Secrets of the Lost Summer

by Carla Neggers

  He glanced at the goodies on the table. “You’ve been busy.”

  “My friend Maggie was just here. She’s a caterer. These are all her doing.”

  “Tough to resist.”

  “Impossible. I just put on tea. It’s warm enough to eat outside. Care to join me?”

  They gathered dishes, tea and goodies and headed out back to the terrace, setting everything on a round wood table, grayed from the weather. Olivia helped herself to a mini currant scone, aware that the intensity and sparks between her and Dylan, so evident last night, hadn’t disappeared. They were just banked, ready to flare up again with the least provocation.

  She broke open the scone and ate a bite plain, without jam or clotted cream. “I checked on Grace on my way home. She was quiet, in her own world.”

  Dylan reached for a tiny cucumber sandwich. “I won’t do anything to upset her. If I can’t get answers without her, then I won’t get answers.”

  Olivia believed him. He might be a lot of things, but a man who would sacrifice the peace of mind and health of an old woman wasn’t among them. She dotted the other half of her scone with clotted cream. “Tell me about your life in San Diego. What’s Coronado like?”

  “Paradise,” he said lightly. “Have you ever been to San Diego?”

  “Not yet, no.”

  “Does your mother plan to stop there on her trip?”

  “I don’t think she’s getting that far south. I’ve seen pictures of a huge, curving bridge. It leads to Coronado, doesn’t it?”

  He nodded. “The San Diego-Coronado Bridge. That’s what I take to and from my house.”

  “Every day?”

  “Most days. It’s a different lifestyle from here, but Coronado is a small town in its own way.”

  Olivia tried one of the smoked salmon sandwiches. She’d never liked smoked salmon that much, but if anyone could make her, it was Maggie. One nibble, though, and she set it aside. “Still not a fan of smoked salmon. Does your house have a view of the water?”

  “The Pacific, yes. I go for runs on the beach. My office is in the city.”

  “I can map out a running route here if you’d like. There should be some great days for running now that the weather’s warming up.” She settled back in her chair with a lemon tart that, she hoped, would get the smoked salmon taste out of her mouth. “Assuming you’re staying long enough to bother with runs.”

  “As I said, I don’t have a set date to go back to San Diego.”

  “You’re taking a vacation?”

  He smiled at her. “Time off.”

  “What’s Noah Kendrick like?”

  “I don’t know. He’s a friend.”

  “And that covers it? ‘He’s a friend.’” Olivia pushed back an unwelcome image of Marilyn. “What will you do here? You’ll be bored after a few days. A hockey player, a mover and shaker—you won’t sit still.”

  He tried a ham salad sandwich and a lemon tart. The tarts and scones were the size of a fifty-cent piece, the sandwiches no bigger than a folded dollar bill. His dark blue eyes leveled on her with a mix of intensity and humor that she found sexy, unsettling and utterly intriguing. Finally he said, “No, I won’t sit still.”

  Olivia ignored a surge of heat and kept her voice light. “Do you need to borrow a shovel to start digging for buried treasure?”

  He leaned back. “I already have one. Grace left a shovel, hoe, rake and a whole host of tools.”

  “Where are you going to start? Are you going to knock out walls, crawl through the cellar? It’s a dirt cellar. There are probably snakes and mice down there.”

  “A garter snake and a couple of mice aren’t going to throw me off the trail.”

  “There is no trail,” Olivia said.

  “Not much of one.”

  “Are you trying to get closer to your father?”

  Dylan kept his gaze on her, but his expression was unreadable. “The time to get closer to my father has passed.”

  Olivia looked out at her garden, the herbs and flowers bursting into life after the long New England winter. “My grandfather on my father’s side died when I was fifteen,” she said, thoughtful. “I know that’s different from losing a father, but I’ve found my relationship with him has continued. He lived in Knights Bridge his entire life. He loved to garden. I talk to him when I weed the herbs.”

  “Your mother grew up in town, too, I gather.”

  “Her father moved here when he got married. My grandmother’s from here. He worked at Amherst College. It’s a long commute, but he didn’t mind. My uncles both moved out there but my mother stayed.”

