Red Clover Inn--A Romance Novel

by Carla Neggers

  “That’d be good,” Andrew said, sounding more enthusiastic.

  Greg didn’t mention he hadn’t been on a bike in years. They chatted a few more minutes. Megan was out with friends, so Greg postponed calling her. She had her own phone, too. Laura had been amenable to them flying to Boston. He’d pick them up at the airport and they’d hang out together for a few days. Going to Minnesota himself was less and less an option. Laura needed space, and he didn’t live with her anymore. The kids were old enough to come to him or he could pick them up at home and take them somewhere. No staying on the sleeper sofa. He and Laura weren’t going to have that kind of postdivorce arrangement.

  “Okay,” Greg said. “Let’s make Knights Bridge happen.”

  “Knights Bridge?”

  “That’s the town where we’ll be staying. It’s west of Boston. Look it up. It’s small but it’s got to be on the map.” He paused. “I think.”

  “Great, Dad.”

  Greg heard the sarcasm in his son’s voice and grinned. “I’ll get back to you with details.”

  When he disconnected, Greg felt both a sense of satisfaction and a sense of loss. He wished Andrew and Megan were with him now, in the quiet English countryside. He was accustomed to being apart from his kids but that didn’t mean it was easy. In some ways, they were better at dealing with his absences than he was. It was the life they knew.

  He crossed the stream and continued on the dirt trail through the woods to a grassy field and finally onto a paved lane. Enjoying the quiet, the mystery of where he’d end up since he hadn’t consulted a map, he followed the lane toward the village, past fenced fields dotted with sheep and a large stone farmhouse. Dusk came late this time of year. He wasn’t concerned about getting caught in the dark too far out in the countryside.

  Charlotte would be on her train by now. It would take five or six hours to get to Edinburgh. Greg supposed he could have told her about his plan to head to Knights Bridge. Maybe he should have told her, considering what he’d learned about her plans, but she’d been preoccupied with her encounter with swaggering Tommy and in a hurry to get out of there.

  A rationalization for his silence, maybe, but why get her worked up? Let her get home and figure out if she wanted to change her mind about Knights Bridge. Why influence her decision?

  And if she did change her mind?

  Greg tried to ignore the tug of regret he felt. He was looking forward to staying with her at the abandoned inn in the same little New England town. From what he’d gathered, there was plenty of room.

  “Could be fun,” he said half-aloud as the lane curved into the quaint, pretty village.

  He hopped onto a low stone wall and admired the view of rolling farmland and traditional Cotswolds yellow-stone houses, breathed in the fragrant June air. He thought he smelled rain. He didn’t mind. He welcomed the prospect of rain after months in a hot, dry climate.

  When he reached the pub, it was filling up with locals. Greg could have gone back to London with Brody and Heather, but he was content to sit at the bar and order a beer.

  Ian Mabry drew the pint himself. “You don’t look as tired as you did last night,” the former RAF pilot said.

  “Not saying much. How’s life after the military?”

  “It’s grand. I’m marrying the woman of my dreams and I’m back home, here, running this place. I was ready to move on to something else.” He set the beer in front of Greg. “You’re a Foreign Service officer, aren’t you? Diplomatic Security?”

  Greg nodded. “Just wrapped up an overseas assignment. I’m taking a desk in DC next.”

  “Not enthusiastic?”

  “I never saw it coming.”

  Mabry grinned. “A promotion, then?”

  Greg raised his beer. “You got it.”

  “From what I hear, you’ve done everything as a DS agent. You know the ropes. You have credibility.” Ian Mabry looked as if he’d considered similar options in his day as an RAF pilot. “A promotion was inevitable, wasn’t it?”

  “That’s what they say.”

  “You believe you can do more good staying in the field.”

  “It’s what I know.”

  “You’ll bring that experience to your new job.”

  “Does your background as a fighter pilot help with running a pub?”

  “You’ve no idea,” Mabry said with a laugh.

