Cider Brook

by Unknown

  The floorboards creaked as Samantha edged toward him. Her grandfather’s house in Boston had been built around the same time but was completely different from this place.

  “Do you have any of the original workings of the mill?” she asked.

  “The original water wheel was here. It attached just below the pond and powered the grinding mill and press. They were auctioned off a long time ago, probably before either of us was born.”

  “It’s hard to think of the pool of water outside as a ‘pond,’ but obviously the dam is big enough to create enough energy to run a cider mill. I assume the apples came from local orchards.”

  He nodded. “Some of the orchards are still around.”

  “Picking apples in the fall. Turning them into cider. It sounds idyllic.”

  “The whole apple was used. Seeds, peels, core and all. Helps the flavor. Cider was a staple drink of early New England families.” Justin leaned against the doorjamb, watching her, looking at ease despite the fire damage, the smell of smoke. “Do you like cider, Samantha Bennett?”

  “I love cider.”

  “We have a press up at the house. We make our own cider every fall.”

  His words reminded her that Knights Bridge was his home, and she was the outsider with an agenda—and he knew it. “I’m really glad the fire wasn’t any worse, Justin,” she said quietly.

  “Yeah. Me, too.”

  A dead Bennett with his padlock in her pocket would have complicated his quiet life, perhaps upended his plans for the mill. All she needed was her missing journal. Then she could go on her way, and he could patch up the fire damage and carry on as if she’d never been here.

  “Is your family home nearby?” she asked.

  “Everything’s nearby around here. My folks are a few miles up the road.”

  “Rambling white farmhouse with black shutters, a red barn and a duck wandering in the yard?”

  “That’s the place. The company offices are there, too.”

  “I was on Sloan land the whole time yesterday, wasn’t I?”

  “Yes, you were.” His eyes settled on her as he stood straight. “The duck’s name is Fred, by the way. My mother got him for my brother Brandon’s boys. Fred took over. He thinks he runs the place.”

  Samantha smiled. “Does Fred the Duck like cider?”

  “Only the hard stuff.”

  “Lame, Justin,” she said with a laugh.

  He grinned. “Wait until you meet Fred.”

  She had no intention of meeting Fred or any of the other Sloan animals—or any of the other Sloans, for that matter. Justin, his cop brother, Eric, and his firefighter brother, Christopher, were plenty.

  Justin by himself was plenty.

  “Any pets of your own, Sam?” he asked her.

  “My lifestyle doesn’t allow for pets right now. I wanted a pet alligator when I was a kid. My father said no. I think my mother might have been game.” She wondered if her answer had opened up too many doors. She didn’t want to say anything that would invite more questions, more scrutiny. “What about you?”

  “Do I have a pet alligator, you mean?”

  “A pet. Do you have a pet?”

  He stepped closer to her. “We’re going to have to work on your sense of humor.” He paused, his eyes lost in the shadows. “No pets other than the ones at my folks’ place. Our chocolate Lab likes to come to work with me whenever he gets the chance.”

  “Quite a life you have.” She nodded toward the burned area and her sodden gear. “I’d like to take a look.”

  He shrugged. “Watch your step.”

  She was aware of him behind her as she squatted by her destroyed things. She had no desire to pick through them and wouldn’t have ventured this deep into the mill if not for her journal. She’d started jotting notes in it well before she’d met Duncan—from the time she and her grandfather had first discussed her pirate, Benjamin Farraday.

  She didn’t see her bright red journal in the mess on the floor. She supposed it could have burned to ashes, but more likely she’d dropped it on her hike yesterday, perhaps when she’d broken into a run on her mad dash to get out of the storm.

  Or someone had found it.

  She walked back to Justin, still watching her from the doorway. “I had a small journal with me yesterday. I can’t find it and might have dropped it. By any chance did you or one of the other firefighters find it?”

  “Like a diary or something?”

  “Or something.”

  “Could it make for interesting reading?”

