The River House

by Carla Neggers

  “I know, Gabe. I’m a friend. And I never did work for you. I wasn’t your employee. I was a contract worker. The same as this Felicity MacGregor, except we didn’t go to nursery school together.” Nadia crossed her arms on her chest, looking more annoyed and aggrieved than embarrassed or apologetic. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to send you a bill for checking her out.”

  It wasn’t a bill that concerned him, and she knew it. Gabe decided not to argue with her. “Where did you park? I can walk you to your car.”

  “I’m parked by the library.” She waved vaguely across the common toward South Main. “I might walk around a bit more—I’ll just be sure to stay in the shade. Maybe I’ll take a look inside the library. I bet it has a great reading room. Did you spend a lot of time there growing up?”

  “I wasn’t much of a student.”

  She grinned at him. “Had your eyes on the girls instead, didn’t you?”

  He smiled, feeling some of his irritation ease. “The library does have a great reading room. I’ll walk over there with you.”

  “Great, thanks.”

  They took a paved walkway into the sunshine. Gabe noticed perspiration beading on Nadia’ upper lip. “You’re not dressed for the heat,” he said. “Especially since you’re not used to it.”

  “No kidding.” She flipped her hair behind her shoulders and shuddered. “I’ll skip the walk and go straight into the library. I hope it’s cooler in there. Isn’t this humidity killing you?”

  “It’s like riding a bike. You never really forget. It won’t last, though.”

  “Here and then gone. My grandmother used to say that. Damn, Gabe. I’m going to need an inhaler.” She smiled sideways at him. “Not really. I shouldn’t joke about that. My little brother had asthma as a child. He outgrew it, but I remember how awful and scary it was when he had an attack.”

  “Is he helping settle your grandmother’s affairs?”

  She shook her head. “I’m the executor.”

  They came to South Main and crossed to the library, built by the same small-town industrialist and benefactor who’d built the Mill at Moss Hill. His former house, a sprawling Victorian on a side street off South Main, was up for sale—or had been. Mark had mentioned it in a phone call a while back. It could have sold by now.

  Gabe stopped at the steps into the library. “Enjoy your visit. You’ll want to be on your way before it gets dark. There aren’t a lot of streetlights out here. You’re not used to driving without streetlights.”

  “That’s for sure. At least it doesn’t get dark early this time of year.”

  He didn’t argue with her. He started to ask if she had a place to stay tonight but decided that would only risk opening up a fresh can of worms. He couldn’t say for sure what she was thinking. Theirs had always been a friendly but strictly professional relationship. He’d seen her in person perhaps a dozen times since she’d started working with him. She’d always been reliable, professional and very good at what she did. He’d tried to hire her as a senior manager two years ago, but she’d turned him down—because of the husband who’d left her a few months ago. David had wanted her to continue freelancing. Easier, better for him. He’d had the bigger job. He’d been on the move, looking for a company to buy.

  Clearly, Nadia was struggling to let go of the life she’d had.

  “Enjoy the rest of your stay in New England,” Gabe said.

  “I will, thanks,” she said. “If there’s anything I can do for tomorrow—”

  “There isn’t.” Too abrupt. He took the edge off his response with a smile. “Thanks for the offer. Take care, okay? Good luck settling your grandmother’s affairs. I know it’s not easy to say goodbye to a loved one.”

  “It’s not, and on top of David—” She blew out a breath, then smiled awkwardly. “I’d go back to him in a heartbeat, you know. It’s sick, but I have a feeling Smith’s peach pie will help. I have no regrets. I’m glad to see your hometown. It’s a cute place. I think it’s growing on me.”

  “It’s the peach pie. Take care, Nadia.”

  “You, too.”

  She hesitated, as if she expected him to kiss her on the cheek or take her hand—make some kind of friendly physical gesture. He didn’t, and she turned abruptly and ran up the library steps as if she suddenly realized she was late for something.

  Gabe felt uneasy about their conversation, but there wasn’t much more he could do. He headed back across South Main. As he crossed the common, he received a text from his brother: Join us for dinner tonight? Six o’clock, here at the house.

