Cider Brook

by Unknown

  Caleb shuddered. “This place is straight out of 1910.”

  “It just looks that way on the surface.” She pointed vaguely. “You can drop me off anywhere here.”

  He stopped in front of the Swift River Country Store. “What about mosquitoes? Ticks? I hope you packed DEET.”

  “DEET and Scotch,” Samantha said lightly. “The necessities when hunting pirate treasure.”

  Caleb looked at his son. “You’re going to be an engineer.”

  Isaac managed to stir enough to wish her luck. As she grabbed her pack out of the backseat, she caught him smirking and muttering something about hoping she found herself a sexy pirate of her own.

  “This isn’t about sexy pirates,” she told him.

  He gave her a knowing grin. “Right. It’s about scholarship.”

  She ignored him. “Enjoy your college tour.” She smiled at her uncle. “Thanks for the ride. I’ll see you in a few days.”

  “Have fun. Steer clear of carpenters.”

  Samantha wished she hadn’t told her uncle how Duncan McCaffrey had come to fire her. Being spotted in the snow by a small-town carpenter paled in comparison to some of the ways her father and his baby brother had gotten themselves into trouble over the years.

  Caleb and Isaac didn’t linger. Samantha waited for the Mercedes to disappear back out the winding road to the highway before she set off. There was nothing she needed to pick up at the general store. She didn’t have to ask for directions—she had a paper map and a map on her phone, but she’d committed her route to memory.

  * * *

  Ninety minutes later, Samantha slipped off her backpack and set it at her feet as she paused on a simple wooden bridge. It spanned a rock-strewn stream that had to be Cider Brook. She was on a back road that meandered among green fields, old stone walls and woods that were changing color with the arrival of autumn.

  She could see a sliver of the Quabbin Reservoir in the distance, its quiet waters shining blue in the afternoon sun. Before Quabbin, three branches of the Swift River had run through a valley of peaceful New England villages. The valley’s abundance of freshwater streams, rivers, ponds and lakes had proved too tempting for growing, thirsty metropolitan Boston to resist. In the 1930s, the villages had been forcibly cleared out, razed and the valley flooded to create a pristine source of drinking water for their neighbors to the east.

  The “accidental wilderness,” as it was called, was a stunningly beautiful sight on an early-autumn afternoon.

  Samantha wished the weather was cooler. The day had turned warmer and more humid than she’d expected. She unbuttoned her jacket and was tempted to take it off altogether. She doubted she would have use for the merino wool throw she’d packed, in anticipation of a chilly night looking up at the stars. With little ambient light out this way, the night sky would be spectacular.

  Across the bridge, the narrow road curved uphill to a rambling white clapboard farmhouse with black shutters and a red barn set on a hill that overlooked the valley. Huge maple trees, their leaves just starting to turn color, shaded the front lawn. A dark brown dog slept in the driveway, and a white duck—a pet, Samantha assumed—paraded across the grass as if it owned the place. She could hear an unseen rooster crowing in the summerlike stillness.

  If she remembered her map correctly, the farmhouse was at a hairpin turn in the road, which then wound back toward the village. That meant the stream under the bridge definitely was Cider Brook.

  She lifted her backpack again and slung it over one shoulder. She would strap it on properly once she was on her way again. She crossed the bridge and left the road, pushing through knee-high ferns down a steep incline to the edge of the brook. The brook was narrow here—far too narrow to support even a small cider mill—but would widen farther downstream. The coppery, clear water was shallow, winding downhill over and around rocks and boulders that created natural pools and mini waterfalls.

  She brushed away a mosquito buzzing by her head. A hundred years ago, this area had been largely farmland. Now much of it had been reclaimed by a mixed hardwood forest.

  An old cider mill could easily be tucked in the woods, and she could walk right past it.

  At the rate she was going, she would be finished with Knights Bridge well before her uncle and cousin headed back this way. She hadn’t calculated the exact distance from the bridge to the reservoir, but it would be a pretty hike—an adventure, even if she didn’t come across a nineteenth-century cider mill.

