Stone Bridges

by Carla Neggers

  She’d jotted down a list of local books and settled on the World War II novel Evelyn Sloan’s book club was reading when Eric Sloan arrived to meet his grandmother. He was in a sweatshirt and jeans, sporting at least a three-day growth of beard. “I hear things are going well at the inn,” he said.

  “Just diving in and figuring it out as I go.”

  “That makes sense. I sometimes have to do that in my work, too. Adam’s the planner in the family.” Eric grinned. “You work with rocks, you have to plan.” He pointed vaguely toward the library entrance. “I just ran into him.”

  “Ah. I wondered why you brought him up.”

  “Heard you had dinner with him and Justin and Samantha out at the lake.”

  “It wasn’t—I just happened to be there—”

  Eric’s grin broadened. “Yeah. That’s what I heard.”

  Using her cane, Evelyn edged toward them. She eyed her eldest grandson with a healthy dose of skepticism. “I’m hearing rumors about you.”

  He shifted his grin to her. “That I’ve won the lottery? Not true.”

  “Not funny, either,” she said with a scowl. “People are worried about you. They think the stress of the job is getting to you.”

  “It’s Knights Bridge, Gran.”

  She tucked her cane under one arm and smiled at Adrienne. “I don’t really need it.” Her refrain, apparently. She turned to her eldest grandson. “A friend of mine wandered away from home last week. She was going to visit a friend. She was so happy. She forgot to tell her daughter what she was up to, and she called the police. The daughter. Not my friend.”

  “Right, Gran. Come on.”

  “You picked her up and brought her home. The minute she got there she remembered her friend died fifteen years ago. I suppose you couldn’t have let her keep walking so her fantasy could go on a while longer?”

  “If I had, who knows where she’d have ended up.”

  She sighed. “Good point. I forget things more than I used to, but I’ve never forgotten your grandfather is gone.”

  “Your friend’s hanging in there, Gran,” Eric said.

  “She could have frozen to death.”

  “Not that night. More likely she’d have keeled over from dehydration.”

  “Eric!”

  “Sorry.” He turned to Adrienne. “Gran and I tease each other but sometimes I go over the line.”

  “It’s the stress of the job,” Evelyn said. “When are you getting married?”

  “Let’s go, Gran.” Eric, clearly brushing off his grandmother’s question, smiled at Adrienne. “See you around.”

  Evelyn sighed and took his arm. “Lovely to see you again, Adrienne.”

  “You, too.”

  After they left, Adrienne checked out her books and headed out herself. She decided to drive to Echo Lake and have dinner on Vic’s porch overlooking the lake. Maybe he’d sense she was there and email her. She hadn’t heard from him in days. She walked across the common, enjoying the bright foliage and warm, beautiful afternoon. The country store was bustling, and she found herself greeting people she now recognized and who recognized her—Gabe Flanagan, Lisa Zalewski and Olivia’s mother, Louise Frost. Adrienne bought take-out pulled pork and a salad and walked back across the common to her car, still parked at the library.

  If Adam was at the lake, she’d invite him to join her for dinner. She’d bought enough food for two.

  * * *

  Adam returned to the lake just before dark and was outside on the deck with Violet when he spotted Adrienne on the sand, close to the water. “Amend that,” he said. She was in the water. A hard frost tonight and she was going for a swim? “Come on, Violet. Let’s see how this turns out.”

  They walked down to the lake. He noticed three towels stacked atop a folded blanket. At least Adrienne was prepared to freeze her ass off. She was up to her waist in the water, her back to him. She had a swim shirt on over her bathing suit. He could hear her counting out loud. When she got to five, she dived, going under.

  She popped up. “Yikes, that water’s cold.”

  He wasn’t sure she’d spotted him. She streaked out of the lake, straight for her towels. She wrapped one around her shoulders and another around her waist, shivering as she muttered cold, cold, cold and turned purple.

  “Water’s colder than you expected, I take it.”

  She went still and spun around at him. “I didn’t know you were here.”

