Red Clover Inn--A Romance Novel

by Carla Neggers

  He looked at her dark eyes and had his answer. Yes. No question.

  Charlotte invited Vic to stay for dinner, but his companion for the evening arrived in the form of Elly O’Dunn. She’d let herself in through the front door. Greg offered her some of the whiskey. “Just a taste,” she said. “I mean it. Two sips and I’m good. Three and I’m on the floor. Why don’t you two join Vic and me for dinner? Can’t beat the turkey club at Smith’s.”

  Greg retrieved a glass from the dining room, poured Elly’s “taste” and handed her the glass. “We don’t want to intrude.”

  “Intrude? Intrude on what?” She seemed genuinely mystified, but then her eyes widened. “Oh, good heavens. It’s not a date.”

  Vic made a face. “You could sound less horrified.”

  She laughed, clearly delighted. “I could, couldn’t I?”

  “I’m good with leftovers here,” Greg said. “But thanks.”

  Charlotte nodded. “You two enjoy yourselves. I’ll be sure to try the turkey club before I leave town.”

  “I heard about the scare Evelyn Sloan gave everyone yesterday,” Elly said. “Have you seen her yet today?”

  “We’ve been in Boston,” Charlotte said.

  “Eric and Christopher must have her under wraps, but she’s an independent woman. One of her friends stopped by the town offices today and said she hasn’t given up on that time capsule. Working for the town, I hear things.”

  “Not just things,” Vic said. “Everything.”

  “Don’t I wish. It was awful, the way the adult children fought over this place. I hope there’s gold in the time capsule and Evelyn finds it, because it would serve those no-accounts right that they missed it.”

  “Any idea where it might be?” Charlotte asked.

  “Most likely it went into the trash years ago, but this place has more nooks and crannies than any place I’ve ever known. Good luck. I’d rather try to find Samantha’s pirate treasure.” Elly finished off her few drops of whiskey and set her glass on the table. She stood straight, frowning. “The son did say something in the midst of all the fighting. He was at the town offices to see about property taxes and mentioned his mother collected old linens. She’d stuffed them into a box, but he and his warring siblings didn’t want them. I mentioned Olivia Frost—now Olivia McCaffrey—collected antique linens. She uses them in the guest rooms at Carriage Hill. I never followed up after that. Have you checked all the closets?”

  “Yes but not thoroughly,” Charlotte said. “I haven’t dug through every box.”

  “Well, I don’t know if you could hide a time capsule in a box of linens. I’m sure it’d be a wild-goose chase but thought I’d mention it. If the greedy offspring thought the time capsule held worthless linens, they wouldn’t have bothered with it.”

  Vic was gaping at Elly. Finally he gave himself a mental shake. “No, I’m not dead or dreaming. I’m awake, living in Knights Bridge, talking about old pillowcases.” He grinned. “Life doesn’t get better. Elly? Shall we leave these two to their whiskey, nibbles and closets?”

  She smiled and took his arm. After they left, Greg turned to Charlotte. “Dinner, then closets?”

  “We’ll run across more spiders in the closets.”

  “Not in the dinner, at least. I’d rather deal with spiders than mice and bats.” He finished the last of his whiskey. “I could deal with a jerk diver, too. Are you upset about Tommy’s visit? Did it stir up the past for you?”

  “Nothing that dinner, closets and more whiskey won’t cure.”

  * * *

  Greg ended up going to bed with his book.

  It was the decent thing to do, and he was a decent guy.

  “Yeah, right.”

  He finished the last chapter before ten o’clock. Too early to go to sleep, too late to start a new book. He played a game of solitaire on his bed, using a worn deck of cards from a drawer in his nightstand. Something about Vic and Elly’s visit, the whiskey or the closet checking—or all three—had gotten to Charlotte and she’d slipped into her room for her bath.

  Possibly he was wrong and it hadn’t been the visit, the whiskey or the closets. Possibly, he thought, flipping over a seven of clubs that did him no good, it had been him.