  More mosquitoes found her, and she stopped alongside the brook to refresh her bug spray. Thunder rumbled off to the west. She looked up at the sky, hazy and blue directly above her but with ominous dark clouds behind her. Tucked in the trees as she was, she couldn’t see far enough to get a sense whether the storm was coming her way or moving off in another direction. This late in the season, she hadn’t considered she might run into a thunderstorm. Of course, once she thought about it she realized a storm wasn’t out of the question.

  She noticed a trail on the other side of the brook. She had a feeling she was close to the spot where Cider Brook curved toward a dirt road that jutted off the paved one she had followed to the bridge. If she got in trouble with the weather, she could always work her way out to the road and find a house or a shed or flag down a car. Something. Right now, she wanted to get across the brook and on the trail.

  Adjusting her backpack, Samantha tested a jagged, half-submerged rock. When it didn’t move, she stepped onto it, then jumped to a flat-topped hunk of granite, the cold brook water swirling and gurgling, soothing her sudden sense of dread as more thunder growled. She leaped to the opposite bank, sinking slightly into the soft ground, and thrashed through ferns and skunk cabbage onto the trail.

  Lightning flashed, and the darkening clouds created eerie shadows. She picked up her pace. She didn’t need a detailed weather forecast to know a nasty storm was bearing down on her. The trail continued to follow Cider Brook into the woods. As she’d anticipated, the brook widened as smaller streams joined it on its gentle descent toward Quabbin.

  As the trail curved past a huge, old red-leafed tree, she could see sunlight ahead—a clearing of some kind. A simultaneous bolt of lightning and ferocious clap of thunder propelled her into an outright run. Trees swayed in strong wind gusts, and she could hear the hiss of rain in the woods behind her. Fat raindrops splattered on the dirt trail.

  Breathing hard, debating whether she should seek shelter in a protected spot in the woods, she emerged into a clearing. She came to an abrupt halt in front of an old rough-wood building, maybe thirty feet by twenty feet, tucked next to a small stone-and-earth dam and quiet millpond.

  Damned if she hadn’t found her cider mill.

  Or a cider mill, anyway.

  It resembled the one depicted in the painting in her grandfather’s office, but it was run-down, obviously abandoned and definitely not new or painted a rich, vibrant red.

  Hail pelted her, an unpleasant reminder of her immediate situation. It was dime-size and quickly covered the ground.

  “Ah, damn.”

  Of course there was hail.

  She bounded up to the mill’s solid wood door, but it was padlocked. Why, she couldn’t imagine. Three small windows were encased in thick, dirty plastic. A garage-style door, where wagons had once unloaded apples and loaded cider, was boarded shut.

  She knew how to pick a padlock. Her uncle had seen to teaching her that particular skill himself. “It’s only to be used in self-defense, Sam. No breaking into a vault or anything like that.”

  She noticed faded Do Not Enter and Danger signs to the left of the door.

  Lightning lit up the sky, and thunder echoed in the woods.

  She needed to get inside.

  Now.

  Two

  The storm was fierce, intense and downright unnerving, but Samantha rode it out inside the dusty, empty cider mill. With the rain stopped and the thunder clearly off to the east, she had her grandfather’s flask out of her
jacket pocket and was debating whether to imbibe now or wait until after dark.

  Then she smelled smoke.

  Smoke? She groaned in disbelief. Wouldn’t that just top off her day?

  She tucked the flask back in her pocket and breathed in deeply, hoping the smell of smoke had been a trick of her imagination. The mill consisted of a single room with rough-wood walls, wide-board flooring and a pitched ceiling with open rafters. It would go up in flames in no time if it caught fire.

  The smell didn’t dissipate, and it wasn’t her imagination. It was definitely smoke.

  Could the wind have carried smoke from a chimney in a nearby farmhouse?

  What nearby farmhouse?

  She could taste smoke now, feel it burn in her eyes.

  She reached into the open compartment of the backpack at her feet, grabbed her four-by-nine-inch documents pouch and slipped it into an outer jacket pocket, opposite the one with the flask.