  Gabe didn’t hesitate before he responded: Perfect.

  Jess promises not to barf.

  He grinned at Mark’s text. No barf at dinner would be a very good thing, but how could Jess promise? He typed what he thought was a diplomatic response: I have no say on barf.

  Ha, neither do I. She’s feeling better.

  That’s what counts.

  Olivia and Dylan will be at dinner, too. Bring Felicity.

  How to respond to that? Gabe decided to keep it simple and neutral: I’ll let her know.

  When he reached his car, he looked across the common toward the library. Nadia was already descending the steps. She hadn’t lasted in the library for a whole ten minutes. Too noisy? Never intended to spend time there?

  Gabe shook off his questions. Not his problem. Nadia was a free agent. She hadn’t broken any laws. She didn’t work for him. She could do what she wanted to do. He hoped she’d leave Knights Bridge without bothering anyone else, but it was her call to make.

  He got in his car and turned on the engine, taking a moment to collect himself. He felt the temperature drop as the air-conditioning kicked in. Didn’t matter that his father was a great mechanic, he’d always driven beaters, and he hated air-conditioning. It hadn’t been a matter of principle. He just didn’t like it.

  Neither had his mother, Gabe remembered. “Makes me cold,” she’d say. “The air doesn’t feel real.”

  Gabe laughed, thinking of her with affection, missing her but without the intense pain that had lingered since her death. She’d died with so many unfulfilled dreams. She’d always believed there’d be more time. But she hadn’t been bitter. She’d made the best of the time she’d had, determined not to squander a minute. In her last weeks, she’d loved just to sit on the porch and listen to the birds. “I’m happy here,” she’d tell Gabe. “I always have been happy here.”

  Her way of saying, maybe, that he shouldn’t be too hard on his father.

  Maybe, but Gabe wasn’t going there.

  Talk of peach pie had made him hungry, and he was certain that however many brownies Felicity had eaten that morning, she couldn’t possibly have eaten them all and still had room for one of Smith’s turkey clubs. A brownie, a walk down to the river...and maybe a dip in their swimming hole.

  Nine

  Felicity was relieved Olivia looked as well as she did. After getting a better sense of the space for the post–boot camp party tomorrow, they wandered in the well-established flower and herb gardens behind Olivia’s antique house—the one that had helped bring her and Dylan together. The gentle buzz of bumblebees hovering in catmint and lavender highlighted the quiet and stillness of the warm afternoon out here on the edge of the Quabbin wilderness. Even the birds seemed to be off for naps.

  “Thank you for yesterday,” Olivia said, not for the first time.

  “No problem.”

  She pointed at a clear-glass pitcher on the table on the stone terrace. “I now keep water at hand at all times. Sorry if I scared you. I’m glad you were there, though.”

  Felicity ran a palm over the tops of the lavender. “I’m glad I was, too.”

  Olivia patted her middle, swelling under her deep-blue T-shirt. “I have a ways to go, but I’m more than halfway there. It’ll be cool weather when the baby co
mes. My mother is knitting a sweater and booties. I’d forgotten she knew how to knit.”

  “Did you learn to knit?”

  “I did, but it never took. I always liked the colors and patterns better than the knitting-and-purling. What about you?”

  “My mother got into quilting for a while. I learned to knit on my own in college. Maybe I should find a knitting project this winter for quiet, cold nights out on the river.” Felicity smiled. “I wouldn’t count on me finishing booties before the baby outgrew them.”

  “My mother’s waiting a few more weeks before she starts anything for Jess—she doesn’t want to jinx her.” Olivia paused, bending slightly to pinch faded yellow daisy blossoms. “Mom’s much better, but having two pregnant daughters has roiled the anxiety waters. She says she’ll be fine. She’s looking forward to being a grandmother.”

  Felicity remembered when Olivia and Jess were in a car accident in high school. Trapped but not badly injured, they’d gone missing for several hours. Their mother had developed an anxiety disorder that had worsened over the years, until she could barely leave town. She’d finally sought therapy and now was off on trips with her husband, planning new ones. Everyone in town was thrilled for both of them.