  “Because of your father?”

  “As far as I know, neither one of them wanted to live anywhere else.”

  “Were you ever involved in Frost Millworks?”

  “I worked there in high school, and I designed the logo and website. Now that I’m in town, I suppose I can do more, but I’m focused on getting this place open and making enough to stop freelancing.” She glanced across the table at him. “How did we end up talking about me?”

  “Just making conversation.” Dylan looked out at the yard, the view of Carriage Hill across the fields. “It’s a good life here, Olivia. Do you miss Boston?”

  “Sometimes, mostly at night. Knights Bridge doesn’t have a lot going on at night.”

  His gaze again settled on her but he said nothing. Olivia felt herself grow hot and jumped to her feet. “I have a second coat of paint to put on some chairs,” she said, not even sure if she did.

  They gathered the dishes and remaining goodies and headed back to the kitchen. Olivia had forgotten about Buster and for a moment thought he might have escaped again, but he was curled up in the living room, asleep.

  “I do have a good life here,” she said, turning to Dylan, startled by his effect on her. Her attraction to him hadn’t lessened with his return; if anything, it was more intense, impossible to ignore. She cleared her throat. “I’ll help you in any way I can, short of upsetting Grace.”

  He pulled open the front door. If he could tell that her insides were churning, he didn’t say. “It’s okay. I’m not sure what the hell I’m doing here. My father could have dropped whatever he was after once he realized real people were involved.”

  “It’s not like he had to worry about the crew of a sunken sixteenth-century Spanish galleon turning up. Here…” Olivia pictured Grace in the sunroom with her binoculars. “Grace has some good days ahead of her.”

  “I hope so.” Dylan’s eyes were distant as he changed the subject. “Thanks for the treats. You and your friend Maggie know what you’re doing.”

  “We’ve been friends since first grade—like you and Noah Kendrick.”

  After Dylan left, Olivia rousted Buster and walked out to the field with him. She had to burn off tarts, scones and an hour sitting on her terrace with her sexy neighbor. He definitely wasn’t one to sit still. When she spotted him going for a run on their quiet road, she wasn’t surprised. Never mind tarts and scones. He had energy to burn off.

  She returned with Buster and went into the back room where she was doing most of her painting. She did have chairs to paint. Good, she thought, and got busy.

  Grace Webster’s former bathroom didn’t have a shower. Dylan had to stick his head under the faucet in the claw-foot tub, which he didn’t actually mind as much as he thought he would. He even rinsed his hair with cold water. Why not? It might help him think straight.

  He couldn’t tell Olivia about the Ashworth jewels. Not until he knew more.

  Not until he was sure no one in Knights Bridge knew anything about them.

  He toweled off, put on a clean T-shirt and pair of jeans, and headed to the bedroom he’d chosen to make his. It didn’t feel like his. It felt like a guest room in an old lady’s house. His camp bed was a step up from blankets on the floor, but he doubted it was nearly as comfortable as a bed in one of Olivia’s guest rooms.

  A dangerous thought, there.

  He check
ed his BlackBerry for messages and saw that he had just enough of a signal to call Noah. His friend picked up on the first ring. “How’s life in the land of the chives?”

  “I just went for a long run. I saw a bald eagle.”

  “You’re scaring me, Dylan.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to order me back to San Diego?”

  “Have I ever ordered you to do anything?”

  “Where are you right now?”

  “Your office, actually. Pining for my co-conspirator in this crazy-assed business.”

  “Good one, Noah. Funny. No fires, earthquakes, sons of bitches, financial emergencies?”

  “Nothing. Dare I ask where you are?”

  “I’m standing in a bedroom with peeling wallpaper and a creaky floor—”

  “Nice view?”

  He hadn’t noticed and glanced out the window, taking in the buds on the trees, the green grass, scattered daffodils in front of the stone wall and, across the fields, Carriage Hill. “Nice enough,” he said. “Different.”

  “Olivia Frost?”