  A strange hissing noise seemed to come from beneath the floor by a half-dozen old wooden cider barrels pushed up against the wall. In another moment, smoke, visible now, curled through cracks in the floorboards and floated up to the rafters as if it were a living thing. Samantha stared at it, transfixed. She couldn’t delude herself. She was in a fire.

  She didn’t have a minute to waste. She clicked into action.

  She knew she had to leave everything—tent, sleeping bag, food, water, toiletries, bug spray, first-aid kit, flannel pajamas and her merino wool wrap, a gift from her mother. So much for watching the stars come out, envisioning life here in the early eighteenth century.

  More smoke poured through the floorboards.

  Samantha dropped low, remembering that was what someone was supposed to do in a fire, with rising smoke. She pulled her jacket collar over her mouth and nose and launched herself toward the door.

  She swore she could hear flames under her in the mill’s cellar.

  Her eyes were blurry and watery with smoke, but she could see an orange, fiery glow by the north wall. She felt the heat of the fire now. Sudden, intense.

  How long did she have before the old, dry wood exploded into flames?

  Stifling a surge of panic, she crouched even lower, coughing as smoke filled the enclosed space. She kept moving. She had to get out of here before she collapsed due to smoke inhalation.

  Flames burst through the floorboards by the barrels and crawled up the wall, bright and terrifying in the gray light. Fire and smoke seemed to join, forming a monster ready to consume everything in its path.

  She got onto her knees, gasping for air. Her hand fell from her jacket, exposing her to more smoke. She covered her mouth and nose with the crook of her arm and decided she would crawl on her belly if she had to...but she couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. There was no pirate rogue to save her. She had to save herself. She had to stay conscious, get moving, steer clear of the flames.

  The front door banged open, startling her.

  “Is anyone in here?”

  A man’s voice. Soothing, firm, maybe a little annoyed. Or was it her imagination, or a passage from the pages she’d discovered in her grandfather’s office?

  Samantha tried to stagger to her feet. “Captain Farraday?”

  “Easy. Are you hurt?”

  She shook her head and blinked, but she couldn’t focus—couldn’t see the man through the smoke and her own burning tears.

  Strong arms reached around her. “Stay low,” her rescuer said. “We need to move fast.”

  He had her up off her feet before she realized he had lifted her. In a few long strides, he had her out the door and down the stone-slab step, then flung onto the bank of the small millpond. She landed in cold, wet grass, rolled onto her stomach, coughing, spitting, sucking in the clear air.

  “Do you have medical issues?”

  The man again. Samantha sat up, her eyes and throat burning, aching. She tasted smoke and grime and felt her heart thumping in her chest. She blinked rapidly, peering up at the man standing between her and the mill. He was tall, looming over her. She made out dark short-cropped hair, deep blue eyes, a firm mouth, a square jaw, broad shoulders. He wore a black canvas shirt over a black T-shirt, jeans, scuffed leather boots.

  Hauling her out of the mill had obviously not taxed him to any degree, but he didn’t seem happy about it. She had no idea who he was. A hiker? A local man? Did he own the cider mill? She hadn’t considered she might have to contend with an owner, or that it might be a tough, humorless man not much older than she was.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, clearing her throat. “What did you ask me?”

  He sucked in a quick breath. “Do you have asthma, allergies, a heart condition, anything—”

  “No. Nothing. No medical issues.” Her voice was raspy, tense. “I’m fine. Thank you.”

  He showed no sign of lowering his guard. “Fire department’s on the way. I have to get to work. You sit tight.”

  “What can I do to help?”

  “Stay out of the way.”

  He hadn’t hesitated even half a beat before firing off his answer. He didn’t wait for a response and set off toward the mill. Thick smoke billowed from the open door into the cool, clear air. Flames glowed orange behind the dirty plastic and cracked glass in the windows.

  Samantha watched as her rescuer stopped at a dusty-gray pickup truck, parked with its hood facing out the pitted dirt driveway. In seconds, he had donned fire gear—hat, mask, jacket.

  A firefighter?

  He grabbed an ax and headed for the mill.

  The fire seemed to have sucked the door shut. He kicked it open and went inside.

