That Night on Thistle Lane

by Carla Neggers

  “I’m actually thinking about a neutral color. Did the boys tell you they want to build a tree house out back? I can help but I’m not that great with hammers and nails. Mom’s better but she’s got her hands full.”

  “Their dad’s a carpenter,” Brandon said quietly. “I can help my sons build a tree house, Maggie.”

  “They’d like that. They look up to you. I...” Maggie sighed, her shoulders sagging as all the fight went out of her. “When did it become so awkward between us? We used to be able to talk about anything. Not that you were ever a big talker but I never felt I couldn’t speak my mind, that you couldn’t speak yours. We were best friends.”

  He touched her cheek, her hair. “You’re tired. You’re taking on a lot.”

  “I love what I’m doing. I love being back here. I wasn’t sure I would but everything’s turning out better than I anticipated. Don’t worry, I still have my dreams.”

  “A gingerbread house in Knights Bridge village.”

  “Life could be worse, you know.”

  He smiled. “You could be living in a tent.”

  “I remember some good nights with you in tents.”

  He winked. “Damn straight.”

  After he left and the boys were in bed, Maggie sat at her kitchen table with a stack of cookbooks. The kitchen was in good shape, with a relatively new gas stove and a decent refrigerator, but it still needed work. Buying the house hadn’t felt as impulsive as it probably was. She’d been drawn to it since childhood, and she’d thought it’d be a great place for the boys. But it really was a fixer-upper, and here she was, the estranged wife of a carpenter who was related to all the other carpenters in town.

  She pictured laughing with Brandon as they painted the kitchen together, but it wasn’t going to happen. She was on her own. He would always be the father of their two young sons, but that was it.

  “It can’t be. It just can’t be.” Before she could burst into tears, she called Olivia as a distraction, as well as to check in on her friend. “Am I catching you at a bad time?”

  “I’m not sure there is a bad time in San Diego. It’s a stunningly beautiful day out here.” Olivia sighed, obviously content. “What’re you up to?”

  From the tone of her friend’s voice, Maggie suspected Olivia knew that things were a bit complicated back home. “I think we should try making our own essential oils for our soaps. They’re so expensive to buy. You have some great herbs at your place. We’d have to dry them, and we’d need to buy equipment for distilling...” She realized she was ready to burst into tears. “What do you think?”

  “It’s something I’ve been considering for a while,” Olivia said. “Will you have time?”

  “I’ll make the time. Except for harvesting the herbs, we have flexibility. We can save up everything and make the soap during our down times. It should be quiet after foliage season, before the holidays. It’ll be fun.”

  “Maggie? You sound upset. What’s going on?”

  Maggie immediately felt guilty for making the call when she was in such a down mood. “Nothing I can’t figure out. Tell me about California.”

  “If you tell me about Phoebe and Noah.”

  “Wait, what do you know about Phoebe and Noah?”

  “Not much except that something is going on between them. Phoebe’s being tight-lipped, probably because Noah and Dylan are such close friends.”

  “Maybe she’s afraid of mucking things up between you two.”

  “Not possible to muck things up between Dylan and me. So, what’s going on? What am I missing?”

  Maggie smiled through her tears and told her friend what she knew, which she realized wasn’t everything, and what she surmised, which probably wasn’t everything, either.

  Fifteen

  Coronado was as beautiful as ever, the offshore night breeze prompting Loretta to grab a sweater out of her car as she and Olivia walked down to the historic Hotel del Coronado. Dylan had told them to go on ahead of him. He’d meet them shortly.

  “He’s worried about Noah,” Olivia said, hugging her own sweater to her.

  Loretta shrugged. “So far, Noah’s managed just fine on his own in your little town.”

  “It’s not just that.” Olivia glanced out at the water, the lights of the sprawling hotel reflecting eerily in the white caps of the incoming tide. “Dylan believes that none of this—” she waved a hand back toward Dylan’s expensive house “—would have been possible if Noah hadn’t knocked on his window when Dylan was sleeping in his car.”

