The Spring at Moss Hill

by Carla Neggers

  “I hope you weren’t upset by all this, Kylie,” Ruby said, her tone softening. “It hasn’t affected your work, has it? You must need a certain atmosphere to get into the spirt of illustrating children’s books.”

  Kylie resisted the temptation to glance at Russ. “No problem.” She noticed Elly O’Dunn by the door. “This place is great, Elly. Are goats a lot of work?”

  It wasn’t the subtlest change in subject, but it did the trick as Elly launched into a description of what was involved in raising goats.

  Ruby shot away from Chris, who looked as if he might seize the moment to retreat but managed to stay put. She went to the table, laid out with cold hors d’oeuvres. She grabbed a triangle of cheese and turned to Russ. “Maggie told me about this morning. Olivia was sick to her stomach while walking Buster. Gad, I hope it’s not a bug. That’s all we need going around town, with or without Daphne arriving.”

  “Food poisoning would be worse since Olivia runs an inn,” Chris said.

  Ruby shot him a look. “No kidding.”

  Definitely a little tension there, Kylie thought. But she wasn’t about to break her promise to Olivia about her pregnancy. “Olivia was feeling much better when I left.”

  “That’s good.” Ruby narrowed her eyes as if she suspected there was more to the story, but she turned to Russ. “Maggie said you were there, too. You’re not getting us at our best, are you? First, rumors and then this.”

  “I was glad to help,” he said. “I enjoyed meeting her and her husband, and your sister and her husband.”

  “My big brother, Brandon,” Chris said with an easy grin.

  “He’s good to Maggie,” Ruby said. “Typical Sloan, it took some doing to get him to see what she and the boys meant to him.”

  “Ruby,” her mother said. “You okay?”

  “Yes. Sure. Sorry.” She grabbed a slice of apple and added it to her cheese. “Olivia’s place is great, isn’t it? Not everything in Knights Bridge is that quaint and pretty, but it sure is.”

  Russ agreed, and Ruby went inside to help her mother bring out food, refusing any additional help. The conversation on the porch shifted to the Red Sox and the start of the baseball season. Kylie didn’t bring up her last Red Sox game and her seventh-inning departure.

  Ruby, who lived in Boston, scoffed as she set a large bowl of salad on the table. “The only baseball games I’ve sat through start to finish were ones my little nephews were playing in.” She smiled at Russ and Kylie. “They’re five and seven.”

  Elly came out with a bowl of steaming tortellini. “Dinner is served,” she said cheerfully. “I hope you don’t mind eating off your laps.”

  No one minded. Ruby sat next to Kylie. She seemed eager for company—an ally, maybe, in avoiding Chris Sloan and whatever was going on between them. They struck Kylie as friends who should remain friends. With Ruby’s sister Maggie married to Chris’s brother Brandon, their relationship was already complicated. But Kylie didn’t pretend to know anything about romance. After all, her main companion was a stuffed badger.

  “Tell us about yourself, Kylie,” Elly said. “Did you always want to be an illustrator?”

  “Once I knew what one was,” she said lightly.

  Mark opened a beer bottle. “Where did you live before Knights Bridge?”

  Kylie noticed Russ settled back in his chair, watching her. “I’ve bounced around quite a bit,” she said. “It’s one of the perks of being a freelance artist. I’m not tied to an office, so why not work in, say, a little town in Massachusetts?”

  “I think I’d work in Paris,” Jess said with a laugh.

  “I did for a short time, as a matter of fact.”

  “Good for you,” Elly said. “I hope there was a handsome Frenchman involved.”

  Kylie sidestepped that one. “Paris is great, but I love it here. I haven’t done much traveling this past year. I have business in Los Angeles that I’ve been putting off.” She decided to draw Russ into the conversation. “You mentioned you’re new there. How do you like it?”

  “No complaints,” he said.

  “You must have interesting clients,” Elly said. “We’re all fascinated by Daphne Stewart and her long Hollywood career. I think deep down Ruby wants to try her hand in Hollywood. What do you think, Ruby?”