  Nah. More likely Tommy Ferguson.

  Tommy could dive and Charlotte couldn’t. Tommy was getting married and she wasn’t.

  Tommy was a jerk and she wasn’t.

  The bastard had stopped by because he’d wanted to rub her nose in the perfection of his life without her. To let her know she’d done him a favor by abandoning him on their wedding day.

  It’d been payback, pure and simple.

  Greg flipped a ten of diamonds. It did him no good, either. He was going to lose this game fast.

  Which he did.

  He played another one, and he lost it fast, too.

  Finally he gathered up the cards and returned them to his nightstand. He crawled under the covers, switched out the lights and listened. No mice scurrying in the walls tonight. Maybe all the activity in the house had prompted them to lie low.

  He’d complicated Charlotte’s time in Knights Bridge. She had big things to figure out about her life. He didn’t—he’d taken the promotion, he’d signed his divorce papers. He’d just needed rest. Maybe he’d been ripe for an attractive, kick-ass woman like Charlotte Bennett.

  Not a woman like her. Her.

  He sighed heavily, but he didn’t walk down the hall and knock on her door.

  “Being a decent guy.”

  But he slept in fits and starts, and for the first time since they’d arrived at Red Clover Inn, he was up before Charlotte. He made coffee but waited for her before starting breakfast.

  She stumbled into the kitchen, yawning, shirt crooked.

  “Rough night?” he asked her from the table. “You look like you just stepped out of the pages of Princess and the Pea.”

  That got a smile out of her, at least. “On the contrary, I slept well. Too well, maybe. I might have overdone the lavender oil. But yesterday was...” she paused “...cathartic.”

  “Cathartic can be good.”

  “Yes, it can.” She yawned again and checked the coffeepot. “Smith’s for breakfast?”

  “Works for me.”

  “And then a drive out to Carriage Hill to see if Olivia has the old linens?”

  “Scary. I was just thinking the same thing.”

  They joined Eric and Christopher Sloan at their table at the small restaurant, but Charlotte didn’t mention the linens. The two brothers had obviously had their fill of their grandmother’s time capsule. Eric had the day off and planned to work in Evelyn’s garden with her to give her some attention and something else to think about. Christopher would stop by later and show her recent pictures of the Sloans in England.

  “Can’t wait for backup,” he said. “Two of us aren’t enough to handle Gran.”

  The Farm at Carriage Hill was bathed in the June sunshine when Greg and Charlotte arrived. They’d taken his rental. He’d done the driving. He’d talked her out of riding her bike.

  Olivia greeted them with fresh coffee and open curiosity. It didn’t take much explaining before she remembered she indeed had a box of old linens that the eldest sister of the feuding siblings who’d inherited Red Clover Inn had dropped off months ago.

  “It was before they put the inn up for sale,” Olivia said. “I gather the strife over the inn was difficult for her. She wanted the linens to have a good home, and she’d heard I collected them. I was happy to get them, but I haven’t had a chance to go through the box. I was under the impression the family hadn’t gone through it, either.”

  She brought Greg and Charlotte upstairs and opened a hall closet, pointing to an ordinary-looking cardboard box. Greg lifted it off the sh
elf and carried it into one of the guest rooms. Charlotte grabbed a luggage rack and he set the box on it.

  “Dylan’s up at the new house,” Olivia said. “He’ll be sorry he missed this.”

  Greg grinned at her. “I’ll bet.”

  She laughed, one hand on her swelling stomach. “He knows I can wax rhapsodic over a hand-embroidered Depression-era pillowcase.”

  “Do you want to do the honors?” Charlotte asked, standing back from the box.

  Olivia shook her head. “Please, go ahead.”

  Charlotte carefully tore open the box. She lifted out a stack of lace-edged white linens, then another of linens with colorful flowers sewn on the ends—appliqué, Greg remembered. At the bottom, buried under the linens, was a metal cookie tin.