  Greg tried his pint, savoring the first swallow after his walk. Mabry’s upcoming marriage no doubt was making his transition from active duty to civilian life easier. Greg didn’t have family in Washington. A handful of DSS colleagues he considered friends and a few he planned to avoid or tolerate. He’d never been good playing bureaucratic games but it wasn’t that kind of desk job.

  “It’s a promotion, pal,” he muttered. “Be happy.”

  He finished his beer, realized he wasn’t hungry after all the wedding food and headed up to his room. As he shut the door, he heard raindrops slapping his window and then a rush of rain. He walked over to the window and opened it, welcoming the smell of the rain and the cool breeze. Rain sprayed him in the face. He smiled.

  His peaceful interlude was interrupted with a text from Brody.

  Back in London. You?

  Chasing raindrops.

  Greg?

  I’m good. Quiet here. I like the rain.

  Don’t agree to anything else and then forget.

  Will do. Hi to Heather.

  She says hi back.

  That was it. The check-in to make sure he wasn’t dancing on the tables or passed out behind the bar. Greg understood. He’d arrived in England clinically exhausted, and he hadn’t covered himself in glory with his behavior last night.

  Tonight would be different. He’d read a book in his room, listen to the rain and hit the sack early—and, once again, alone.

  Four

  Edinburgh, Scotland

  Charlotte awoke early given her late bedtime, walked to a tea shop near her apartment and indulged in fresh scones, jam and cream. She’d arrived home at midnight and fallen into bed, more agitated than tired. She’d slept little on the long train north, instead reading and contemplating her life—a consequence of seeing her family, being at a wedding and the long train ride itself.

  And Tommy.

  She added a dollop of clotted cream to her scone. He’d had some nerve showing up at the wedding and then confronting her, but he’d never been good at reading social cues. She remained convinced he’d sought her out at the pub deliberately to get under her skin. Even if it hadn’t been his intent when he’d stopped at the wedding, he hadn’t been able to resist the temptation.

  The scone was perfect, just what she needed. The nightmare that had been her brief, volatile relationship with Tommy Ferguson was behind her, and good riddance to it. She drank some of her tea. Still no hint of a headache. If her encounter with Tommy hadn’t triggered one, then maybe she was done with that particular fallout from her diving accident.

  Weddings being what they were for her these days, she felt unsettled, self-conscious and slightly awkward, as if she’d done something wrong. She wasn’t usually introspective. If she had to have dreams tonight, she preferred them to be about Greg Rawlings and his taut abs, but she’d thought about him enough in the past thirty-six hours.

  She’d booked her flights while on the train. She’d leave tomorrow for a two-week stay in the United States. She’d arrive in and leave from Boston but could easily change her return date or departure city and absorb any penalties. In addition to spending time in Knights Bridge, she’d fit in a trip to Washington to see about Max’s house. She had no firm schedule. That was new to her, but she tried to think of it as liberating rather than unnerving.

  She took a meandering route back to her New Town apartment. A Samantha Bennett–Jus
tin Sloan kind of love wasn’t in the cards for everyone. Any uncertainty she’d had about their relationship had evaporated yesterday. Unexpected and unconventional they might be, but Charlotte didn’t doubt that she’d be congratulating her cousin and her husband on their anniversary for decades to come. She didn’t want to believe she’d had her one chance at true love and had blown it by picking the wrong man, but she knew, deep down, that was exactly what she believed.

  “Doesn’t matter,” she whispered to herself.

  She had a good life in a beautiful city. That was what counted.

  But if you can’t dive, Charlotte? Then what?

  She shook off the question, as she had dozens of times since April. In the months since she and Tommy had parted ways, she’d focused on her work, letting it take over her life, and now she didn’t even have it, at least not in the same way. She’d spent a semester in Edinburgh as a graduate student and then returned three years ago when she started her job at the institute as a marine archaeologist and diver. The submarine project with Malcolm and Francesca Bennett had been exciting and all-consuming, and even before her accident, Charlotte had wondered what was next for her.