  Chris Sloan’s gaze was on her as she hesitated. “I can’t do both Hollywood and a children’s theater here.”

  “Maybe this theater idea is a diversion,” Chris said. “It feels safe compared to Hollywood.”

  “Maybe I’m looking for a way to do what I love and still stay in Knights Bridge.”

  He shrugged. “Your decision. No one here is holding you back from doing what you want.”

  “I appreciate that,” she said softly.

  Jess Flanagan put her plate on a tray on the table and smiled at Russ. “Chris has known what he wanted to do since he was three. My mother remembers him in his little red firefighter hat.”

  “Works out that way sometimes,” Russ said. “It’s great you’re doing what you’ve always wanted, Chris.”

  “I’m fortunate,” he said.

  “You are who you are.” Ruby’s voice was just above a whisper. “I need to be who I am.”

  Kylie glanced from Ruby to Chris, taking measure of the tension between them. If Ruby pursued an acting career in Hollywood, it was clear it would mean the end of her relationship with Christopher Sloan. He wasn’t interested in being a firefighter in LA. He wanted to stay in his hometown.

  He got up, thanking Elly for dinner. “If you pin down these rumors about Moss Hill, let me know.”

  “I will, Chris. I wish I hadn’t said anything.”

  He shook his head. “Always speak up.” He grinned at her. “Not that you need to be told.” He turned to the rest of the dinner guests. “Mark, Jess, you need anything else from me before Saturday, give me a shout. Russ and Kylie, good to see you. Ruby—”

  “I’ll walk out with you,” she said, jumping to her feet.

  Elly watched them, frowning, as they went out the screened porch door, but she said nothing.

  “Come on, Elly,” Jess said. “Have a seat and relax with your company. Mark and I will get the dishes.”

  “Dishes can wait. Sit. Relax.”

  Which is what Jess did, snuggling next to Mark on a comfy-looking outdoor couch. When Ruby returned, she dove into the conversation, no sign any longer of her tension about the rumors, Saturday or Christopher Sloan.

  Elly O’Dunn was gracious when the evening came to an end. “Thank you again for the champagne, Kylie. It was wonderful. We must find more reasons to celebrate.”

  Kylie smiled. “I like that idea.”

  It was dark when she finally sat next to Russ in his rental car. “See what I mean about the night sky here?”

  “I do, indeed,” he said. “It’s something on a clear night.”

  “It was a pleasant evening. Ruby’s figuring out her life. I remember when I was finishing up art school and entertaining the possibilities. But my hometown didn’t have the pull on me that Knights Bridge does her.”

  “No buff firefighter was waiting at home for you?”

  Kylie laughed. “There was not. Would it be so bad if Ruby decided to give up her dreams of Hollywood to stay here, open a community theater, live a different life from the one she’s imagined for herself?”

  “Depends on the reasons, I guess.”

  “Chris Sloan might have fallen for ambitious, anything-is-possible Ruby O’Dunn, but he has no interest in giving up his job here for a life in LA.”

  “What if he sacrificed a solid, secure job and his life here and she hated LA?”

  “Too soon for a relationship, maybe.” Kylie gazed out her window at the dark landscape and the sprinkle of bright stars in the
night sky. “We’re all lucky to have such options in our lives.”

  “We are. You were fun tonight. Personable.”

  She turned and smiled at him. “Surprised?”

  “Not really. I noticed that was one expensive bottle of champagne.”

  “It was good, wasn’t it?”

  “Very good.” He was silent a moment. “Nice that Morwenna Mills can afford it.”

  * * *

  “Sherlock did me in, didn’t he?” Kylie stared out at the river. They were almost to Moss Hill. She hadn’t said a word since Russ had made his comment. “I swear I could have stuffed him in a cupboard and he’d have found a way to sneak out and blow my cover. It was time. Past time.”

  “He’s been telling you that, has he?”

  “Sherlock and I have a unique relationship.”

