“My guess is Gabe was taken off guard by her sudden appearance here,” Russ added. “He strikes me as a decent guy, and it didn’t occur to him she’d try to get information from you, maybe get under your skin.”
“What does she want from him? Can you say?”
Russ sighed. “A bad divorce, the loss of a major client, not having Gabe in her life day-to-day—whatever her feelings toward him—and her grandmother’s death all at once is a lot. Then she finds out Gabe is presenting at Dylan McCaffrey’s first boot camp, and his childhood friend Felicity is organizing the day. I’m not sounding the alarm, but my guess is this woman is a bit jealous of you because you have what she wants.”
“Which is what? I’m not planning Gabe’s company retreats, I’m not a customer development specialist, I’m not married and my grandmothers are gone, too.”
“But you have Gabe’s attention and interest,” Russ said without skipping a beat.
Felicity grabbed the two badgers and tossed them into her tote. “Gabe and I grew up together. That’s it. There’s nothing else there. I organized the boot camp party for him because Mark asked me to—which made perfect sense since I was the planner for the rest of the day.” She sat up straight. “End of story.”
Russ’s eyebrows went up.
Felicity crossed her arms on her chest. “What? Go ahead, Russ. Say it.”
“All right,” he said, clearly reluctant. “You two might not realize it, but everyone else can see the connection you and Gabe have with each other. You two have known each other since nursery school. That’s something Nadia doesn’t have and never will have with him.”
“We weren’t speaking for a few years.”
Russ nodded. “Reconnecting could fuel her bitterness. Gabe’s happy. Nadia’s miserable. She doesn’t have to have a romantic interest in him herself to be obsessed with you.”
“Gabe and I were never romantically involved.” Felicity all but squirmed at her near-lie, but she would argue their one night together hadn’t been about romance. She wasn’t sure if Russ noticed her discomfort. Probably, she thought. “We were never a couple or anything like that. You know.”
“Yeah. I think I do.”
Felicity suspected he did know, but she shuddered, thinking about what might be running through Nadia Ainsworth’s head. “Jealousy and envy are bitter emotions to have take hold of you,” she said. “They can make a person irrational. I haven’t experienced that myself, but I’ve seen others who have—on both sides. Maybe Nadia’s looking for a distraction from her grief over her job, her marriage and her grandmother, or she’s creating drama because she’s bored. If she’s in California, we don’t need to worry about her, though, do we?”
“Just let me know if she contacts you,” Russ said. “If she does, ignore her. Don’t answer the phone, don’t respond to texts, emails or voice mails. Tell me. Let me handle her.”
“If she shows up on my doorstep again or leaves me a bottle of wine?”
“Call me. I’m right here down the road. Or call the police. Don’t take chances.”
“I often leave my doors unlocked—”
“Don’t.” He smiled then, as if deliberately toning down some of his intensity. “You shouldn’t be doing that, anyway. I know it’s a small town, but still.”
“An ounce of prevention and all that.”
“Exactly.”
That off Russ’s chest, Kylie rejoined them, and they shared lunch with Felicity on the balcony. She’d brought a few leftovers from the Jane Austen tea that were a huge hit. “We’ll take a walk along the river after lunch,” Kylie said as she finished the last of the Victorian sponge cake. “We can burn off the extra calories.”
Felicity laughed. “No calories in Maggie Sloan’s cooking.”
Russ and Kylie refused to let her help with cleanup. She had badgers to deal with, after all. Felicity thanked them and headed home along the river, content with her life—but wishing she’d find Gabe sitting on her deck or down at their swimming hole. Even without Russ’s take on Nadia, Felicity felt she and Gabe had unfinished business. Plus, she thought, she just wanted to see him, talk to him, laugh with him.
She groaned, blaming the hot, hazy early summer afternoon for her emotions.
There was no Gabe, of course, when she arrived back at her house, just tiny black ants that had discovered a gooey crumb on her kitchen floor.