  “Dying to meet you,” Dylan said as Noah hung up. His friend was in one of his bounce-on-the-surface-of-life moods, which usually meant he did have something on his mind. Even if Dylan was there, it wouldn’t make any difference. Noah wouldn’t necessarily be able to pinpoint what he was thinking about. He’d just wander around, mulling, all but walking into walls.

  Dylan went across the hall to the smallest of the three bedrooms and found a stack of books and old files on the floor by a nightstand. He sat on the threadbare rug. He needed to borrow a vacuum from his pretty neighbor. He opened the top book, an illustrated version of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit. Inside the front cover was a handwritten note: To Miss Webster, From your grateful students, The English IV Class of 1975. They’d all signed it. Dylan remembered his own high school years. He’d squeaked through his classes, doing just enough to stay out of trouble and be able to continue playing hockey.

  His father had loved Tolkien. Had he sat here, under this same floor lamp, on a similar dark night, reading about Bilbo Baggins?

  The next book was a local church cookbook, with recipes by church members. Several were from Grace Webster. There was one from an Audrey Frost. Olivia’s grandmother? A great-aunt? A cousin? How many Frosts were there in the area? Then there was the mother’s family, too.

  In the back of the cookbook were black-and-white photographs of the lost towns of Quabbin. Barefoot schoolchildren, a horse-drawn wagon stacked with wood, men harvesting ice on a local pond, young women dressed up for portrait day, country roads and farmhouses now gone forever. One was of a young Grace Webster, or so was noted in the caption. She wore a simple dress and was standing alone in front of a clapboard house. Dylan was surprised he recognized her, but the teenager’s eyes and those of the elderly woman he’d met earlier were the same.

  He put aside the cookbook and picked up a third book, surprised when he saw that it was relatively new.

  It was a guide to Portugal.

  He opened it carefully, as if his father had just walked into the room and was standing over him. A page was bent back—it described the area where his father had died. He must have planned that final trip while he was here in Knights Bridge. He always had a number of projects going at once. Whatever his reasons for buying this house, he hadn’t displayed any sense of urgency, at least none that Dylan had noticed.

  He shut the book and got to his feet. His father had been in this room. He’d gone through Grace’s books.

  “Why, Dad?” Dylan asked aloud. “What did you want here?”

  Maybe Olivia was right and he was in Knights Bridge to get closer to his father, the elusive Duncan McCaffrey.

  Thirteen

  Jess rolled out of bed in her apartment in the old sawmill far too early, her heart racing, sweat pouring off her, the walls and ceiling closing in on her. She gulped for air and bolted down the narrow stairs and through the side door, into the morning mist. She felt as if the clouds themselves were holding her down, choking her.

  Mark had to be in the city again today and hadn’t stayed through the night, but he always left before her parents arrived at the mill. It wasn’t that they didn’t know that she and Mark were sleeping together—they were all but formally engaged, after all—but he was self-conscious. Jess supposed she was, too, but not right now, she thought. Right now she just wanted to calm down.

  Sunlight pierced the mist. It would burn off soon and turn into a glorious day, with temperatures into the seventies by afternoon. She wanted to enjoy it.

  She did a few deep-breathing exercises and focused on her surroundings, the present, as she walked over to the millpond. The smell and sounds of the clear water rushing over the dam soothed her anxiety. She loved this place but could understand why her mother dreamed about going somewhere else. Traveling, visiting museums, seeing different sights—different people.

  Jess sometimes wondered if her bouts of crawling claustrophobia had to do with knowing every damn person in town. Some days she thought she knew every tree, too.

  She headed up to the shop and made coffee in the office. Her mother arrived first, alone. She set her bag on the rolltop desk and spun around at Jess. “Did your father ask about the dots?”

  “The what? Mom…” Jess couldn’t deal with it. Dots. What the hell?

  Her mother showed her an 8½-by-14-inch sheet of plain white sketch paper. “I’m talking to someone. Not a psychiatrist. I’m not on pills.” Her tone was more combative than defensive. “I’m working on…things.”

  “Things? Mom, I don’t need to know.”

  She plopped down in the chair at her desk. “I have anxiety issues, Jess. It’s not a secret. You, Liv, your dad—you’ve all noticed. Everyone in town’s noticed.”

