emphasize her discomfort about seeing Gabe again. She doubted she’d be able to avoid him on Saturday.

  “Neutral. He’s not a positive or a negative in your life. He’s a client. That’s it.” She groaned to herself. “Keep talking. Maybe you’ll start believing it.”

  She’d see him—that was unavoidable—but maybe she wouldn’t have to talk to him. He’d be schmoozing at the boot camp and then at the party, and the rest of his visit he’d be hanging out with family and buddies still in town. He wouldn’t be staying long. He never did. He hadn’t even before they’d parted badly.

  Felicity wasn’t afraid to see him. She just dreaded it.

  Maybe it was best to get it over with and prove to herself he was a zero in her life. Be done with dreading to see him. She’d moved on a long time ago. She harbored no ill will or secret anything for him. No secret desire for revenge, no secret longing, no secret hope they’d renew their friendship—none of that.

  She grabbed her handbag and went out to her car, a much-used Land Rover that she’d gotten off her brother in a great deal. “It’s not sexy but it’s a sweet machine,” he’d told her.

  She drove out the river road past the mill toward the village, turning onto another country road and following it until it ended at quiet, pretty Carriage Hill Road. She turned left, rolling down her window and taking in the slightly cooler air. The road eventually dead-ended at a Quabbin gate, one of more than forty gates that marked entrances to the reservoir and its surrounding protected watershed. She wouldn’t go that far, but she knew the spot well. She and Gabe had obtained fishing licenses and gone out on the reservoir in his dad’s rickety boat a couple of times, but neither of them had developed the fishing bug. She’d enjoyed being on the pristine water, envisioning life in the valley before the reservoir. She’d noticed signs of the lost valley towns. Old roads that now led into the reservoir, the occasional remnant of buildings long demolished. Gabe hadn’t paid much attention. He’d focused on catching fish.

  Felicity blinked back unexpected tears and cleared her throat. She had work to do before Saturday. “Best get to it,” she said, and continued down the quiet road.

  * * *

  Felicity parked at the contemporary “barn” Olivia and Dylan McCaffrey had built on property he’d inherited from his father. It served as the base for Dylan’s fledgling adventure travel business and entrepreneurial boot camps and was just up the road from the pristine antique house Olivia had turned into a destination inn—a coincidence that had led to their meeting on an icy March day over a year ago. They’d also built a house up a stone walk from the barn, finally moving in earlier in the summer. Mark Flanagan had designed both the house and barn to meld into the rolling rural New England landscape. Felicity didn’t know if Gabe had ever seen them. Probably not.

  Olivia greeted her at the front entrance. She was dressed in yoga pants and a long tank top, her dark hair pulled back. She was visibly pregnant, due in late autumn. “I had an urge for hot chocolate,” she said, smiling as she held up a steaming mug. “I know. You’d think I’d have an urge for lemonade on a hot summer day. Come in, won’t you?”

  Felicity followed her into the barn. She’d checked out the space several times in the lead-up to Saturday’s boot camp. The interior included a large, flexible open area with a sectional sofa and comfy chairs in front of a huge fieldstone fireplace, a kitchen, a study and, up spiral stairs, a loft with offices and storage space.

  Olivia led Felicity to a long, dark wood table in front of tall windows that looked out across wildflower-dotted fields to Carriage Hill itself. “Dylan’s thrilled you were able to handle Gabe’s add-on party on such short notice,” Olivia said, sitting with her back to the view, still holding on to her hot chocolate. “I’m happy to help in any way we can.”

  Felicity sat across from her. “Thank you. I just want to be sure I have the logistics worked out. We’re having lunch here, then another panel in the main room—I don’t want to cause any distractions while setting up for the party.”

  “What if we have the party at the inn? The weather looks great for Saturday. Everyone will probably appreciate a walk and fresh air after a day of speakers.”

  “That’s a great idea,” Felicity said without hesitation.

  “You can run it past Gabe
and Dylan if you want, but they won’t care if it’s okay with me.”

  “I should take a look at the space, but I can’t imagine any problems.”

  Felicity had arranged for one of the speakers—a diverse group—to stay in the area, but the rest, and all of the attendees, were commuting for the day. Dylan had deliberately kept the one-day event simple. Olivia was having work done at the Farm at Carriage Hill, but it only affected its handful of guest rooms. Felicity could help Gabe find lodging if need be, but he had family and friends in town. She doubted he’d have any trouble finding a place to stay. He hadn’t asked for her help, and she assumed he had sleeping quarters handled.

  “Maggie’s catered a number of events at the inn,” Olivia said. “She thinks it’ll work out well, if that helps.”

  “It absolutely does. Maggie’s a whiz.”

  Olivia smiled. “She’s bringing dinner. Why don’t you join us? Maggie always brings enough for days of leftovers.”

  Brandon Sloan, Maggie’s husband, was in the White Mountains, leading the first group of Dylan’s adventure travelers on a multi-day hike. He and Maggie had been together since high school and had two sons in elementary school. Brandon, the third of six siblings, had a day job as a carpenter with Sloan & Sons, his family’s construction business. Gabe was friends with all the Sloans. Maybe he’d be staying with them.

  Felicity frowned. Why was she obsessing about where Gabe stayed?

  “I’d love to join you and Maggie for dinner,” she said.

  “Wonderful,” Olivia said, obviously pleased. “Can I get you anything in the meantime? Water, iced tea—there’s more hot chocolate if that appeals to you on a hot day.”

  “I think I’ll walk down to Carriage Hill first.”

  “The back door’s open. I’d go with you, but I’ve been a bit wobbly today. I’m sure it’s the heat. Dylan will be back soon. Gabe picked him and Russ Colton up from the airport. I can’t remember the last time he was in town. Mark and Jess’s wedding, I think.”