The River House

by Carla Neggers

  “Smart approach.”

  “When it works. When it doesn’t, people lecture you about being in debt and getting fired.” She kept her tone light. “Sometimes it’s hard to know if you’re on the right path and just need to keep pushing forward, or if you’re on the wrong path and need to—I don’t know. Do something else.”

  Gabe kept his gaze on her. “No comment, since you’re making my breakfast.”

  “Ah, yes, I can add all sorts of things to your eggs without your knowing—but I wouldn’t, of course. I’m a good hostess. Anyway, Carriage Hill Road has certainly changed from when you and I would go blueberry picking out there.”

  He smiled. “Wild blueberries are the best.”

  Felicity didn’t detect a hint of awkwardness in Gabe’s tone. He got up and poured himself coffee, which he took black—still, she thought. He always had, from his first cup at thirteen. He returned to the table with it. She noticed his Padres shirt stretched nicely across his back. He was even more muscular and fit than when she’d last seen him. Well. Good for him. She wanted him to be healthy and in good shape, didn’t she? They’d gone their separate ways, but it wasn’t as if they’d been engaged or anything. He’d been a friend. Nothing more.

  Nothing less, either.

  She whisked the eggs, added the chives and dumped the mixture into the pan. She toasted the English muffin, buttered the two halves and put them on the plate just as the eggs were cooked.

  “Looks great,” he said when she set the plate in front of him. “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  He picked up his fork, but his eyes were on her. “Not being curt?”

  “Nope. Sincere.”

  “The happy hostess, huh?”

  “Least I can do.” She went to the counter and poured herself a mug of coffee, then took it and sat across from him. “I saw you had a brownie before bed.”

  “I did. It was perfect. Thanks.”

  “I’m glad you enjoyed it. You can have the entire batch if you want—except for the one I plan to steal for lunch. I do all right with brownies, but Maggie’s are the best. She’ll make the brownies for your party.”

  “Sounds good.” He dug into his eggs. “Do you like the idea of adding a party?”

  “Sure,” she said. “It’s a fine idea.”

  He winked at her. “Now that was curt.”

  “Are you baiting me, Gabe Flanagan?”

  “Not me. Totally innocent.”

  “Innocent isn’t a word I associate with you.” Felicity mimicked his wink at her. “Bet that’s not a surprise.”

  He laughed. “Damn, I’ve missed you, Felicity. Thanks for breakfast. I’ll take care of the dishes, get cleaned up and head out. Don’t let me interfere with your plans. Anything you need from me for the boot camp party?”

  “Not at the moment. I’ll let you know. Helps that the weather forecast is perfect.”

  “Are you nervous?”

  His question took her by surprise. “A little, I guess. I’ve been planning more events in town. So far, so good, but Dylan McCaffrey and Noah Kendrick are in a league of their own.”

  “You don’t want to screw up.”

  “I never want to screw up.” She set her mug on the table and considered whether she should continue. Why stop now? “But I have screwed up, and I survived. I got past it. I learned from the experience, my mistakes. I don’t dwell on them. I moved on. If you expected to find me stuck in the past—”

  “I didn’t.” Gabe reached for the pepper grinder. “You’re welcome, by the way.” He ground black pepper onto his eggs, skipping any salt. “You’d still be miserable, clawing your way to nowhere in the world of spreadsheets if I hadn’t intervened.”

  He spoke without any hint of hurt, defensiveness, frustration or grievance. Just stating the facts. Felicity leaned back, accidentally brushing her foot against his under the table. At least she was wearing sandals, but, still, that split second of intimate contact didn’t help with her focus. “Still honest to a fault with me, aren’t you?”

  “With everyone but less guarded with you.”

  “Not guarded at all. No filters as far as I can see.” She gulped her coffee and jumped to her feet. “I should get busy. Find me if you need me for anything.”

  “Will do.”