  Jess concentrated on the dripping of the coffee.

  Her mother smoothed the paper out on the desk and pointed at a cluster of multicolored dots centered on the page. “That’s me. The blue dot in the middle.”

  “The blue dot,” Jess said, wishing the coffee would finish brewing and she could have an excuse to get out of there. She was interested in what her mother had to say, curious about what the dots were all about, but she’d just bolted out of bed in a crazed panic herself.

  Olivia arrived, standing in the doorway. She started to back away, but Jess held up a hand, keeping her there.

  Olivia didn’t say a word, and their mother either didn’t see her older daughter or pretended not to as she continued, “The therapist gave me a sheet of blank paper and asked me to make a dot that’s me and then to put dots where everyone in my life would be in relation to me. You’re the red one, Jess,” she said, pointing to a dot close to the blue dot that represented her. “Liv’s the purple one right next to you. I tried not to fuss too much with which colors to use for each person. I had a nice fresh box of Crayola crayons to choose from.”

  “Mom…” Jess cleared her throat and tried to make her voice sound less strangled. “Mom, you don’t have to tell me about your session with your therapist.”

  “Your dad’s the dark gray one. Then there’s his mother, my folks, Mark—”

  That got Jess. “Why is Mark on your page?”

  “Shouldn’t he be? He’s a little farther away from me but close to you.”

  “All right, all right.”

  “I have dots for my brothers, my nieces and nephews, the crew here, the church, friends.”

  “That’s a lot of dots, Mom,” Jess said.

  “I was afraid I’d forget someone important. Notice how the dots are all crowded at the center of the page, near my little blue dot. That’s because they all represent people I care about.”

  It was Olivia who spoke next. “What did the therapist say?”

  Their mother sat back in her chair and sighed. “She said, ‘It’s a big sheet of paper, Louise.’”

  Jess stared at her mother. “Mom?”

  “It made sense to me. I can give myself spa
ce, and everyone can still be on the page with me. I keep everyone so close, especially you two.” She shot to her feet. “Jess, Liv, am I suffocating you?”

  “Not at the moment,” Jess said lightly. “Right now I need coffee and here you are with a coffeepot right in your office. I have a ton of work to do today—”

  “Jess.”

  She raked a hand through her hair. Coffee first, then she’d brush her damn hair. If she hadn’t leaped out of bed so quickly, she might have missed her mother’s talk of dots, but it couldn’t have been easy for her to explain their meaning. Finally Jess gave her mother a reassuring smile. “I’m glad you did this. I want you to be happy. That’s all.”

  “Me, too,” Olivia said. “It’s great you’re talking to someone, Mom. I hope it helped to do this assignment.”

  “My happiness isn’t your responsibility,” she said. “Nor is your happiness my responsibility. That doesn’t mean we don’t love each other and aren’t there for each other.”

  Jess wasn’t one for heart-to-hearts and tried not to cringe. When she heard the outer door creak, she looked past Olivia and almost jumped in relief when she saw her father enter the building. “Dad’s here. Mom, have you told him about the dots and the therapy?”

  “No, but it’s not a secret. If you want to—”

  “No way. I’m not telling him for you.”

  Her mother swiveled around in her chair, quickly folded the sheet and hid it away in one of the nooks and crannies in her desk.

  Olivia backed out of the doorway. “I just remembered something. I’ll see you all later.”

  Jess didn’t believe her for a second. Her sister was making her escape, although Jess couldn’t blame her. She poured coffee and headed for her desk in the showroom as her father entered the office. He and her mother were a pair. They could work out whatever was going on between them without her help.

  Breathing in the steam and rich smell of the coffee, she switched on her computer and settled at her desk by a window overlooking the brook. She remembered when she was six and had gone to look for their golden retriever after he’d wandered off. Her mother had found them at the edge of the brook. It was the first time Jess had noticed that her mother didn’t exactly have nerves of steel. She supposed any mother would be panicked, but even as a small child she had recognized that hers had gone into a state of near hysteria.