  Whoever he was, her rescuer was strong and utterly fearless.

  She shivered in the cooler air. She hadn’t called him Captain Farraday, had she? Not out loud. It just wasn’t possible.

  She heard sirens and realized a road was closer than she’d thought. In another thirty seconds, fire trucks and a lone police car descended. Samantha moved to a small boulder by the brook. With the downpour from the storm, the water was high, rushing over rocks, moss and mud.

  As she watched firefighters set to work, she could feel the padlock in her jacket pocket.

  If no one asked about it, she saw no reason to mention it.

  Three

  Her rescuer’s name was Justin Sloan.

  Or so he told Samantha right before he demanded she produce his padlock.

  He put out a callused hand. “Where is it?”

  The fire was out, the mill intact if damaged. The firefighters had loaded up their gear and left, and the two uniformed police officers had followed them along the rutted driveway to the road. One of the officers had interviewed her. She’d told him the truth about how she’d ended up in the cider mill—that she’d ducked inside to get out of the thunderstorm. He’d asked if she’d noticed the Do Not Enter and Danger signs. She’d said she had. He’d scowled and hadn’t requested further details.

  He was a Sloan, too. Eric Sloan.

  One of the firefighters was also a Sloan. Christopher.

  Small towns, she thought.

  Justin, she now realized, was a volunteer firefighter. After helping put out the fire, he’d returned his gear to his truck and then joined her by her boulder. Samantha had dipped a hand into the cold brook water and done what she could to wipe the soot off her face, but she doubted she’d gotten it all. The acrid fire smells wouldn’t be easy to eliminate from her skin or her clothes. She had travel wipes and fresh clothes in her backpack, assuming it had survived the fire and wasn’t too contaminated by smoke.

  Telling Justin Sloan that his missing padlock was in her jacket pocket didn’t seem like a particularly wise course of action at the moment. Although he gave no indication, he had to be in high-adrenaline mode after coming upon the old mill in flames, discovering a woman was more or less trapped inside, carrying her to safety and then helping to put out the fire.

  Samantha realized she was in high-adrenaline mode herself. She s
tood, the seat of her pants wet, and flicked an ant off her knee. Casual. As if she hadn’t picked the padlock to get into the mill and didn’t have it in her jacket.

  The banter she’d overheard between the firefighters had confirmed her suspicion that her rescuer owned the old cider mill.

  “Hell, Justin, this place is even more of a dump than I thought.”

  “I can’t believe you spent real money on it.”

  “Firetrap, Justin. Told you.”

  That last had come from Christopher Sloan. Apparently he was one of two full-time firefighters in Knights Bridge. Everyone else was a volunteer.

  “They’re your brothers?” Samantha asked. “Eric and Christopher?”

  “My brothers. Yes.” Justin snapped two fingers of his outstretched hand. “My padlock.”

  Not a man easily distracted. She tried to look as if she didn’t quite understand him. “Padlock?”

  “The one you picked or broke to get into the mill.”

  He lowered his hand to his side, but she could tell from his set jaw that he wasn’t giving up. She didn’t feel guilty at what she’d done, but she didn’t want to explain herself to a man who’d just carted her out of a burning building and had helped put out the fire. He didn’t look as if he’d be a willing listener on a good day. Since one of his brothers was a police officer and another was a professional firefighter—and he himself was a volunteer firefighter—she wasn’t afraid of him. He wasn’t a thug. He was just not in a great mood.

  “It was a dangerous storm. Downright scary, and I’ve been in some scary storms.” She decided to change the subject. “My name’s Samantha, by the way.”

  His deep blue eyes narrowed on her. “What’s your last name, Samantha?”

  “Bennett,” she said, sounding more tight-lipped and reluctant than she would have liked. She hadn’t volunteered her last name on purpose. She’d told Eric Sloan, the police-officer brother, but he’d asked, leaving her no choice. She doubted the Bennett name meant anything to him, Justin or the other firefighters who’d rushed to the old cider mill, but she’d intended to get in and out of Knights Bridge without the knowledge of any of its residents.