  She headed into the living room with her coffee, stood at the glass doors and let out a long, cathartic breath as she gazed out at the trees in the morning sun. Gabriel Flanagan had her discombobulated. It was a word his mother had often used, and it fit how Felicity felt. She smiled sadly, thinking of Lee Flanagan. She’d sometimes envisioned building a house here, but it’d never happened. She’d died, but she and Mickey Flanagan never would have pulled off building a house. But they’d raised sons who had.

  Felicity set her mug on the coffee table, but she launched herself back to the kitchen doorway. “When did you decide you wanted to stay here?”

  Gabe looked up from his eggs. “Does it matter?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I think you’re up to something,” she said.

  “Such as?”

  “I don’t know yet. Were you upset when you found out I’d bought this place?”

  “Why would I be upset?”

  “That’s not an answer, but I’ll tell you why. Because you think I bought it because of you. As a way to show you—I don’t know. To shove your nose in my newfound solvency.”

  “To spite me, you mean. That would be a bad reason to buy a house.”

  “Yes, it would be, and it’s not what I did. I bought this place because I love the house and love the location, and Mark gave me a good deal.” She paused, calmed herself. “I’m not trying to be combative. You have some great memories here. I understand if you were taken aback I’d bought it. I’m sure Mark isn’t aware of the details of our...history.”

  “Probably not. You’re the owner of this property, Felicity. That’s all that matters now.”

  “That’s an evasive response—at best a polite way to tell me to mind my own business.” She wished she’d stayed in the living room. She digested Gabe’s words, his posture as he sat there eating his breakfast. She considered the timing of his presence in Knights Bridge. And she got it. “Lightbulb moment. You agreed to speak at the boot camp and came up with the idea of hosting the party after you learned I’d bought the house.”

  “The two aren’t necessarily connected. I wouldn’t jump to any conclusions.”

  “I’m dropping this,” she said. “It’s obviously not going to get me anywhere I want to go.”

  “I’m not here to cause you trouble, Felicity.”

  “Good.”

  She returned to the living room, collected her files and laptop and went out to the deck. She generally reserved mornings for computer work, but she didn’t know if she’d be able to concentrate with Gabe wandering around her house. She didn’t know why she felt so agitated, on edge—exposed. That was the word. Exposed. It was absurd. This was Gabe. They might not be the kind of friends they’d once been, but they weren’t hostile to each other.

  She breathed in the fresh morning air and sat at the table, the shade allowing her to leave the umbrella down while she worked. She opened the file on the boot camp party. Normally she liked more time to plan such an event, but she’d worked on enough similar parties that she wasn’t worried about missing key elements. The boot camp itself wasn’t an event with lots of bells and whistles. Dylan and Olivia wanted to keep it simple, allowing guests to enjoy their surroundings and network with each other without distractions—balloons, fireworks, games, speeches. Good food, good conversation, good surroundings. That, Dylan had told her, was enough. Her challenge, as always, was to keep her own role as the planner invisible, under the radar, allowing the festivities to feel natural and unplanned to hosts
and guests.

  She gave Olivia a quick call to make sure she was feeling okay.

  “Back to normal, thanks,” she said. “As normal as one can feel in the second trimester of a pregnancy, anyway. I always heard it’s the easiest trimester. I don’t know about that, but I’m fine. How are you?”

  “Working away on my deck.”

  “Tough commute,” Olivia said with a laugh.

  After they disconnected, Felicity got to her work. She could hear Gabe in the kitchen—loading the dishwasher, running the water—and then his footsteps in the hall. Just as well she was reviewing RSVPs and the budget and nothing that required deep concentration.

  Ten minutes later, her guest stepped out onto the deck. “I’m off,” he said, motioning in the general direction of his car. “I’ll head over to Moss Hill to see Mark.”

  “Great, tell him hi for me.”

  “Feel free to join me.”

  “Thanks, but I have work to do—and I wouldn’t want to intrude on your visit with your brother. Was the party actually his idea?”