  “Not like what you’re thinking. I was hoping I’d find it out here. I didn’t want to make a big deal of it. I’d like it back if one of your friends has it.”

  “Noted.”

  “I could have dropped it on my hike. It has a red cover.”

  She caught a lungful of the acrid air. Her stomach lurched, and she bolted past him, plunging down the stone step and racing to the brook. She bent over, hands on her knees, but the clean air and the steady, rhythmic sounds of the water pouring off the dam and swirling among rocks soothed her immediately. She wouldn’t vomit.

  “Okay?” Justin asked behind her.

  She nodded and sank onto her boulder from yesterday. She breathed out, smiled up at him. “I’d hate to puke in front of you.”

  “Better than on me.”

  “It’s the smells. They turn my stomach.”

  He stood next to her rock. “It is pretty rancid in there.”

  “Are you used to the smells? Because you’re a firefighter?”

  “I guess. I haven’t thought about it.”

  “You must have to take precautions—to make sure you don’t get contaminated.”

  “Always.”

  He wasn’t abrupt now so much as steady, matter-of-fact. It was reassuring in its own way. Samantha peered up the trail, shaded by an arch of white pines, but she didn’t see her journal. Its title page alone would confirm she wasn’t in Knights Bridge just for an early-autumn hike. Her grandfather had often cautioned her on the need for what he liked to call “operational security” in her work. Pirate treasure was a temptation, no matter how remote the possibility it existed, never mind whether it could be found after hundreds of years.

  She noted the dappled shade of an oak tree on the quiet millpond. Three hundred years ago, European settlers to the east had considered this area the wilderness frontier. Today Knights Bridge was an easy drive from Boston. A day trip. Shop, visit museums, go to a ball game. Be home at a reasonable hour. She’d had options besides camping here. She could have postponed her trip until her uncle and cousin had finished their college tour and then taken her chances with the old Mercedes. She’d wanted to stay a few days and explore the area—leave no stone unturned, as it were.

  She wondered if Justin ever ventured to Boston.

  “You don’t trust me,” she said without looking at him.

  “I wonder why that is.” He picked up a fallen leaf, twirled it by the stem, then tossed it into the water coming off the spillway. “For someone caught in a storm, you weren’t exactly drenched yesterday.”

  “My jacket is water resistant, and I got here just before the heaviest rain.”

  “Convenient.”

  “I had to run, if that makes you feel any better.”

  His eyes were half-closed as he turned to her. “It’s not about how I feel.”

  Samantha jumped up from her boulder. She took a breath and, without thinking, pulled the sturdy padlock out of her jacket pocket and handed it to him. “Here you go. I guess I needed the adrenaline from yesterday to wear off before I gave it back. A mistake, maybe, but it doesn’t change the facts.”

  Justin slipped the lock into his canvas shirt pocket. “Sure doesn’t.”

  “I mean the fact that I ducked into the mill because of a nasty storm.”

  “How do you know how to pick a lock?”

  “I didn’t say I picked it.”

  He grinned at her unexpectedly. “You h
ave a stubborn streak, don’t you, Samantha?”

  “Maybe it’s just a healthy mix of self-preservation and determination.”

  “Or maybe it’s a bullheaded stubborn streak.”

  She avoided his eyes and looked down at a clump of browned, sodden leaves stuck in a small, stagnant pool of water on the edge of the brook. Being in such close proximity to the man who had rescued her yesterday wasn’t helping her regain her emotional equilibrium. The shock of finding a cider mill like the one in the painting she had discovered in her grandfather’s office closet would have been enough for one day. Add a fire, smoke inhalation and a tall, rugged firefighter—dreaming about him—and no wonder she wasn’t her usual self.

  Did Justin Sloan have to be so damn sexy? The spark in his deep blue eyes when he grinned by itself could buckle a woman’s knees.

  “You can relax,” he said calmly. “You don’t have to confess to picking the lock. I’ve got it back, and you didn’t burn up and the mill didn’t burn up. We’re good.”

  “You make it sound so simple.”