  “I assumed it contained bits of linen and lace,” Olivia said. “I haven’t had a chance to open it.”

  “Evelyn told me she thought the time capsule was in a cookie tin,” Charlotte said. “This must be it.”

  They placed the linens back in their box. “Don’t worry about putting the box back in the closet,” Olivia said. “Leave it here and I’ll go through it. I should have done so ages ago. But then I’d have discovered the time capsule, if that’s what this is, without knowing it belongs to Evelyn and she doesn’t want the world to see the contents.”

  “At least not her grandchildren,” Charlotte said. “Would you mind if we take it to her?”

  Olivia didn’t hesitate. “Please do. Trust me, Dylan and I aren’t interested in Evelyn Sloan’s secrets, assuming this is her time capsule.”

  Charlotte tucked the tin in one arm. “If it turns out the tin’s filled with old buttons and rickrack, we’ll bring it back.”

  “Dylan will be thrilled. He keeps saying I need more old buttons and rickrack.”

  The two women laughed. Greg followed them downstairs, back to the kitchen.

  “I’d offer you more coffee,” Olivia said, “but I know you must be in a hurry to see Evelyn. Give her my best, won’t you?”

  Charlotte promised she would. As Greg went out to the car with her, he texted Eric and gave him the news. He could have sworn he heard the cop Sloan grit his teeth as he typed his response.

  I’ll call Chris and we’ll get Gran to the inn. Get this over with.

  True to Eric’s word, the three Sloans were at the inn when Greg and Charlotte returned with the cookie tin. They all moved into the dining room. “This is your time capsule, isn’t it?” she asked, holding up the tin.

  Evelyn nodded, taking a seat at the table. “That’s it, yes. It doesn’t look as if it’s been opened, does it? That’s good.” She inhaled deeply, exhaled slowly. “Very good.”

  Charlotte set the tin on the table in front of Evelyn. “Can I get you anything?”

  “Water, please,” Evelyn said, her voice clear and strong. “I’ll wait for you.”

  The two Sloan grandsons remained on their feet. Charlotte withdrew and returned quickly with a pitcher of water. Greg got a glass out of the china cupboard—no one else was interested in water—and filled it, then set it next to Evelyn.

  “Anything else, Gran?” Eric asked, no hint of impatience.

  “No, this is perfect, thank you.” She took a sip of water as she continued to stare at the tin. “I remember eating the cookies. Well, now I do. I was so impressed because the cookies were imported. I’d brought them to Knights Bridge from home. I never had them after Ralph and I were married. He saw no reason to import cookies when you bake them fresh yourself. He loved to bake.”

  “Gran,” Eric said gently.

  She lifted her gaze to him. “I won’t get maudlin. Don’t worry.”

  “Good. I was starting to sweat.”

  She smiled, his teasing clearly returning her to the present and the matter at hand.

  “Do you want us to leave the room?” Christopher asked.

  “You see, Charlotte? There are sensitive Sloan men. No, Christopher. I don’t need you to leave. But thank you for asking.”

  She opened the tin, a slow process considering it likely hadn’t been opened in decades, but she didn’t ask for help or even glance up from her task.

  Eric leaned against the hall door. “I’m waiting, Gran. I bet Christopher it’s a treasure map you’re hiding. He bets it’s a confession. You and Gramps hit a bank and lost all the loot on a secret trip to Las Vegas.”

  “Nothing that exciting.” She got the lid off the tin and set it on the table. She lifted a yellowed envelope out of the tin. “Matches, please.”

  Christopher rummaged in the sideboard and delivered matches and a fireproof candle dish. “You’re burning history,” he said.

  “I believe that’s my point.”

  Eric moved from the doorway. “I always wondered how an Amherst shopkeeper’s kid ended up with a Knights Bridge carpenter. Is that in the letter?”

  “I didn’t know your grandfather when Betsy and I put together the time capsule. I know you’re a police officer, Eric, and you can be quite jaded and think everything’s your business. However, some things are no one’s business.”