  “Just got here. I’m glad I didn’t need to send Violet in after you.”

  “You wouldn’t have gone in yourself?”

  “Too damn cold.”

  She grinned and grabbed another towel, wrapping it around her wet hair. “I thought one last dip in the lake for the season would be fun. It was, in its own way. It’s as close to a polar-bear swim as I’ll ever get. I only stayed in...oh, all of—what, ten seconds?”

  “More like three seconds. Warm up. You don’t want hypothermia.”

  Her teeth were chattering. As she adjusted her towels, he noticed how her wet swimsuit hugged her curves, the water drops on her exposed skin. “Guess what? The water’s not getting any warmer. Big surprise, huh?” She let the towels around her waist and shoulders drop into the sand and reached for the blanket, pulling it around her. Violet barked. Adrienne laughed. “You think I’m nuts, don’t you, Violet?”

  “She probably wants you to jump into the lake with her.”

  “She’s welcome to jump in by herself.”

  Adam pointed up toward the guesthouse. “Why don’t you come inside? I just lit a fire in the woodstove. You can warm up. Take a look at Vic’s photos.”

  She nodded, tightening the blanket around her. “That’d be great. Thanks.”

  “Did you bring clothes down with you?”

  There was the slightest pause before she shook her head.

  “No problem,” he said.

  She’d brought shoes and socks with her and slipped them on. Violet balked at leaving without chasing a stick into the water, but Adam finally persuaded her. When they reached the guesthouse, the fire had taken hold. He put on another log and fetched one of his T-shirts out of his downstairs bedroom. She had her swim shirt off when he returned and handed her his shirt. She seemed oblivious to her sparsely-clad state, intent only on getting warm. She pulled off her hair towel, and he took it and set it on the brick hearth by the woodstove to dry.

  She flipped her wet hair out from inside his shirt and smiled. “Much better. I didn’t get a chance to swim when I was here last winter, obviously. I went snowshoeing a few times, which I enjoyed, but I often wondered what it would be like to swim in the lake. Definitely better when it’s summer.” She gestured toward the table in the adjoining dining area. “Are those Vic’s photos?”

  Adam nodded. He had a few of the photos arranged faceup but there were scores more in a wooden box Vic had brought down from the house. “They’re all prints from negatives. He’s saving his digital photos for another time.”

  Adrienne pulled her blanket around her and walked over to the table, glancing at a few of the face-up photos. “That’s Paris.” She pointed at one of Vic as a much younger man standing on a bridge. “The Seine by Notre Dame. I wonder who took it.”

  “It was thirty-two years ago. He never put the photos into albums but he marked the date and location on the backs.”

  “Before he had the fling with my mother, then.”

  She peered at more photos. Apparently she was warm enough that when the blanket edged lower, she didn’t immediately yank it up or break into uncontrollable shivering. Her lips were less purple. Adam figured if he hadn’t come upon her, she’d have been fine with her blanket and towels. She’d have made a mad dash back up to the house, put on dry clothes and poured wine or made herself hot tea. Her swim might have been colder than she’d anticipated, but she’d be
en reasonably prepared.

  “I’m going through all the photos before I start scanning,” he said.

  “You’re a stonemason. You’re thorough and patient. You don’t rush.”

  “Depends.” Water had collected at the ends of her hair and was about to drip onto the shirt he’d given her. He caught a few drops with his fingers. “I can move fast when the situation calls for it.”

  “Good to move fast when a rock’s about to fall on your hand.”

  “No argument there.”

  “Have you avoided more scars than you’ve incurred?”

  “Ah-huh.”

  She looked at him, her dark eyes standing out against her chilled skin. A tiny stream of water ran from a thick, wet strand of her hair down her forehead and onto her nose. “That’s good,” she said finally.

  He brushed his thumb on her jaw and lower lip. “I am patient. I don’t rush.” He paused. “To a point.”