  “Ah.”

  “How did you know he wasn’t some little badger I’d picked up in Boston or Paris or wherever?”

  “I could tell you’d sanitized your work area, and he got my attention—I had a gut feeling you’d overlooked him.”

  “Sanitized? That sounds like spies and antibacterial wipes were involved. I just grabbed anything that would invite questions or give me away.” She sighed. “I swear Sherlock hid while I was cleaning up.”

  “He looks handmade.”

  “He is. I prefer drawing, but I have my crafty moments. Sometimes I have to remind him he’s made out of scraps and dryer lint.”

  Russ slowed for a curve. She couldn’t tell in the dark if he was smiling, trying not to smile, definitely not smiling. “I didn’t recognize Sherlock,” he said. “I don’t have little kids to read to. But, it wasn’t hard to figure him out.”

  “Don’t tell him that. He likes to think he’s mysterious.”

  “Should I call you Morwenna now?”

  “No one calls me Morwenna. I suppose if I do media and events I’ll be Morwenna, but my agent, editor—no.”

  “But you don’t do media and appearances.”

  “Some media early on. None lately, and no appearances.”

  “Will this last?”

  She didn’t hesitate. “No.” She looked up at Moss Hill, looming against the starlit sky. She wouldn’t mind being at her spring now, even in the dark. “Did you Google badger dressed as Sherlock Holmes? Is that how you figured him out?”

  “I snapped a photo of him while you weren’t looking and texted it to my brother, Marty, in LA. He recognized Sherlock right away. Marty’s like that. He won’t say anything.”

  “I appreciate that. You could sound contrite about sneaking a photo of Sherlock, though.”

  “I could, but I’m not contrite.”

  “You don’t do contrite, do you?”

  “I can’t think of a time. Maybe when I was ten.”

  “Were you nervous? I didn’t notice you breaking out into a cold sweat. Did your heart beat rapidly?”

  “Because I was sneaking a picture of a stuffed badger?”

  “Because I could have caught you.”

  “Kylie. I wasn’t worried about you catching me.”

  She turned to him and saw, now that they were turning into the Moss Hill parking lot and there were lights, that he was grinning. Ten years in the navy, she remembered. A professional, licensed investigator. But she didn’t let it go. “I’m trying to think what I’d have done if I’d caught you,” she said. “I couldn’t have denied Sherlock. That wouldn’t have been right somehow. But I wouldn’t have told you about Morwenna and Middle Branch, because I’d have been irritated and felt violated.”

  “I didn’t deserve the truth, you mean.”

  “Right.”

  He parked in front of the bike stand. “Do you ever lock your bike?”

  “Not here. I probably should.”

  He turned off the engine and sat a moment in the dark, warm car. “Are you irritated now?”

  “I haven’t decided.”

  “Feel violated?”

  She tightened her jacket around her. “I feel relieved,” she said finally. “That doesn’t mean I’m going to thank you for being a sneak.”

  “You don’t have to thank me.” He turned to her, the light on half his face, the other half lost in the shadows. “Why the secrecy about Morwenna?”

  “It just happened. I’d never both written and illustrated anything. I used a pseudonym in part to help with the anxiety and second-guessing.”

  “In case it didn’t work out,” Russ said.

  She nodded.

  “You didn’t think about what if it did work out.”

  “Not a lot.”

  “Morwenna Mills is popular.”

  “Right now, yes. I don’t take her success—my success—for granted, and I’m immensely grateful. But I don’t want to lose what’s worked for me. Revealing that I’m Morwenna...” She took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Russ waited, not jumping in to finish her thought. “It was just easier not to. I don’t want it to mess up my work, my relationships with friends and family.”

  “You didn’t create Morwenna because you have enemies—a stalker, an envious colleague, anyone you’re hiding from?”

  “No.”

  “Do you have anyone like that in your life, either as Kylie Shaw or Morwenna Mills? Ex-husband, ex-boyfriend, enemies? I know you draw children’s books, but still, everyone has enemies.

