Brandon Sloan as a pirate, however—that matched who he really was.
Maggie mounted the stairs carefully, using the handrail. She’d gotten caught up in the fantasy of the charity ball herself. She’d danced with Brandon, pretended that all the frustration and pain of the past year didn’t exist. It was a moment, no more real and lasting than what Phoebe had experienced.
She found Olivia zipping up her suitcase in her bedroom at the front of the house. “We have to talk,” Maggie said in a low voice.
Olivia stood, pushing her fair hair out of her face. Maggie shut the door behind her. “It was Phoebe last night,” she said without further preamble.
“In the Edwardian dress?”
“The woman who danced with Noah Kendrick, Olivia. It was Phoebe.”
Olivia sank onto the edge of her bed. “I was afraid of that.”
“We can’t tell anyone. I’m only telling you because Phoebe doesn’t know it was Noah and Noah doesn’t know it was Phoebe, and I’m not going to be the one to spill the beans, accidentally or on purpose. So you have to give Noah the note.”
“What note?”
Leave it to Olivia to cut through everything else and focus on the crux of the matter at hand. Maggie pulled the note out of her dress pocket and handed it over. “You can read it but I wouldn’t if I were you. It’s the transcript of one end of a phone call of some guy talking about Noah.”
Olivia winced. “Middle-aged? No costume?”
“Yeah. He had on an expensive suit. Why?”
“Noah spotted him a few times in San Diego and now he seems to have followed him east. Maggie, he and Dylan will want to know who wrote this note.”
Maggie stiffened. “I don’t know who wrote it.”
“You do, too,” Olivia said, as if they were seven again. “It was Phoebe, wasn’t it?”
“I didn’t say that. I just said it’s a transcript.” Maggie waved a hand. “Tell Noah and Dylan I found the note on the ballroom floor, or someone tucked it in my pocket while I was sipping champagne. I don’t care. Just don’t mention Phoebe.”
“But, Maggie—”
“Olivia. I mean it. You have to promise. I talked to Phoebe. She doesn’t know anything.”
Olivia sighed, clearly pained. “I can’t keep things from Dylan.”
“You’re not keeping anything from Dylan. I’m telling you right now that I don’t know who wrote that note.” Unlike her eldest sister, Maggie had no compunctions about a strategic white lie. “You just can’t say that Phoebe was Noah’s princess. That shouldn’t be hard. It’s not as if Dylan would ask or it would make any difference in finding this guy tailing Noah.”
Olivia leaned back on her elbows, frowning, obviously contemplating the knotty situation into which Maggie had just thrust her. “You, Phoebe and I are smart. We’ve slayed our share of dragons. But Dylan and Noah...”
“I know. They’re in a different league when it comes to dragon-slaying. If they think we’re hiding something about this guy, they have a right to be annoyed. But we’re really not.”
“I’m not saying they’ll be annoyed. I’m saying they’ll find out who wrote that note.”
Maggie suspected her friend had a point and wished Phoebe had danced with someone else last night, or simply hadn’t overheard the man in the coatroom.
She stood by a window, its simple curtain billowing slightly in the afternoon breeze. “Olivia, do you think Noah would hire someone to find out the identity of his princess from last night?”
“Hire someone? Who?”
“I don’t know. A private investigator or something.”
Olivia sat up straight. “Now you’re getting carried away. I guess we both are. It’s probably because we didn’t expect...” She sighed, shaking her head, then fastened her green eyes on Maggie. “It really was Phoebe last night?”
“It really was.” Maggie glanced out the window, down at the shaded front yard and quiet back road. “Why do you think Noah is staying here? It’s not to dog sit. Do you think he suspects his princess is in Knights Bridge?”
Olivia eased up off the bed and stood her suitcase on end on the polished wide-board pine floor.
Maggie narrowed her eyes on her friend. “Olivia?”