  “Right.” She licked her lips as he lowered his hand. “I’m not patient. I have a tendency to rush. Sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn’t. I want this to work out. Everything here in Knights Bridge. I don’t want to mess up Vic’s relationship with the town by rushing things with a Sloan. You all are Knights Bridge.”

  “You have your own relationship with Knights Bridge.”

  He watched her swallow, watched the water slide off her nose onto her cheek. “This is Vic’s home,” she said. “I showed up last winter and turned his life upside down.”

  “Hear me, Adrienne. What’s going on here right now isn’t between you and the town or you and my family or you and Vic. I respect your relationship with him.” He leaned closer to her. “But what’s going on now is between us. You and me.”

  “And what do you think that is?”

  “A lot.”

  She smiled. “I’d say so, too. It’s taken me by surprise.”

  “But no complaints?”

  “No complaints.”

  “Except you’re cold,” he said, skimming his palm down her back, the shirt he’d loaned her damp from her swimsuit. He settled his hand on her hip. “Do you want a long-sleeved shirt to throw on over this one?”

  “It’s okay. I’ll jump into dry clothes at the house. I won’t run into a bear, will I?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Probably not?”

  He grinned and stood back. “I’ll walk with you just in case. Leave the wet towels. I’ll let them dry by the fire and bring them up to the house tomorrow.”

  She nodded. “Okay, thanks. I have food if you haven’t had dinner.”

  “Food sounds good.”

  They walked up to the main house together and had dinner on the porch. Adrienne had changed into dry clothes and wrapped one of Vic’s porch blankets around her as she sat on an old rocker, one Vic never touched. He’d told Adam. No rocking chairs.

  He and Adrienne talked about everything except the simmering attraction between them. Carriage Hill events, progress on Red Clover Inn renovations, rumors about ghosts at the old Victorian Dylan was converting into offices, the difference between sugar pumpkins and regular pumpkins and local apple orchards. A few other things that didn’t have anything to do with him carrying her down to the guesthouse and into his bedroom. If they got that far and didn’t just tear off each other’s clothes by the fire.

  But deep down, despite his attraction to her, he realized Adrienne wasn’t ready to end up in bed with him. Her mind was on Vic and his life in Knights Bridge, not her life here.

  When Adam got up to leave, she unfurled her blankets and got up, slipping her hand into his. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Have a good night.”

  He kissed her lightly, his fingers at the back of her neck, her hair almost dry now. “You know how to reach me if you need anything.”

  “Yes. Right.” She took an audible breath. “I do.”

  As he descended the steps onto the dark walkway to the guesthouse, Adam realized she’d expected more than a quick kiss—a lot more, he thought.

  He smiled to himself. Good.

  He glanced back at the big lake house. Adrienne had turned off the porch lights. She must have gone inside. Did she plan to spend the night here? He hadn’t asked, but when he got back to the guesthouse, he heard her car start up in the driveway. He could have invited her to stay with him. Maybe wished he had. But then where would he be? Maybe what she needed now was some time. She’d gone from believing she was Sophia and Richard Portale’s daughter to discovering she was Sophia Portale and Vic Scarlatti’s daughter, and she was feeling her way into her new job—her new life here.

  Adam put another log on the fire. He had self-restraint but he wanted to make love to her.

  A lot.

  He looked out at the lake, stars and a quarter moon sparkling in the clear evening sky. It would be chilly tonight. He’d be crawling into a cold bed alone. His own doing, he thought. But he felt in his gut that when the time was right, he wouldn’t be alone. One night soon, Adrienne would join him in bed, and it wouldn’t stay cold for long. He knew it was the case. He felt it with a certainty that probably should have taken him by surprise but didn’t.

  He grabbed a beer out of the refrigerator and went through more of Vic’s old pictures.

  Fifteen

  After the madness of swimming in cold Echo Lake and falling into Adam’s warm arms—at least sort of—Adrienne looked into resurrecting her wine blog. She curled up in her bed with her laptop. She could work on the blog in her free time, but it wouldn’t be easy to rekindle her past success without traveling. Glancing through the archives, she didn’t feel the same passion she’d once had for the work. If she left Knights Bridge, though, for whatever reason, she’d need an income.