  “What about your dad?” Felicity asked.

  “Can’t wait to be a grandfather. He and Dylan are making plans to paint the nursery.”

  Felicity wasn’t surprised Dylan would want to paint his baby’s nursery himself, with his father-in-law’s help. His own father wasn’t around any longer, but she had a feeling he was with Dylan in spirit. As dramatic as the turns in their lives since meeting early last year, he and Olivia were grounded, tackling their new ventures a step at a time and—most important and very obvious—clearly as madly in love with each other as ever. Felicity breathed in the fragrance of the summer garden. She’d never been madly in love. Well, sort of with Gabe, but that had been teenage hormones. Maybe she wasn’t wired to fall head over heels in love.

  Not exactly what she wanted to be thinking while listening to bumblebees and enjoying a pleasant walk with a friend, but to be expected with Gabe in town, camped out across the hall from her. Why couldn’t she have found him less physically appealing these days? But no. That hadn’t happened. Not even close.

  She and Olivia continued on a mulched path toward the stone terrace by the kitchen door. An addition to the house was in the works and would serve as a suite for a live-in innkeeper yet to be hired. Olivia’s original, modest plans for her antique house had expanded without getting out of hand, at least as she’d explained to Felicity. With the promise of favorable weather, guests at Gabe’s post–boot camp party could meander out to the terrace and gardens. The logistics were simpler with the party being held here instead of at the barn, although Felicity could have managed at the barn. She’d managed far more complex events. She liked the contrast between the barn’s newness—even the grass looked new—and the Farm at Carriage Hill’s centuries-old house with its wide pine board flooring, multiple fireplaces off its center chimney and beautiful landscaping.

  “Anything else you need ahead of tomorrow?” Olivia asked.

  “All set, thanks.”

  “You look so calm, cool and collected.”

  Felicity laughed. “Do I? I feel more like the old saying about the duck who looks calm on the surface but is paddling like crazy under the water.”

  “I can identify, except I doubt anyone’s ever said I look calm.”

  They stepped onto the terrace, passing Buster sprawled in the shade, and went through a tidy mudroom to the big, country kitchen, located in one of the “newer” parts of the house. Felicity noticed sprigs of fresh basil on the butcher-block island. “Did I catch you in the middle of making something?” she asked Olivia.

  “I had optimistic plans to make pesto. Now the thought of pesto...” She grimaced, waving a hand in dismissal. “I’ll throw some on some mozzarella and tomatoes with a little salt, pepper and olive oil. I have way more than I need. You like basil, don’t you? Take some with you.”

  “I’d love to. I have a few chives in my kitchen window.”

  “Gabe mentioned you’d snipped a few chives into his eggs this morning. I imagine he’s not your average houseguest. It’s decent of you to put him up for the weekend. Dylan invited him to speak at the last minute, but it’s not as if Knights Bridge is overflowing with hotels and inns.”

  “He’s an easy guest,” Felicity said.

  “Mark and Gabriel Flanagan aren’t what I’d call easy, but they’re great. Anyway, I love chives. Hence, they’re my logo for this place.”

  Maggie Sloan burst into the kitchen through the front door, a brown paper bag on each hip and her two young sons, Aidan and Tyler, charging in behind her. “Not staying,” she said, hefting the bags onto the counter by the sink. “I’m dropping the boys off to swim in a friend’s pool. Why did my parents never worry when my sisters and I took off to the brook? Freezing-cold water, slippery rocks, slugs, leeches, spiders, ticks. Never occurred to them we’d be anything but fine.”

  “And you were fine,” Olivia pointed out.

  Maggie grinned. “Yes, we were. Even after Dad died and Mum started buying goats, we never were seriously hurt. The occasional cuts and bruises, but that’s to be expected. Which,” she added emphatically, “I will remind myself if Aidan and Tyler come back with Band-Aids on their knees. Cuts and scrapes I can handle. I don’t want broken bones, concussions—” She sighed. “I’ll stop now.”