“I think I may have given him the impression that she’s here. He mentioned that his princess’s eyes reminded him of the color of your eyes. Not that he thought it was you he danced with. I don’t think he assumes she was related to you. Just that I know more than I’ve let on, which now I do, for sure. I thought maybe it was Ava or Ruby, only because Phoebe was so adamant about not going to the ball.”
“She prides herself on paying her own way,” Maggie said.
Olivia nodded. “I can appreciate that.”
“Phoebe feels she always has to be the sensible one. It’s because the rest of us are all nuts. My mother and the twins and me. We’re dreamers. We always have a bunch of different things going on at once. We’ve never been good with money. It’s bad enough that I’m like that, but then I married a guy who’s like that, too.”
“You’ve done right by yourself and the boys,” Olivia said. “That’s what matters.”
“I’m always afraid I’ll go just that one step too far in my catering business, and it’ll all come crashing down on my head. I tell myself that I’d work it out if I did make a mess of things.” Maggie forced a smile. “We’d just move in with my mother and the goats.”
Olivia groaned, but her mood was noticeably lighter. She fingered the handle of her suitcase. “I can postpone this trip to San Diego.”
“No, that would only look suspicious, and you need to get out there and see where Dylan’s from, what his life before he met you was like. You’ll love it. I remember Brandon and I had piña coladas at the Hotel del Coronado. We didn’t stay there. Too expensive. Noah said Dylan’s house is just up the street.”
“Dylan warned me it has no color. Everything in it is white, cream or cappuccino.” Olivia laughed, only a slight strain in her voice as she continued, “I’m sure it’s grand, but Knights Bridge has its charms.”
“You two can always have a bicoastal life if you want to. You’ll figure it out. No angsting, okay? Just go and enjoy yourself.”
“I will. Promise. You’ll keep an eye on Noah and Phoebe?”
“There is no Noah and Phoebe, Olivia.”
“You know what I mean.”
Maggie blew out a breath, calmer if no more certain of what was going on. “Noah must have all kinds of help in San Diego. Think he’ll manage here on his own?”
“He’s a genius. He’ll manage.” With a welcome smile, Olivia added, “Besides he’ll have Buster.”
“Maybe he can keep that mutt of yours from digging in the garden.” Maggie wasn’t one of Buster’s big fans, but she noticed Olivia’s smile fade and knew she was thinking about the long flight across the country. “Liv, come on. You flew to England and back with Dylan not that long ago. That went fine. This will, too.”
“I know it will but I still...” Olivia didn’t finish, just stared at her suitcase.
“I know. It’s okay.”
“Yeah.” She looked up, smiled. “Noah already thinks I’m hiding something. I don’t want to end up drawing attention to Phoebe by suddenly bailing on the trip. Does she regret last night?”
Maggie thought a moment, then shook her head. “No, I don’t think she regrets it one little bit. She just doesn’t want to get caught.”
“If she knew it was Noah Kendrick—”
“I’m not telling her and neither are you, because you, my friend, are going to be in San Diego. Bring me back two stuffed giraffes from the zoo.” She grinned at her longtime friend. “Not life-size ones.”
They chatted a few more minutes, deciding on a plan of action to deal with Phoebe’s note, and when Maggie headed back downstairs, she noticed that Dylan had joined Noah on the terrace. They seemed relaxed. She left them to their drinks in the shade and went back to her van.
“Time will tell,” she muttered, starting her van.
She felt only mildly guilty for not mentioning her encounter with Brandon last night. Olivia would want to know but she was just getting a handle on her anxiety over flying, and she didn’t need more excuses to keep her from making this trip to San Diego.
So it was good, Maggie decided, that she’d kept quiet about that dance with her pirate of a husband.
After all, what were friends for?
She sniffled, suddenly wanting nothing more than to go bike-riding with her sons, listen to their tales of their overnight with their maternal grandmother. When Maggie had checked in that morning, her mother had them picking tomatoes for fresh homemade sauce. Nothing like the prospect of spaghetti for supper to motivate them.