  Her eldest grandson crossed his arms on his chest. “Shouldn’t have put it in a time capsule, then.”

  She picked up the book of matches. “That’s precisely why I wanted to find it before anyone else did. I didn’t know everything at eighteen. I just thought I did.”

  “I can check with your old-lady friends and see what they know about what you were like back then,” Eric said.

  Evelyn sniffed. “Go right ahead. They know nothing about what’s in the letter. It’s private.”

  Eric looked as if his head would explode. “If it’s private, why did you put it in a time capsule?”

  “We were going to open it ourselves in fifty years.”

  “Now it’s been sixty-five years,” Eric said.

  “I’m aware of that. Things didn’t work out as planned.”

  She placed the letter in the fireproof dish, struck a match on her first try and set the flame to the old paper. Her hand trembled slightly. Christopher stood close. “I don’t want you setting the drapes on fire.”

  “Or myself,” she said. “I’m as dried out as a hunk of old wood. I’d go right up in flames.”

  Christopher shook his head. “Gran, it doesn’t work like that.”

  She ignored him, watching her letter burn. The flames died down, leaving a pile of black ashes and bits of scorched paper. “There. I’m satisfied.” She gave the time capsule a dismissive wave. “You’re welcome to the rest of the stuff in there.”

  “Anything good?” Eric asked.

  “Postcards of Winsor Dam, a copy of our last senior-year report cards, a menu, money—a penny, dime, quarter and dollar bill—and newspaper clippings. Betsy added some embroidery she’d done. I didn’t do needlework. Never have.” She sighed, sitting back in her chair. “Imagine yourselves at eighteen.”

  “I was hell-raising,” Eric said. “What about you, Greg? Charlotte?”

  “I don’t remember being eighteen,” Greg said. “Especially when my kids are around.”

  “I spent eighteen studying,” Charlotte said with a half smile.

  “I was a proper young woman,” Evelyn said.

  Eric snorted. “Easy to say now that you’ve burned the evidence.”

  “Isn’t it, though?”

  But she was spent, and her grandsons got her to her feet to take her home. They offered to clean up the ashes, but both Greg and Charlotte said they’d take care of it. They left the tin and its contents. Evelyn might or might not be back for the rest of her time capsule. She’d dealt with the urgent matter of her letter.

  Eric paused while his younger brother helped their grandmother into the hall. “Thanks, Charlotte. You respected Gran’s wishes. That m
eans a lot to her.”

  After the Sloans left, Greg collected the ashes. “A few bits didn’t burn but not enough to re-create the letter,” he said, addressing Charlotte as she watched him. “Too bad. Now I’m curious what she’s hiding. Did you read it? You were alone with the time capsule for a couple of minutes at Carriage Hill.”

  “I didn’t open the time capsule or read the letter,” she said.

  “But you wish you had.”

  “I do admit that, yes.”

  He studied her. “You’re a Bennett and I’m told Bennetts can fib with a straight face.”

  “Who says that?”

  “Brody via Heather via Justin, who is, after all, married to a Bennett.”

  * * *

  The day turned rainy and windy and felt more like March than June. Their picnic at Echo Lake might have happened last summer instead of a few days ago. Charlotte was happy to let Greg light a fire in the library. It took the chill and dampness out of the air but it wasn’t so cold that they needed a roaring fire to heat up the place. She felt the warmth on her face as she curled up in the love seat.

  Greg sat next to her, his thighs grazing hers. She was positive it was deliberate. Not that she minded. “Even without a fire it’s hard to believe we were swimming the other day,” she said. “I know you’re not a fan of cold weather.”

  “Really cold weather. I’d probably do fine in Scotland.”

  “Winters can be tough in Scotland. It’s not the cold, wet days that get to me as much as it is the dark. But that,” she added, “is why we have cozy pubs.”

  “It’s a short hop from Edinburgh to Portugal for a long weekend.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Still no firm plans for going back?”