She threw her hands on her hips. “How’d you guys get here so fast?”
She dealt with the ant mess, welcoming the sense of normalcy that came with it. Ants weren’t unusual this time of year.
Dealing with a potential stalker was unusual.
Felicity took her laptop out to a shaded spot on the deck and checked her messages. No texts, emails or voice mails from anyone, never mind Nadia Ainsworth.
As she worked, Felicity noticed dark clouds gathering to the west, adding a gray cast to the river. The air was still, oppressively hot and humid. She welcomed the cold front that the dark clouds signaled was moving in, but she’d happily skinny-dip in an isolated spot in the river right now. Probably not a good idea to be swimming when lightning struck.
She went inside and sat in front of a fan in the living room. It was one of those rare days when she wished Mark had installed air-conditioning.
A text came through. She glanced at her screen. “Gabe,” she whispered as she read it.
Made it to Boston. Thanks again for everything. What are you up to?
She typed her answer: Resisting our swimming hole.
Not good to swim alone.
Who says I’m alone?
But you are.
She smiled, surprised she wasn’t annoyed. I am. Storm’s coming. No swimming for me. Working. You?
Always working. TTYL
Should she bring up Nadia? Felicity shook her head, but she’d known she wouldn’t before she’d posed the question to herself. She typed a quick response: Talk soon.
Two minutes later, Gabe sent her a short video of bulldog puppies, a throwback to their pre-fight friendship. She watched the video twice, smiling even as she warned herself not to get sucked in by Gabriel Flanagan. He liked to have things his way, and she wasn’t going to twist herself into knots to please him. That didn’t mean she knew what they were to each other after the past few days, but if she wanted a man in her life, Gabe was a distraction if not an outright impediment—not because she couldn’t have male friends but because of their history, because they’d kissed at the swimming hole.
Because they weren’t just friends and maybe never had been.
If he were here, what would they be doing now, with a storm moving in on a hot, sweaty day?
Not a question that needed an answer, Felicity decided as she got back to work on Kylie’s badgers. It wasn’t long before she heard thunder rumbling in the distance. The storm hit soon after, bringing high winds, heavy rain, thunder and lightning and flickering power but no damage on Felicity’s stretch of the river. She took advantage of the weather to put away her laptop and add a few finishing touches to her badger couple. She’d never been particularly crafty, but she wanted a decent prototype for whomever she found to sew them.
A needle prick that drew blood convinced her to start making calls.
She grabbed a bandage out of her first-aid kit in the kitchen, managing not to drip blood on her badgers. She flashed back to her life before returning to Knights Bridge and moving into her house on the river. She loved Boston. She’d never tired of it—it was close enough she could slip into the city for the day. She had friends she could stay with overnight now that she was no longer living and working there. Like Mark Flanagan, Olivia McCaffrey and Maggie and Brandon Sloan, Felicity had done her bit in the city. She didn’t know about the others, but she’d moved back to Knights Bridge because she’d wanted to.
Gabe, she knew, would never wan
t to move back to his hometown.
She dug out a name for a local seamstress, but she held off on making the call. Instead she called Olivia and Jess, and by dinnertime, Felicity, with Kylie’s permission, had a plan. Audrey Frost, Olivia and Jess’s grandmother, would get together a group of her friends at Rivendell who loved to sew and they would take on the badgers. Audrey, one of the younger residents, loved the idea. Felicity drove out to the assisted-living facility and spoke with her, and in minutes, they had enough volunteers to do the job.
A former school bookkeeper in town, Audrey was matter-of-fact. “What can go wrong? If a few of them end up looking more like pigs than badgers, there’s no harm. But they won’t. We have some brilliant crafty types here.”
Felicity was both pleased and relieved to leave the project in Audrey’s capable hands.
The badgers settled, she returned home, enjoying the cooler, dryer air as she grabbed a bottle of wine and went out to the deck, taking one last look at Gabe’s puppy video.