  He shrugged his broad shoulders. “It is simple.”

  That was part of his appeal, she realized. He was a man who zeroed in on what he needed to do and didn’t overburden himself with details. “I sometimes complicate things that don’t need complicating, but pretending things are simple when they’re not can be a problem, too.”

  “So it can.”

  She ignored his knowing tone and ran her fingers on the rough, cool granite of a waist-high boulder. “Do you know much about the history of the mill? Are there any interesting stories, rumors or tall tales associated with it?”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. I’m the one who decided to follow Cider Brook, remember? I’m curious. The history of this area is fascinating.”

  “I haven’t heard stories associated with the mill, but I’m not the type to pay attention to that sort of thing.”

  “What sort of thing do you pay attention to?”

  It was the wrong question. She saw her mistake right away, but it was too late to take back her words. He laughed and gave her a sexy wink. “Bet you can guess.”

  “Bet I’m not going to.”

  He pointed across the brook at a stone wall that went up the hill into the woods. “That stone wall marks the edge of what used to be farmland when the mill was built. Quabbin changed transportation routes in this area. Many of the roads that used to lead into the Swift River Valley towns are now dead ends, or they’ve been bypassed by newer highways. You have to remember that the reservoir is a large body of water that didn’t exist a hundred years ago.”

  “Have you ever considered living somewhere besides Knights Bridge?”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know. Boston, Florida, Seattle. Idaho. Paris. Someplace else.”

  He shook his head. “No. I haven’t considered living anywhere else.”

  Samantha tried to put aside how they’d met and all she was hiding and get a better sense of him. Most of the men she knew were adventurers, divers or crew on her parents’ research ship, and liked to be on the move. They didn’t have the roots Justin did. They would probably get hives thinking about living in the same small New England town their entire lives, being a volunteer firefighter, having five siblings and a family duck named Fred or owning a nineteenth-century cider mill off a winding dirt road.

  “What about you, Sam?” Justin asked, his tone unexpectedly quiet. “Olivia said you live in Boston.”

  “For the moment. I’ve been staying at my grandfather’s house. He died three years ago.” She stopped herself before she could go too far, say too much and put him on alert again. She looked back at the mill with its solid construction and deceptively simple lines—not unlike its owner. “It’s a nice spot, Justin,” she said, sincere. “What are your plans for the mill?”

  “Right now the land is more valuable than the mill. I’d hate to demolish it, but I might have no choice.”

  “That would be sad, wouldn’t it? It would be like razing a piece of New England history.”

  “I’d salvage what I could. Saving bits and pieces of the mill beats watching it all rot.”

  “Or burn down,” she said.

  He said nothing. Samantha regretted reminding him of yesterday’s close call. She glanced again up the trail, wishing she would see her journal tucked under a fern or something. A cool breeze rustled in the woods. The sun was higher in the clear sky. Before long, the entire landscape would be alive with vibrant color, her favorite time to be in New England.

  “Do you know who built the mill?” she asked.

  “The Hazelton family. They also built the general store on the common.”

  “Do any of them still live in Knights Bridge?”

  “Not in a long time. I don’t know much about them. I took a chance and bought this place when the town put it up for sale. I’ve always wanted to own land.” He nodded to the remains of a fire circle on the edge of the driveway. “My brothers and buddies and I used to sit by a campfire and drink beer out here. We did again last night after the fire, but it’d been a while.”

  “What do you do for fun nowadays?”

  He grinned at her. “Do you ever think before you speak?”

  She groaned. “Apparently not today.” She stood straight. “The mill has possibilities. Of course, now I have a mad urge for apple cider and another piece of apple cake. Will you be at the wedding on Saturday?”

  “I’m the best man.”

  Samantha pictured him in a tuxedo. Not that hard to do, surprisingly. She smiled at him. “I’ll spare you more questions. I’ve kept you from your work long enough.”

  “I have a feeling you could keep asking questions all day.”