  “Synergy,” Loretta said. “Noah knows he’d have crashed and burned without Dylan’s help.”

  “And now what? What’s next for both of them?” Olivia took a deep breath. “I don’t want Dylan to move to Knights Bridge just for my sake. It’s too much to ask, and I wouldn’t. It’s not that Knights Bridge doesn’t measure up to San Diego. It does, at least for me. It’s home. But this is home for him.”

  “You can do both, you know. Knights Bridge and San Diego.” Loretta shivered in the gusty breeze, but she welcomed it at the same time, let it clear her head, keep back her own emotions. “It’s not like you two will be scrimping to pay for groceries.”

  Olivia smiled. “You’re blunt, aren’t you?”

  “You can’t help either of those two if you’re not. When Dylan was playing hockey, he could read the ice, read a defense, without thinking. He just knew. Same with NAK and his role there. Noah’s smart, but he doesn’t always pick up on what’s going on around him. Karate and fencing help him tune in, I think.”

  “He gives people the benefit of the doubt until they give him reason not to.”

  “It’s not a bad way to be. Dylan’s not cynical but let’s just say he gives people a shorter rope than Noah does.” Loretta walked a few more steps as the tide came in on the wide sandy beach below them. “Tell me about Phoebe O’Dunn.”

  “What about Phoebe?”

  As if Olivia didn’t know what Loretta was asking. Loretta had already gathered that not much went on in Knights Bridge that Olivia and her family and friends didn’t know about. That Grace Webster had managed to keep her affair with a British flyer and the birth of their son a secret for seventy years was a damn miracle as far as Loretta was concerned. Dylan said she’d understand when she met Grace. The assumption being that Loretta eventually would get to Knights Bridge.

  Maybe she would. She wondered if she’d understand the late Duncan McCaffrey any better when she did.

  Probably not.

  She turned her attention back to the matter at hand. “Phoebe was Noah’s princess the other night. She overheard Julius Hartley talking on the phone to someone—probably someone out here.”

  Olivia seemed more amused than surprised. “You do know everything, don’t you?”

  Loretta laughed. “Not by half. Not when it comes to Noah and Dylan. So what about your friend Phoebe?”

  “We’ve been friends forever. My younger sister and I grew up with Phoebe and her sisters.” Olivia glanced out at the Pacific, as if picturing her hometown in her mind. “Jess and I grew up at an old sawmill and the O’Dunns grew up on a small farm. It was a great childhood.”

  Loretta prodded her. “And?”

  “Phoebe’s the eldest. She’s always felt responsible for the rest of us—her sisters, and even Jess and me.” Olivia hesitated, lowering her arms, letting her sweater flap in the breeze. She seemed to welcome the cooler air. “Phoebe found her father after he died in a fall out of a tree he was trimming. His death was hard on all of them.”

  “Phoebe tried to fix things?”

  “I think she just tried to be there for everyone. Her mother was always a live-for-the-moment type but she became even more so after Patrick’s death.”

  Loretta imagined a woman facing early widowhood with four daughters and a farm. “She can be impractical?”

  “That’s one way of putting it. Phoebe commuted to college from home, so she’s never lived anywhere but Knights Bridge. She loves
her job at the library. She’s good at it. She’s smart and sophisticated, Loretta. Don’t think just because she’s from a small town that she’s not.”

  “Whoa. Phoebe’s not the only one who’s protective.”

  Olivia sighed as they crossed a driveway to the hotel, its distinctive red turrets and white exterior glowing in the night lights. “Sorry,” she said.

  “Don’t be sorry. It’s good to have friends who worry about you.” Loretta grinned, lightening the mood. “I wish I had a few.”

  “You’re like Phoebe. You do the worrying.”

  “Am I guessing right that something’s going on between her and Noah?”

  Olivia tightened her sweater around her again. “I think so.” She slowed her pace as they continued along a curving walk to the hotel. “Will Noah hurt her, Loretta?”

  “Noah’s more likely to get hurt himself than to hurt someone else.”

  “He dates Hollywood types—”

  “Who are more interested in his money and his connections than in him.”