* * *
In the morning, Felicity drove into Amherst for supplies for her badger seamstresses. Although not that far from Knights Bridge, the busy, upscale college town and her smaller, quieter hometown were in many ways a world apart. She dropped the supplies off at Audrey Frost’s apartment at Rivendell. “Don’t you worry about a thing,” Audrey said. “We have hundreds of years of sewing experience in this place. Go on, now. Leave the Badgers of Middle Branch to us.”
Felicity headed out, relieved that Audrey was in charge of the badgers. She made a detour to Carriage Hill on her way home. Jessica and Olivia were sitting in chairs outside on the terrace and were comparing their experiences with morning sickness. They reiterated their confidence in their grandmother and her abilities to sew and organize the making of the badgers. “Grace has arthritis in her hands and can’t hand-sew,” Olivia added, referring to Dylan’s grandmother. “But she’s game to do whatever she can. They’ll have a blast.”
When Felicity headed home after a quick stop at the country store in the village, she found herself restless and out of sorts. She couldn’t explain why—or maybe she didn’t want to delve into why.
She peeked into the room where Gabe had stayed and sighed. “Yeah,” she whispered. “He’s why you can’t sit still.”
She headed out to the deck, the cool, dry breeze seeming to bring with it an urge to tell Gabe about her day. This restlessness, nostalgia, loneliness—whatever it was—had to pass.
She was relieved when her phone rang, and she saw Kylie’s number on her screen. A distraction. Good. She assumed it was about the upcoming party, but Kylie started by assuring her it wasn’t about work. “Russ and I are heading to Smith’s for a quick bite,” she said. “Join us?”
Felicity seized the chance to get out with friends. “I’d love to. I’ll be ready.”
Fifteen minutes later, they picked her up. As they drove along the river into the village, Felicity sensed herself beginning to relax, feeling more at ease in Knights Bridge now than she had growing up here. She’d made the right decision in returning. It was home.
* * *
Felicity invited Russ and Kylie in when they dropped her off at her house after a friendly, largely work-free dinner. She and Kylie had wine, but Russ stuck to water. He wanted to take a look at her “security setup.”
“I just want to do due diligence,” he said.
Felicity pointed to the doors to her deck. “I did lock them. My ‘security setup’ consists of regular locks, no alarm system, no weapons outside of the knife drawer and things like my old softball bat. I did have my badgers couple, but I gave them to Audrey Frost as prototypes.”
Russ didn’t laugh at her remark about badgers, but Kylie smiled.
“Good cell service?” Russ asked.
“Most of the time. I don’t have a panic room or anything like that, either.”
“Any windowless room where you could lock yourself against an intruder while you waited for police?”
“No, except for a closet.”
“Does it lock?”
“I never noticed. Probably not.” Felicity shook her head. “Russ, this is Knights Bridge.”
“I’d ask the same questions anywhere. It’s just an assessment. I’m not saying you need a panic room. You just need a plan. Your closest neighbor isn’t exactly within shouting distance.”
“A mile,” Felicity said. “I’m in good shape. I can run if necessary.”
“Stay close to the road if you ever do need to run. Don’t head down to the river. It’s too isolated, and if you’re caught down there—” He stopped midsentence. “Never mind. The place has decent passive security. You might consider an active alarm system.”
“Are you and Kylie installing one at your house?”
“No,” Kylie said. “No Kevlar vests in the front closet, either.”
Russ went out through the sliders to check the deck and the approach to the house from the river. Felicity stood by the slider and watched him. “He’s thorough,” she said to Kylie.
“It’s not you or this Nadia woman,” Kylie said. “It’s just the way he operates.”
“I hope he doesn’t feel as if he needs to be my protector or bodyguard or anything. I’m fine, but if I do run into trouble, I know what to do. Please don’t worry about me.”
Kylie nodded. “Of course. It’s good practice for Russ, too. Things are usually so quiet around here, he can keep his skills sharp.”