  “Felicity...”

  “It was, wasn’t it? Why? He has a great reputation in town. Was he trying to make sure you looked good?”

  “It’s my party,” Gabe said. “Let’s leave it there, okay?”

  She shrugged and wished him a good morning. She watched him trot down the deck stairs. Just her luck he looked even better than he had three years ago. No matter, she told herself. In forty-eight hours, Gabe would be on his way out of Knights Bridge—back to his home in Boston, wherever it was, whatever it looked like.

  She stood at the deck rail and looked down through the trees to the sunlit river. This was her home. This was what it looked like. She smiled. She loved it, especially when she didn’t think about being here with Gabe.

  When she returned to the table, she was relieved to see she had an unread email. One glance, though, and she had to read it again to make sure she wasn’t mistaken:

  Hi Felicity,

  Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Nadia Ainsworth. I work with Gabe Flanagan. I’m coordinating with you on plans for tomorrow’s boot camp. I’m including my contact information, but I’d like to call you today. I only have your email address. Can you let me know your phone number and a good time? That’ll get us started.

  Thanks much!

  Nadia

  Felicity stared at the message. Get us started? It was a straightforward party. It wasn’t Cinderella’s ball. But if Gabe wanted this Nadia involved, so be it. The email signature didn’t provide a job title, but she was in Malibu. A long way from Knights Bridge. Given Gabe’s casual attitude about tomorrow, Felicity had no reason to doubt Nadia Ainsworth.

  She typed her response:

  Thanks, Nadia. My contact info is below. Everything’s under control for tomorrow but I can chat at noon if you have any questions.

  All the best,

  Felicity MacGregor

  “That ought to do it,” Felicity said as she hit Send. Surely a busy executive assistant would seize the opportunity to check this one off her to-do list. Whatever her job description, Nadia Ainsworth had to have better things to do with her time than get involved with an event in a small town on the other side of the continent.

  Five minutes later, Felicity saw she had a new message from Nadia:

  Great! I’ll give you a ring at noon.

  Felicity didn’t respond. She’d let Nadia assume she’d seen the message and be ready to chat at noon.

  * * *

  Gabe surveyed his brother’s comfortable office at the Mill at Moss Hill. On his last visit to Knights Bridge, the mill had still been under renovation, opening day months away. Transforming the building from a nineteenth-century factory to twenty-first century contemporary offices, meeting space and apartments had been a feat of imagination, skill, financial and professional risk and not inconsiderable hope. Gabe was no architect, but he and Mark did share a capacity for risk and optimism.

  He moved to the window and looked out at the river with its old dam and millpond. He and Mark had managed never to get too close to the dam in their boyhood adventures.

  He and Felicity, either.

  “Hey, Gabe,” Mark said, coming through the open door from his assistant’s office. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”

  “No problem. It’s a workday for you. Good to see you.”

  “Yeah, you, too.”

  Gabe turned his back to the view and nodded to the spacious, gleaming office. “Damn, Mark, this place is great. Makes sense for an architect who specializes in old buildings to have his offices in an old building, but it feels brand-new.”

  “It’s all about HVAC, water pressure and good windows.”

  “The fun stuff,” Gabe said with a grin. “You kept a sense of the past without being nostalgic or hokey. How’s the location working for you?”

  “We’re using it to our advantage.”

  “Gives clients confidence you can handle a major project wherever it is. Remember when we’d sneak out here and throw rocks in the millpond? This place was a wreck.”

  “I didn’t see its potential then, that’s for sure,” Mark said, sitting at his spotless desk. “I went down to our old swimming hole before I sold the house. I found a few pieces of the rope we used to jump in the water.”

  A rope they’d liberated from the remains of the mill, as Gabe recalled. They’d tied it to a tree out by their grandfather’s campsite and would swing out over the river and leap into the water. All in all, perhaps not the safest pastime, but he doubted their parents had ever realized what they were up to on those hot summer days.