  It had been such a stupid accident. A private excursion, not part of her job. If only she’d stayed home that weekend...

  She swept her fingertips across a black iron fence, touching raindrops. Would Greg Rawlings like Edinburgh? Had he ever been here? She pictured herself walking hand in hand with him on a quiet, gray Sunday morning. It was a fun image, but she suspected her reaction to him had been sparked more by the romance in the air than anything they had in common.

  Weddings, she thought with a shudder.

  She didn’t want to stereotype him, but she had experience with his type. DS Agent Rawlings was a rough-and-tumble sort. He had an irreverent sense of humor, an obvious penchant for risk and, no doubt, considerable experience in dangerous conditions. The man was sexy as hell, but they had very little in common. Just as well she’d likely never see him again. The only scenario she could think of was if she happened to visit Samantha and Justin in Knights Bridge at the same time Brody and Heather were in town and Greg stopped to see them.

  “Not likely,” Charlotte said, surprised at how much the improbability bothered her.

  The drizzle turned to a gentle, persistent rain. She kept an umbrella in her tote bag but didn’t bother with it since she was only a block from her apartment. She picked up her pace and ran up the steps to her front door. Once inside, she hung her jacket on a hook where it could drip into her copper boot pan, shook the rain off her hair and went into her tiny bedroom, if not in a great mood at least less off balance than when she’d left for her scones—and decidedly more awake.

  She unpacked her suitcase from the wedding and set it on her bed to pack again, but she was drawn to the window that looked out on her cobblestone courtyard. Her throat tightened with unexpected emotion as she took in the window boxes bursting with late-spring flowers, glistening as a ray of sunlight broke through the gray and chased off the drizzle. Edinburgh was so different from what she’d known growing up in the Washington suburbs, with summers on the Bennett family farm in rural New Hampshire. She loved her work with the institute.

  You are at high risk for a recurrence of decompression illness if you dive again.

  How high?

  Very.

  Her doctor had made clear a recurrence, although unpredictable, could be even more dangerous than what she’d experienced in April.

  It’s not worth the risk, Charlotte.

  Are you advising me never to dive again?

  Yes.

  She turned from the window. Maybe the risk factors had changed now that she’d recovered. Maybe her doctor would reconsider, or she could get another medical opinion.

  She opened her closet.

  Edinburgh was home now.

  She’d be back.

  Five

  The Cotswolds, England

  At first Greg thought his bedside clock had stopped but his phone showed the same time. “Damn,” he said, setting his phone back on the bedside table. “Noon?”

  He couldn’t remember ever sleeping until noon without a good reason, such as recovering from surgery for a gunshot wound, landing in a wildly different time zone or working all night. Even when, on the rare occasion, he’d had a bit too much to drink, he’d never slept until noon. He was a morning guy. Up with the crows.

  “It’s this promotion,” he said, throwing off his duvet and sitting on the edge of the bed. It wasn’t in the top ten of comfortable beds he’d slept in, but it wasn’t in the bottom ten, either. Since he’d conked out until noon, it’d obviously done the job.

  He rolled to his feet without a hint of stiffness or the deep fatigue he’d experienced when he’d first arrived in England. He peeked out the window. Gray. Wet. Not much wind. A good day to sleep in, except he had a plane to catch. He’d booked his flight last night and would be in Boston...well, he wasn’t sure. Sometime today.

  He took a shower, got dressed and went downstairs. Breakfast was done. He didn’t see anyone else from yesterday’s wedding festivities. He ordered coffee and talked the waiter into bringing him toast and bacon and delivering it to him out back on the terrace. The waiter sent him off with a towel after Greg had assured him he didn’t mind the wet conditions. The rain had stopped. Fresh air was good before getting locked up in a plane for seven hours.