Felicity doubted Russ’s skills had dulled, but she appreciated Kylie’s gesture. He rejoined them, and they went outside to the driveway together. “I’m more likely to run into trouble with an exposed tree root or an irritated red squirrel than a crazed stalker,” Felicity said. “But thanks for taking a look.”
Russ smiled as he pulled open the passenger door. “Suspicious tree root on the path down to the river.”
Felicity laughed. “Have to mind those tree roots.”
She waited for him and Kylie to pull out of the driveway and start down the country road toward Moss Hill before she went back inside.
She checked her voice mail, texts, email and social media sites, but all was well. Nothing from Nadia, or from Gabe for that matter. Felicity debated texting him but resisted. Instead she walked down to the river and watched the ducks swimming on the opposite bank. When a handful of mosquitoes found her, she went back up to the house. She’d left the place unlocked. This paranoia thing was going to take some getting used to. She dug out her softball bat, checked the house for any sign of an intruder and then leaned the bat against the wall next to her bed.
Take a picture of her bat and send it to Gabe?
Not one of her better ideas.
She did a bit more work before finally retiring with a book, feeling both unnerved and comforted at the presence of the softball bat and the concern of friends.
Seventeen
Gabe sat on a couch covered in drop cloths in his living room while Shannon paced in front of the windows. She stopped abruptly and faced him, studying him. “You’re going to need a few more days to get your bearings,” she said. “You’ve got that ‘I need more mosquitoes and black ice in my life’ look. It’s the Knights Bridge effect. Happens every time you go home.”
More like the Felicity MacGregor effect, but Gabe smiled without comment.
“Nadia Ainsworth stopped by this morning, Gabe. She’s a problem. I’m telling you.”
“I thought she went back to California.”
“She did—for forty-eight hours. She took the red-eye last night and landed in Boston early this morning. She was on the same flight as Marty Colton.”
“Who is Marty Colton? Any relation to Russ Colton?”
“Marty is Russ’s older brother. He’s an aspiring screenwriter who makes his living tending bar in Hollywood. Several people with Knights Bridge connections are
regulars. Marty was severely injured in a helicopter crash. His and Russ’s father was killed in the crash.”
“That’s awful,” Gabe said. “I had no idea.”
“Not the sort of thing that comes up in casual conversation, I imagine. Marty recovered from his injuries, but he has scars and he doesn’t like to fly.”
“How do you know all this?”
Shannon flicked her fingers. “I got it from Nadia.”
Gabe frowned. “Marty told her his life story?”
“People do things like that when they don’t want to think about how much they hate to fly. It’s a long flight to Boston from Los Angeles. Talking probably helped, and Nadia’s easy to talk to.”
“Got it.”
Gabe reached for his cold-brew coffee on the side table. Nadia. Damn.
What was she up to?
He drank some of his coffee and set the glass back on the table. “What did Nadia want to talk to you about?”
“Nothing. She wants to talk to you. She’s obsessed with you, Gabe.” Shannon spoke matter-of-factly, as if Gabe must have seen this for himself by now. She adjusted a drop cloth on the back of a chair. “It’s not romantic—she wants to manipulate you into doing something for her. My guess is it’s money related. Work, ex-husband, new start-up idea she has. Something. She told me how you give her credit for your success, she’s been with you from early on, loves working with start-ups—how you two have a special bond given your history. She laid it on heavy.”
“Did she mention Knights Bridge?” Gabe asked.
Shannon nodded. “Nadia found out that Marty was Russ’s brother while she was in Knights Bridge. She said Russ misinterpreted her interest in the boot camp. Isn’t holding it against him.” Shannon rolled her eyes. “Good of her, don’t you think?”
“Did she say why she came back here so soon?”
“Her grandmother’s estate. That was it. She said she hadn’t expected being back at her grandmother’s house to affect her as much as it had. I guess she’s got an offer on it. It’s actually not that far from Knights Bridge.”
Gabe ignored a tightening in his gut. “Did she tell you her plans?”
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