  “Not that I’m aware of, and for the record, I’ve never been married.”

  “I feel like I blew your cover, but it wasn’t as if you’re a spy. You’d be a good one. You didn’t bat an eye this morning or tonight at dinner, and you knew I’d figured you out.” He paused, still next to her. “Scratch that. You knew I’d discovered you were Morwenna.” He paused again. “No way have I figured you out.”

  “Russ...”

  He touched her hair above her ear and brushed a curved finger along her jaw, then to her lips. “I’m not here to mess up your life, Kylie.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  “Morwenna Mills is exploding in popularity. How you manage the rest is for you to decide, but if you want to talk, feel free. I’m not going to tell anyone you’re Morwenna, except Marty, since he’s my source, but he’s cool. Your identity as Morwenna isn’t relevant to my reasons for being here.”

  “I’m not a security threat to Daphne Stewart or anyone else.”

  “And I’m not a threat to you or to Morwenna.” He leaned over and kissed her lightly, lingering just long enough that she knew he wanted more. “Promise.”

  He was out of the car before Kylie recovered.

  Sparks, she thought. Talk about sparks.

  She pushed open her door, welcoming the shot of cool April night air when she jumped out of the car. He was on the breezeway, the door to the residences open as he waited for her.

  “Stairs or elevator?” he asked.

  “I always take the stairs.”

  “Thought so, but you look a little wobbly.”

  “It’s the champagne,” she said.

  He grinned. “That’s what I figured. The champagne.”

  Kylie let him go ahead of her on the stairs. All she could think about was how incredibly sexy he was, from the way he moved to the fit of his pants on his thighs, his jacket on his shoulders. The kiss didn’t help. She wanted more.

  Not convenient.

  “What are you thinking about, Kylie?” he said as he waited for her on the landing.

  “Would you believe Little Red Riding Hood?”

  “If it was the truth.”

  She had no intention of telling him the truth, but she didn’t want to lie, either. “I did manage to get some work done today. Did you?”

  “Not sure I had any real work to do.”


  They continued down the hall to her apartment.

  “Where did you get the name Morwenna Mills?” Russ asked.

  “Mills is a family name on my mother’s side. It’s Welsh, and Morwenna is derived from a Cornish saint, Morwen. Some say Morwenna means sea wave. I like that, even if I live on a river instead of the sea. The name is often associated with creativity and self-expression.”

  “That appealed to you, too.”

  She nodded, taking out her keys. “And I just liked the name. I didn’t mean to send you on some kind of grand chase. I know you have better things to do. Are you annoyed I didn’t tell you about Morwenna?”

  “Intrigued.”

  Not the answer she’d expected. “Then I’m glad we talked, so you can be intrigued no more.”

  “I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

  “I’d like to hold off on telling anyone else until after the class on Saturday. I don’t want to be a distraction. But I will tell people.”

  “That’s your choice. You can trust me.”

  “And Marty.”

  “Marty’s a bartender. He’s even more trustworthy than I am.” Russ watched her unlock her door. “I have to go back to LA tomorrow.”

  “You’ll be back here with Daphne for her class?”

  “On Friday. That’s the plan.”

  “Well, I’ll see you then, I guess. Good night.” Kylie left the key in the door and turned to him abruptly, touching his hand, kissing him on the cheek. “I do trust you.”

  He took her hand into his, pulled her closer. This time, when his mouth found hers, their kiss wasn’t quick or light. Kylie slipped her free arm around him, inhaling sharply at the feel of the hard muscles in his back—and in so doing, managed to deepen their kiss. Heat spread through her, quickening her heartbeat, locking her into this moment. The months of deliberate solitude and constant work fell away.

  Russ let go of her hand, swept his arms around her and lifted her off her feet. “Damn,” he whispered, kissing her again.

  She wanted to touch him everywhere, have him do the same to her. Images and sensations flooded her as she responded to the wet heat of their kiss, the wet heat at her very core.