Aidan had found a spider. Tyler was looking for snakes.
They were having the time of their lives, all that saved Maggie from wishing she’d done anything last night besides dance with their father, as sexy and irresistible as ever.
Seven
“Dog sitting, Noah?” Dylan sat at the round terrace table with a glass of spiced iced tea, complete with an orange wedge and cinnamon stick. “Are you sure about this?”
Noah, seated on a green-painted bench, ran a palm over the minty-looking plants with the purple flowers. He wondered if they had slugs. He noticed the bumblebees were back and withdrew his hand. “It’ll be easier on everyone if I stay,” he said, although he wasn’t precisely sure what he meant.
Obviously neither was Dylan, who gave Noah a skeptical look. “Having you here on your own will be easier on everyone? How?”
“I can tend to the gardens, as well as Buster.”
“Have you ever done any gardening?”
In fact, Noah had not. Even as a kid, he’d never done more than water the flowerpots on the deck of his parents’ townhouse in suburban Los Angeles, under his mother’s supervision.
He stood up with his own iced tea. Plain. No spiced tea for him. “It’ll be fine. Olivia will leave instructions. Remember, I recognized the chives on her note card when she wrote to you about your house. You thought they were clover. Anyway, you don’t need me underfoot while you’re showing her San Diego.”
“I’m not buying it, Noah,” Dylan said, shaking his head. “You’re not staying here because you’ve suddenly turned into Farmer Kendrick. It’s that note Olivia gave you.”
Suddenly restless, Noah walked over to the table but didn’t sit down. The afternoon had turned hazy and humid. Olivia and Dylan would be on their way to the airport soon. Noah wouldn’t be going with them. He’d come close to changing his mind about staying. Then Olivia had handed him the note, telling him that he wasn’t to ask where she got it.
“It was given to me in confidence,” she’d said.
Mostly likely that meant her friend Maggie O’Dunn had given the note to her. But where had Maggie gotten it? Had she written it herself? Based on the contents, Noah doubted it. Maggie would simply have pulled him aside and told him what she’d overheard.
The mysteries of little Knights Bridge.
The note sealed his decision to stay on at least for a few days. He had no intention of pushing Olivia to break a confidence or telling her what he suspected. Nor would he involve Dylan, given that he was engaged to Olivia.
“I read the note, Noah,” Dylan said.
Noah sighed. “When I was walking Buster up the road, testing whether he and I would get along for a few days?”
“That’s right. I figured you didn’t want to hand the note to me outright but you wanted me to read it.”
“Actually, I was just focused on keeping Buster from slobbering on me and didn’t think about the note. I didn’t want to involve you.”
Dylan set his iced tea on the table. “Noah, Olivia gave you that note. I am involved.”
“That doesn’t change anything,” Noah said.
“The note was printed off a computer. Whoever wrote it didn’t want you to see his or her handwriting.”
“Could it have been Brandon Sloan?”
“No,” Dylan said without hesitation. “He’d just have told you on the spot.”
Noah agreed. He sank onto a chair at the table, half wishing he were back in the White Mountains with nothing more pressing on his mind than survival. This was much more complicated. He looked over at his friend. “You know it would take two seconds to find out what Olivia and Maggie have been up to,” he said.
Dylan grimaced as he nodded. “What makes you think Maggie’s involved?”
“She’s always involved, isn’t she?”
“True. She and Olivia go back at least as far as you and I do.” Dylan picked the cinnamon stick out of his tea and flicked it into the grass. “I’m not going to spend a lot of energy guessing. The note says what it says. The person who overheard the man in question provided a thorough account and description. There’s nothing more to add.”
“What about my princess?” Noah asked, his tone more serious than he’d intended.
“You mean is she a bystander? A potential victim? A potential accomplice?”