  Felicity helped Maggie unload the bags, an array of fresh vegetables they would use at tomorrow’s party. In her short time back in Knights Bridge, she’d discovered Maggie was far more organized in her work as a superb caterer than she was in her home life, but she seemed to thrive in the chaos.

  Aidan and Tyler ran through the mudroom out to the terrace. Door banging, dog barking, boys yelling happily for no apparent reason.

  “I’ll make them wash off the dog slobber before they get in the pool. I didn’t swim in a pool until I was in my teens at least,” Maggie said. She shut a cupboard and turned to Felicity. “Tomorrow’s going to be great. You’re not nervous, are you?”

  “Just enough to keep me on my toes.”

  “I’ll be here early if you need to find me.”

  But she didn’t wait for an answer, instead heading out through the mudroom with such energy one of the empty bags blew off the counter. Olivia started to reach for it, but Felicity grabbed it, folded it and tucked it next to the refrigerator with a few other bags. “Are you going back up to the barn?” she asked.

  “Not yet. Dylan’s meeting me here,” Olivia said.

  Felicity glanced out the window above the sink and noticed Maggie and her sons heading through the side yard to her van. “I could use a dip in a cold brook right now myself.”

  “Not me,” Olivia said with a smile. “I’d have to dash to the bathroom.”

  They laughed, and Felicity took a moment to double-check Maggie’s groceries. Of course, everything was there, in order. As much as Felicity enjoyed the company of both women now, she hadn’t stayed in touch with Maggie or Olivia when they’d all been living and working in Boston. They’d run into each other on occasion when she visited Knights Bridge. Felicity remembered craving anonymity when she’d moved to the city, relishing a chance to do things without the intimacy of life in her small hometown.

  She did like to think no one in Knights Bridge had a clue she’d slept with Gabe Flanagan the summer before college. It was their secret, and no matter what she did with the rest of her life, he would always and forever be her first lover.

  She put that thought out of her mind and walked back up to the barn, past the sign for The Farm at Carriage Hill with its signature clump of blossoming chives, designed by Olivia herself. Her career change from full-time Boston graphic designer to innkeeper hadn’t been as radical as Felicity’s from fi
nancial analyst to event planner, but it hadn’t been without its drama, either. It had led, after all, to Dylan, his long-lost grandmother, marriage, a new home, new businesses—and, now, a baby on the way.

  There was Buster, too, of course. The big dog had appeared on Olivia’s doorstep in the weeks before she’d written to Dylan in San Diego. She often joked he’d adopted her rather than the other way around.

  Olivia also had dealt with the emotional and career fallout of a vampire friend who’d sucked her dry and stolen her job—something like that, anyway. Felicity had picked up bits and pieces of the story since her move to Knights Bridge but gathered the friend was now an ex-friend and no longer a factor in Olivia’s life. She was generous and trusting by nature, and the betrayal had obviously been difficult for her.

  Felicity wondered if there was more behind Nadia Ainsworth’s trip to Knights Bridge and invitation to lunch than a desire to help Gabe and curiosity about her, the boot camp and his hometown itself. Whatever the case, Felicity would mention her when she spoke to Russ Colton about security tomorrow before the boot camp got rolling.

  And Gabe?

  Perfectly capable of watching his own back.

  As she reached her Land Rover, she mentally went through everything that needed to be done before tomorrow’s party. Satisfied she had finished here, she got in her Rover and drove back out Carriage Hill Road and onto her quiet river road.

  Gabe had left her a note on the kitchen counter.

  Meet me at our old swimming hole. It’s hot. Time to cool off.

  She let out a long, controlled breath.

  Their swimming hole.

  They’d tied a rope to a branch and nailed ladder rungs to the tree trunk to allow them to swing out from the steep bank and drop into the water without killing themselves. The rope had disappeared, and most of the rungs had been dismantled or rotted years ago.

  But Gabe had been out to the Sloans’ for a rope...

  And it was hot. Felicity decided she could use a break before she tackled her final checklist for tomorrow’s party.