  “If it gets hot enough while I’m here, we can find another rope,” Gabe said. “I’m staying with Felicity, by the way. Guest room in the back.”

  His brother tilted back in his chair. “That’s a nice room. She’s adding her own touches to the house. She’s making it her own.”

  “Her touches involve lavender and balloons.”

  Mark laughed. “Of course they do. She’s been talking about daffodils and hollyhocks, too.”

  Gabe grinned. Mark had gone for natural landscaping, without any non-wild flowers, even on the deck. “She’s always liked the idea of a cottage garden.”

  “She’ll find a way to meld one into the existing landscaping, I’m sure. If she doesn’t, I’ll just have to endure,” Mark said lightly. “It’s her house now.”

  “She thinks I’m upset because she bought it.”

  “Why would you be upset? You sold your interest to me. If you’d wanted the house, you’d have said so.”

  “Yeah. I’m probably reading into things. It’s a great house, Mark. You do good work.”

  Gabe wasn’t even sure himself what he was getting at. He hadn’t expected to feel ambivalent about the property going to someone else—out of Flanagan hands. Away from Knights Bridge, it’d seemed reasonable. He hadn’t thought much about it.

  Of course, that was before he’d found out Mark had sold the place to Felicity.

  “Felicity seems happy there,” his brother added.

  “Yeah, she does. She always liked Knights Bridge just fine. She didn’t have the issues you and I did, but she knew she needed to get out if she wanted to reach her potential as a financial analyst.”

  “I can identify. I never thought I’d be back here, but I couldn’t be happier.”

  “That’s great. Is Felicity happy as a party planner, as far as you know?”

  “As far as I can tell. Hell, Gabe, ask her. You’re staying there.”

  “I will.” Time to exit that subject. “When do I get to see Jess? How is she doing as a mother-to-be?”

  Mark shuddered and smiled at the same time. “Just don’t call her that. You know Jess. She’s adjusting.”

  “Ah. Got it.”

  “You do
n’t have a clue and you know it.” Mark pushed back his chair and got to his feet. “Come on. I’ll give you the grand tour.”

  Gabe followed Mark out of the office, down a corridor with a display of the straw hats that had prompted the construction of the mill in the mid-nineteenth century. They checked out a function room with dramatic views of the dam and waterfall and then went downstairs to the ground-level inner workings of the building. “We use hydropower,” Mark said. “Just like they did back when they made hats here.”

  “I should have paid closer attention to what you were up to out here,” Gabe said as they headed out the back along the river.

  “You were selling your company. You had enough on your mind without coming out here to watch the construction workers.”

  “They did a good job.”

  They walked along the edge of the quiet millpond to the separate building, connected by a breezeway, where the apartments were located. Gabe liked the industrial feel of the place, tempered by warm woods and tile along with the picturesque location and natural landscaping.

  “We have a furnished apartment you can use while you’re here,” Mark said.

  “Thanks. I’ll let you know if I overstay my welcome with Felicity or decide to stay past Sunday.”

  “You’re leaving then?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “Kylie and Russ’s apartment is on the second floor. They’re doing cosmetic work on the house they bought up the road. Quite a whirlwind romance between those two.”

  “I met Kylie’s badgers last night.”

  “You should stay for her book party next week,” Mark said. “It’s at the library. Felicity’s planning it. It’s Kylie’s way of thanking people in town for giving her the creative space to work. She kept her identity as Morwenna Mills to herself until after she and Russ met in the spring.”

  “Secrets, secrets,” Gabe said with a smile. “I can’t imagine it caused too much of a stir.”

  “It’s a good excuse for a party. That’s what counts.”

  They exited to the front of the building. Gabe realized he was enjoying this time with his brother, getting the tour of the mill and a taste of what Mark did day to day. Yet in no way, shape or form did Gabe regret or even question his decision to get out of his hometown and stay out. Knights Bridge wasn’t where he belonged. It never had been.