  Since he was the only one on the terrace, he had his pick of tables and chose one by an urn of flowers. He dried off a chair and the tabletop and sat. He recognized pots of herbs, if only because they looked like herbs he’d seen in the grocery store. He’d always thought he’d have a garden one day. No idea why he’d thought that, since his family hadn’t exactly been gardeners. He’d never been around long enough to grow vegetables at home with Laura and the kids. He’d mow the yard and trim trees, and then he’d be off again.

  His coffee arrived, hot and steamy, perfect in the damp, chilly conditions. The air felt great to him. He didn’t care he was the only one out here. Liked it, in fact. The waiter returned with toast and bacon, and Greg took his time, enjoying the good food, the quiet.

  As lives went, his wasn’t a bad one.

  He decided dessert was in order since he was having lunch and breakfast in one meal and ordered scones. Glorified biscuits in his world, but he didn’t want anything that would haunt him on the plane. Unless he’d dreamed buying a ticket, he was booked on a London-to-Boston flight that afternoon. No time to waste, he thought, slathering raspberry jam on a warm scone. He planned to head straight from Boston to Knights Bridge. Maybe or maybe not he’d run into Charlotte Bennett. He figured not. She could end up arriving after he left—if she arrived at all. People did all sorts of impulsive things at weddings, and agreeing to house-sit at a country inn struck him as impulsive, something a practical, tough-minded woman like Charlotte would roll back once she returned to familiar surroundings. The ex-fiancé showing up and memories of her aborted wedding wouldn’t have helped with her impulse control. She’d been in fight-or-flight mode. Inn-sitting in New England was pure flight.

  Greg was content to let more dust settle on his divorce. Focus on his kids. Head to DC and find a place to live. Learn his new job. That was what he needed to do. He’d gone out to dinner a few times since his split with Laura and his recovery from his gunshot wound but nothing had panned out. He hadn’t been ready, he hadn’t had much free time and he’d had a hard assignment in an isolated location to complete.

  Excuses, Brody would say, and he’d probably be right.

  Greg finished his scones, went back upstairs to his room and packed. When he returned to the bar, he settled his bill. By the time he headed outside, his ride was waiting for him, in the form of Ian Mabry.

  “Least I could do, mate,” the Englishman said.


  “Thanks.”

  “Heathrow?”

  “Yep. No rush. I don’t care if I miss my flight.”

  “On your way to Washington?”

  “Via Boston and Knights Bridge.”

  “Ah,” Mabry said. “Watch yourself in Knights Bridge. I went there for a wedding and now I’m planning my own wedding.”

  “Your first?”

  “And only.”

  That’s what Greg had thought at his wedding, but he kept that tidbit to himself.

  He got in the car. He watched the English countryside pass by. He’d be seeing Andrew and Megan in a few days. He’d booked their flights, too. That would help on the long trip across the Atlantic. Maybe he’d find a book on diving and marine archaeology so he’d have something to talk about with Charlotte if she ended up at the Red Clover Inn after all.

  * * *

  “What?” Samantha gaped at her husband of twenty-four hours. He was behind the wheel of their rental car. He hadn’t seemed to have any trouble adjusting to driving on the left. Just as well he was driving because she’d have run off the road at the news he’d just laid on her. “Greg Rawlings is staying at the inn? The DS agent? Brody’s friend?”

  Justin handled a tight curve with ease. “Maybe.”

  “Maybe or likely?”

  “I don’t know. He could be on his way now. Heather didn’t say. I don’t think she knows his plans. She’s got her hands full with Brandon, Maggie and the kids arriving in London.”

  Samantha got herself under control. Brandon was Justin’s younger brother, also a carpenter and the third of the Sloan siblings. He and his wife, Maggie, a caterer, had two young sons. They’d left the wedding hotel that morning for a few days in London with Brody and Heather. Samantha and Justin had slipped out last night, spending their first night as a married couple at a tiny inn an hour up the road.

  “Tyler and Aidan want to meet the queen,” Justin added.

  Samantha smiled, thinking of the two boys, now eight and six, on the loose in London. “Knowing Brody, he could arrange it,” she said.