  “He’s a very wealthy man, and he can’t have taken his company to where it is without being driven, maybe even a little ruthless. Phoebe’s a gentle soul, unless she thinks one of us is in trouble.”

  “Does she think one of you is in trouble now?” Loretta asked.

  Olivia shrugged. “I don’t think so. I don’t know. I’m not there.”

  “She can be tough, too, from the sounds of it. She kept her cool when she overheard Hartley in the coatroom. And didn’t she show up at that masquerade on her own?”

  “You’re right. I don’t want to underestimate Phoebe. She can hold her own with a California billionaire.” Olivia turned, the light from the hotel catching her green eyes as she smiled. “I’d put running a small-town library on a shoestring right there next to running NAK.”

  Loretta thought she heard a hint of homesickness in Olivia’s voice. They found their way down to the waterfront behind the main hotel and sat at an outdoor table overlooking the wide beach and glittering ocean. They ordered piña coladas and watched the crowd. Loretta heard teenagers laughing, noticed a young couple holding hands, two older couples chatting quietly together over drinks.

  “Do you come here often?” Olivia asked.

  “From time to time. It’s a good place to take out-of-town guests.”

  “It’s so romantic. Dylan says you two used to come here for a drink after you talked business.”

  “Money’s never been his favorite topic,” Loretta said with a smile. “That’s how he ended up sleeping in his car. As they say, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. He wasn’t as broke as he thought he was. I’d tucked some money away.”

  “But you didn’t tell him,” Olivia said.

  “I told him when I did it. He just didn’t pay attention.”

  Olivia laughed, looking at ease with herself, her relationship with the man she would soon marry. Loretta felt a sudden sense of loss as she gazed out at the water. The wind had died down. She listened to the waves washing on the sand and wondered what her life would be like right now if Duncan McCaffrey had never gone to Knights Bridge, Massachusetts.

  “I’ve known Noah and Dylan for a long time,” she said finally. “Dylan had just started with the NHL and Noah was still a student at MIT. I met Noah when he was out here on a break and went to one of Dylan’s hockey games.”

  “They’re like sons to you, aren’t they?”

  Loretta ignored a sudden tightness in her throat. “Now you’re making me feel old.”

  “I hope not.” Olivia sat back with her piña colada and looked out at the dark ocean. “What a beautiful spot.”

  “Some Like It Hot was filmed here.”

  Olivia smiled. “I’m glad Phoebe didn’t try to put me in a Marilyn Monroe dress. It’s so beautiful here, Loretta. Dylan’s a very lucky man, and I love having him in my life. I love him. We never would have found each other without you.”

  Loretta fought back tears that took her by surprise. She wasn’t one for tears. As she studied the woman across from her, she was satisfied that Dylan had made the right choice in asking Olivia Frost to marry him—as if choice had anything to do with it. The man was in love, and from what she’d heard in Noah’s voice since he’d danced with Phoebe O’Dunn, he wasn’t far behind. Loretta just wasn’t sure he was in for as happy an ending as Dylan.

  She kicked off her shoes and enjoyed her drink, subtly sniffling back any tears so Olivia wouldn’t notice. Maybe Olivia had a point. Maybe in a way Dylan and Noah were like sons to her. She’d never regretted not having kids of her own.

  Noah had always struck her as a man looking for a real soul mate. A woman he loved, and who loved him, without condition. A woman he’d fight for, die for. It was the swordfighter in him, Loretta thought.

  She’d never met two more decent men than Dylan McCaffrey and Noah Kendrick.

  What was she going to do if they both moved to Knights Bridge?

  Sixteen

  Noah was in jeans—no shirt, no shoes—when Buster stirred and went to the kitchen door, barking through the screen as the two eldest O’Dunn sisters jumped out of Maggie’s catering van. “Company, Buster,” Noah said, rising from the table with the last of his second cup of coffee. He figured he’d need a full pot of coffee before noon. It’d been a long night alone on the edge of Quabbin. Even Buster had been restless.