  Why all of a sudden was she thinking about leaving? She hadn’t thought about it in weeks.

  Because of tonight.

  How would Maggie and Olivia react if they knew what was going on between her and Adam? She wasn’t exactly involved with him. That was too strong. Intrigued by him. Susceptible to his physical appeal. She loved being with him, but she didn’t want to screw things up for him, for Vic or for herself by being impulsive, not thinking things through. But what did that look like when it came to a matter of the heart? It wasn’t as if she was taking on a house mortgage. She wasn’t dealing with numbers, calculations, projections.

  “You’re dealing with a sexy man who wants to go to bed with you.”

  Of that much she was fairly certain.

  She shut her laptop and placed it on the bedside table. It was a quiet night. She couldn’t hear so much as an owl through the shut windows. She flopped against her pillows. “I need a white-noise playlist.”

  What would she have done if Adam hadn’t pulled back earlier? If one thing had led to another...

  She knew herself. She’d have slept with him. She’d probably have made love to him right there on Vic’s porch. They’d have managed it. They were both fit. He was strong. He could have lifted her, carried her down to the guesthouse...

  Did he know she wouldn’t have turned him away, and that was why he hadn’t gone any further with her? He’d wanted to. She felt that in him, in the tightness of his muscles, the sexy edginess in the way he’d looked at her. But he lived in Vic’s guesthouse. They were on Vic’s porch. He and Vic were friends. For that matter, Adam knew Vic better than she did.

  She switched off her bedside lamp. She wouldn’t resurrect her wine blog anytime soon, if ever. She had too much to do with fall events. Right now she needed to hunker down and make things work here at Carriage Hill. She would quit overthinking and let whatever was going on between her and Adam happen naturally. He had a busy fall ahead of him, too.

  Adrienne pulled the covers up over herself. She was warm and cozy and felt more in control of herself—her spinning mind, her jumble of emotions, her frustrated
body. She shut her eyes, and for a moment, she swore she heard an owl, even as she felt Adam Sloan’s arms around her, as if they had come back here to her innkeeper’s suite after all.

  * * *

  A week later, Adrienne decided she hadn’t heard from Vic in too long for her taste. She grabbed her laptop and sat in Carriage Hill’s kitchen with a pot of tea and one—that was her limit—of Maggie’s incredible brownies and typed him an email.

  Dear Vic,

  I’m winding down after a nonstop couple of weeks. We had two weekday lunches for local groups and a bunch of adventure travelers met here ahead of a trip to the White Mountains. They’re up there now. Brandon Sloan is leading it. No snow in the forecast at least! A two-day entrepreneurial boot camp next week. It’ll be great when Red Clover Inn opens and can take overnight guests. We fill up fast here. There are some Airbnb properties around, at least. I’m hiring more help. Gotta.

  Everything’s great at the lake. I helped Adam after a wild storm took out a few branches and half a pine tree landed on the driveway. Mr. Unflappable. I was up there checking things out when the storm hit. I want you to know that I did not hide in your wine cellar. Maybe I should have. It’s Sloan-built. It’s not going anywhere! The lake’s gorgeous in autumn. Breathtaking, really. I’m sorry you’re not here to see it but I hope you’re doing well wherever you are.

  Okay, those are a few highlights of my goings-on. I think of you often. No problem if you can’t respond. I understand.

  Love,

  Adrienne

  She reviewed her email before hitting Send. Would Vic read between the lines about her and Adam? Did it matter if he did? But it did, she realized. She wanted to see how their relationship developed before she let anyone find out.

  And it is a relationship.

  No commitments, and they’d been right to step back from jumping into bed with each other. It would have been the proverbial cart before the horse. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to. She ached to. She felt certain he was of a like mind. No, it was because her life in Knights Bridge was new, and she wanted to get it right. She’d been impulsive for as far back as she could remember, and she didn’t want to trigger that lurking urge to leap up and move on to the next thing.