“The note doesn’t mention her, and yet this man described my presence at the ball in detail. If that had been you, don’t you think you’d have mentioned my dance partner in the Queen Victoria dress?”
“It was Edwardian,” Olivia said, coming out from the kitchen. “Titanic, Downton Abbey.” She swallowed as if she might have gone too far. “I noticed her dress. It was gorgeous.” She added quickly, “There were a lot of gorgeous dresses there last night.”
As tempted as he was, Noah reminded himself that he wasn’t going to grill his best friend’s fiancée about what she was holding back.
Dylan watched her walk past them into her gardens, mumbling about dealing with the basil before it went to seed. He glanced at Noah. “Not a word.”
“Nope. Not me.” Noah put his feet up on another chair and settled back in the late-afternoon warmth. “I don’t know which I want more—the identity of this stalker or of my princess. Wouldn’t you have said that was a Victorian dress?”
“I’d have said it was a dark blue dress.”
“It was dark brown, Dylan.”
He shrugged. “I’m not big on colors.”
“And you’re engaged to a graphic designer who loves color?”
“A case of opposites attracting, at least on that one. We have other things in common.” His gaze was fixed on Olivia, kneeling in a sunny herb patch, checking what Noah assumed was basil. Finally Dylan added, “Olivia and I are good together, Noah.”
“No question about it. I’m happy for you.”
“So, do you think she knows who your princess is?”
Noah debated answering, then said, “Yes, I think she does.”
Dylan sighed. “I’m betting she does, too.”
“A friend from Boston, maybe?”
He shifted his gaze to Noah. “I doubt it.”
“Then a friend from Knights Bridge?”
“It doesn’t have to be a friend. She knows everyone in town.”
Noah looked up at the sky and contemplated the cloud formations. “If my princess is from Knights Bridge, and Olivia and Maggie don’t want to tell me—”
“Then you need to forget about her,” Dylan said.
“Meaning they’ll never give her up and they’ll never forgive me if I find her and she doesn’t want to be found.” Noah dropped his feet onto the stone terrace and sat up straight. “She wrote the note.”
“Who? Olivia?”
“My princess.”
Dylan got to his feet. He looked pensive, tight.
“I’m not speculating, Dylan. I’m as certain about this as I was about starti
ng my own company—about knocking on your window when you were sleeping in your car. She wrote that note and got it to you because she thought you might know who her swashbuckler was and could get it to him.”
“If that’s the case, she took great pains to conceal her identity.”
“Otherwise she would have just handed you the note herself, or Maggie and Olivia would have told you who she is.”
“Maybe she doesn’t want her swashbuckler to know who she is.”
Noah ignored the amusement in Dylan’s voice. “Olivia and Maggie know it was me dressed up like a musketeer last night. I don’t think they’ve told her. Olivia said she was to give you the note because you might know the identity of the swashbuckler mentioned in the conversation. You invited a fair number of the guests, after all.”
“She wasn’t asked to get it specifically to Noah Kendrick. You, in other words.”
“Right. No name.”
Olivia moved to another cluster of herbs. Noah didn’t think she could hear the discussion between him and Dylan but suspected she had a fair idea of what was on their minds. He was rarely confident of his ability to read body language with any accuracy. He really didn’t know what Olivia was thinking, or even his best friend of nearly thirty years. In contentious board meetings, dealing with the occasional backstabber, the ever-present sharks in the water, Dylan was better at getting at what was going on beneath the surface. Noah tended to focus on what he wanted. For the past four years, what he wanted had centered on business.
Not right now. Right now, what he wanted was his princess.
He got to his feet and stood next to Dylan. “My princess last night doesn’t know it was me behind the mask.”
“Do you think she’d be disappointed to find out she danced with the founder of NAK?”
Dylan spoke as if disappointment was unimaginable. Noah remembered the persona he’d adopted last night. “I’m no D’Artagnan,” he said.
“You’re as good with a sword as any musketeer.”
That Night on Thistle Lane Page 9