  Maggie and Phoebe approached the kitchen ell with an ease that suggested they’d forgotten he was dog sitting, which Noah doubted, or had heard rumors to the contrary. They were dressed in shorts and sport sandals. Maggie had on a Red Sox T-shirt, Phoebe a close-fitting tank top in a deep turquoise blue that matched her eyes.

  Noah finished his coffee as they entered the kitchen.

  And he’d told Buster it would be a boring morning.

  Phoebe all but gasped at seeing him. “We didn’t think anyone would be here.” She kept one hand on the screen door, as if ready to bolt for the van. “We thought—we heard you’d left for California.”

  “Who told you that?” Noah asked.

  Phoebe averted her eyes. “It was the talk of the country store this morning.”

  A vague answer at best but Noah let it go. “I see.”

  “We’re here to harvest mint,” Maggie said, setting a basket on the kitchen island.

  Noah placed his mug in the sink. “Dare I ask what you want to do with your mint harvest?”

  Maggie turned to him. “Olivia and I are having a go at making our own essential oils. She has several herbs that could work. We’ll start with the orange mint.”

  “It’ll have to dry first,” Phoebe said. “We won’t actually be making essential oils today.”

  “You’re off today?” Noah asked her.

  “Just this morning. I have an evening meeting.”

  She let the screen door shut behind her. Noah took that as a sign that she intended to stay for the mint-harvesting.

  “Phoebe hasn’t taken any vacation time this year,” Maggie said. “Right, Phoebe?”

  “I took time off in the spring to paint the porch.”

  “I rest my case,” Maggie said, digging a pair of utility scissors out of an island drawer. “If you want to help, Noah, that’d be great, but I suggest putting on a shirt. It’ll be buggy in the mint patch.”

  He smiled. “If you’re warning me about insects, it means I should expect the worst.”

  Maggie laughed and grabbed her empty basket. “You’re a riot, Noah,” she said, heading for the mudroom and out the back door.

  Phoebe had her hair in a long, loose ponytail. She redid a clip that held stray curls off her face. Noah reached for a black shirt he’d brought downstairs with him. As he shrugged it on, he was aware of Phoebe watching him. He appreciated her reaction.

  He fastened a few buttons. “Did you sleep well last night?” he asked her softly.

  Buster stirred, and she patted him. “I read Mary Stewart until the wee hours. You?�
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  “I was up late looking for things to do. Wood to chop, wild animals to slay. I did manage to chase Buster off the couch.”

  She laughed, visibly more relaxed. “Olivia will appreciate that. Dylan won’t care. Sorry we disturbed you. You don’t have to help with the mint—”

  “I don’t mind.”

  Noah had a feeling he’d be learning more about essential oils and soap-making than he ever thought of knowing before the morning was done.

  Phoebe followed her sister outside, and he put on shoes, grabbed the bug spray and Buster and joined them. The orange mint was at the end of the garden, almost at the shed where he’d first spotted Phoebe and hadn’t even considered she might be his princess. He watched her squat down with a pair of clippers, snipping off the tops of the orange mint. He noticed the shape of her slim, bare legs.

  It was definitely turning into a different morning than he’d planned. He was glad he hadn’t called for a plane, after all.

  He helped harvest the mint and bring it into a small room that shared the center chimney. Apparently Maggie and Olivia had conferred and decided the mint would dry there.

  “What’s it do for you?” Noah asked as they spread the mint on a table, a flea-market find that Olivia had teased about putting on his painting list.

  “Orange mint is supposed to be uplifting,” Maggie said, then grinned at him. “Aren’t you uplifted?”

  “It’ll be highly concentrated as an essential oil,” Phoebe said. “It’s supposed to blend well with other essential oils.”

  “You never use essential oils directly on the skin,” Maggie added. “They’re always diluted somehow.”

  Making an essential oil was a relatively complicated process that also involved a still, which Maggie said she had on order. Noah found the details surprisingly interesting. As they returned to the garden, she explained saponification, the chemical process that transformed a fat and alkali into soap and glycerin.