  She squinted up at the blue sky. “The weather’s great. Fortunately I’m in no hurry. I imagine you’ll get a lot done at the McCaffrey site today.”

  He shook his head. “Forget it. I’m not leaving you out here on your own.”

  He wasn’t being argumentative, she realized, so much as stating a fact, and it was up to her to decide what to do about it. No doubt that would be easier if she hadn’t found herself noticing everything about him. Reacting to him, tingling in a way she hoped he didn’t notice. It had to be the fire, the danger she’d been in, the half truths, being back out here. Her attraction to him was primal somehow. Adrenaline-fueled. Completely mad, of course, but she wondered if he felt it, too, then reminded herself yesterday wasn’t his first fire.

  “It was helpful to come back here,” she said, deciding to state her own facts. “I’ll walk up the trail and see if I can find my journal. Then I’ll walk into town. It’s not that far. It’s a gorgeous day. I won’t run into another storm.”

  “You are one stubborn and relentless woman, Sam Bennett.” Justin studied her a moment. “All right. We’ll do this your way. I have to get to work. You have a phone, right?”

  “I do, yes.”

  “Call me if you run into trouble.”

  As he gave her his number and she added it to her phone, Samantha felt as if he could see inside her—see through her careful answers and battery of questions to her vulnerabilities, hopes, fears. It felt as if she was meant to be right here, right now, with intriguing, suspicious Justin Sloan and his old cider mill.

  All the more reason, she told herself firmly, to make sure he went on his way.

  She slipped her phone into her jacket pocket and smiled at him. Polite, not giving away the raging mess she was on the inside. “Thank you for everything, Justin.”

  He hesitated for a fraction of a second, just long enough for her to know he was still reluctant to leave her to her own devices. “Do you have a job you have to get back to?”

  “I’m self-employed,” she said. “I make my own hours.”

  “Self-employed at what?”

  “Research, cataloging, curating. Lately, anyway. Nothing too exciting.” It was close enough to the truth, she decided. “Doesn’t that sou
nd fascinating?”

  “Depends on what you research, catalog and curate, I guess.” He walked back to his truck and glanced at her as he opened the door. “I imagine you wouldn’t get into anything boring.”

  “People have different ideas of what constitutes boring.”

  “They do indeed.”

  Heat rushed to her face, but she managed, for once, to resist opening her mouth and didn’t respond.

  Justin smiled, as if he knew the effect he was having on her. “Be good.” He climbed into his truck. “I have a feeling you aren’t done with Knights Bridge.”

  Samantha waited for him to pull the door shut, then watched the truck head back out to the road. When it disappeared through the trees, she still didn’t move. She couldn’t remember when she’d felt so alone, but she looked up at a tall white pine outlined against the blue sky and listened to birds singing behind her, on the other side of the brook. She realized she couldn’t smell the fire.

  Maybe the wind had shifted. Maybe it was a positive sign that the worst of her adventure in Knights Bridge was behind her.

  Then why did she feel so alone?

  She pushed that question aside, leaving it unanswered as she retraced her steps back up the trail. She went all the way to the bridge just below the Sloan farmhouse and then climbed up to the road, but she didn’t find her journal. Frustrated, she paused in a patch of sunlight on the wooden bridge. She must have left her journal in Boston after all, or her uncle had missed it when he checked the car.

  She noticed a dusty-gray truck parked up by the Sloan barn—which apparently served as the offices of Sloan & Sons. The chocolate Lab was rolling in the grass. No sign of the duck.

  Justin hadn’t exactly left her to her own devices. He would be able to see her from the barn. Could he tell she hadn’t found her missing journal?

  What if he’d found it? What if that was why he’d insisted on driving her to the mill and had let her ask so many questions?

  Why not tell her?

  He would have his reasons, she thought. He was the sort of man who always had his reasons, and pirate treasure was a damn good reason.

  She debated marching up to Sloan & Sons and asking him outright if he had her journal, but if he didn’t, she would only look paranoid, and if he did—well, then what?