Secrets of the Lost Summer

by Carla Neggers

  “Dylan…”

  She didn’t know if it was the sound of his name or her moan of out-of-control desire, or the wind and rain, but Buster was on alert, charging out from the mudroom, barking and growling as he circled her and Dylan.

  “Hell, Buster,” Dylan muttered.

  Olivia sputtered into laughter, shushing her dog as she came to her senses and all but jumped out of Dylan’s arms and stood on the wide-board floor. “I guess I have my own bodyguard,” she said, more welcome rain blowing onto her.

  Dylan patted her on the hip. “Definitely coming back.”

  In a few long strides, he was out the door. Olivia took a breath and shook her head at her dog. “You’ve got to learn better timing, my friend.”

  She shut the window, the house somehow instantly feeling quieter, lonelier. Dylan’s departure was abrupt, but deliberately so, she thought. It was as if he’d realized he had to get out of there—not because he didn’t want to make love to her, but because he did. And he couldn’t, because he was hiding something.

  Something to do with his father and lost treasure.

  “No doubt in my mind.” Olivia turned to her big dog, still damp from the rain; she was glad she had a hutch to paint tonight. “Well, Buster, looks as if it’s just you and me again. Come on. Let’s get you dried off and go build a fire.”

  Fourteen

  It rained the next day and the day after. Olivia holed up at her house and worked. She finished several freelance design projects, finished painting the hutch, rearranged furniture, threw out her page of dots and, during lulls in the rain, planted spinach, lettuce and green onions and cleaned out a patch of rhubarb behind the potting shed.

  By nightfall on the second day, she was beat, and still thinking about Dylan, what he hadn’t told her, when—if—he’d be back.

  She was heating up leftover chili for dinner when her phone rang. “I’m working late,” Jacqui Ackerman said. “I thought you might be, too.”

  “I just poured wine,” Olivia said truthfully as she sat at her kitchen table.

  “Good for you. Mine’s waiting for me. Listen, I wanted to talk to you. I just got off the phone with Roger Bailey. He’s hiring a new manager for his interior design department. They’re expanding. He says there’ll be more work for us. We’re trying to figure out what to do.”

  “That’s a nice problem to have.”

  “Roger says he always liked what you did for them, especially for the interior design arm of the business.”

  “I appreciate that,” Olivia said, watching out the window as rain puddled in a low spot in the front yard.

  “Any chance you might consider coming back to work full-time?”

  “In Boston?”

  “That’s right.” Jacqui hesitated. “We’ve changed a few things here but you’d have your same job. Your workload was too intense in the months before you left. I threw too much at you. You never cracked, but with this new position, you’ll have more time to focus on actual design work.”

  “What changes have you made, Jacqui?”

  “Well, you know we hired Marilyn Bryson. She’s heading up a design and digital media team focusing on our biggest clients. You’d be a part of that. Come into town, and let’s all sit down together. You’re a good designer, Olivia. Your freelance work has been top-notch. This is a great opportunity for you. Think it over.”

  “I will, Jacqui. Thanks for calling.”

  As she hung up, Olivia pictured herself back at the studio. If she missed anything about Boston, it was the camaraderie of going into work every day. She marveled at Jacqui’s timing, managing to call when she’d hardly been out of the house for two days.

  She wouldn’t be returning to her old job. Not really. Marilyn was there now, and Olivia would be reporting to her instead of directly to Jacqui.

  Know your worth was a mantra she’d learned early in her career. In retrospect, she could see that she’d helped Marilyn increase her worth while not paying enough attention to her own. That wasn’t Marilyn’s fault. It was her own fault.

  Olivia grabbed her wineglass and stood up. She turned the heat off under the chili. Blaming herself, blaming Marilyn, rehashing the past, fighting regrets and second- guessing herself wouldn’t accomplish anything. She was lucky, she reminded herself. One of Boston’s most prestigious studios wanted her back on the payroll. At the same time, she was doing well freelancing. She was limiting the number of projects she took on only because she also was focused on transforming her house into a getaway.

  She had chosen to move back to Knights Bridge. She was a good designer, but Roger Bailey’s defection and Marilyn’s behavior had forced her to examine what she really wanted.

  I want this, she thought, looking around her as darkness gathered on her quiet road. Her muscles ached from painting, planting and hauling. She felt great. Her vision for Carriage Hill had started to form when she and Marilyn were still close friends, talking every day. It wasn’t a reaction to anything Marilyn had done.

  Olivia smiled, relaxing. She wasn’t going back to work for Jacqui or anyone else. She was taking everything she’d learned during her years in Boston—about design, color, marketing, client management, herself and business—and putting it to work on creating The Farm at Carriage Hill.

  Her life was here, in Knights Bridge.

  She abandoned her wine and got Buster onto his feet. She clipped on a leash, not wanting to risk having him run off in the dark. She imagined her house filled with people enjoying a getaway, whether for a few hours, a day or a weekend. Every aspect of her work energized and challenged her, from drawing up a business plan for the bank to weeding the chives. She wanted The Farm at Carriage Hill to succeed.

  She had to be “all in.” Half measures wouldn’t do it.

  Buster pulled on his leash as they headed outside. The rain had let up, and she could feel the front moving in, bringing with it dry, clear air. The contrast between her life in Boston and her life in Knights Bridge couldn’t have been more dramatic. There were no upscale shops and fancy restaurants, no lights and crush of people, hardly anyone she didn’t recognize. Marilyn had pretended to disdain the attention and perks that came with being in high demand as a designer, but, deep down, she’d wanted them. She just couldn’t admit it, maybe even to herself, when she’d been struggling.

  The night was so quiet that Olivia could hear the crunch of small stones under her shoes. Jacqui’s call had stirred her up. She couldn’t just let it go. When she’d first conceived of The Farm at Carriage Hill, she hadn’t expected it to be her livelihood, at least not so soon. She’d thought she’d have time to make it happen. Now if it failed, she would have to start over.

  It won’t fail.

  Buster pulled on his leash all the way to Grace’s old house.

  Olivia saw an owl swoop through the trees where the kids had dumped the refrigerator, now gone.

  What if Dylan didn’t come back? What if he’d gotten sucked back into his life in San Diego?

  Their kiss didn’t have to have any deeper meaning. He’d been chasing Buster. His blood was up, and she’d been there, emotions raw, wine poured.

  She tugged on the leash. “If not for you, Buster…”

  He lurched off down the road, and she laughed and trotted alongside him. Whatever betrayal of friendship and professional ethics Marilyn had committed, somehow she had helped Olivia get here, to this moment. She knew she was where she wanted to be, doing what she wanted to do, and she knew, without a doubt, that she was a damn good designer.

  And she knew that Dylan would be back.

  Olivia got out of the house in the morning. It was one of those fresh, clear, perfect spring days, the air washed clean, the trees budding. Everything seemed green and new. She pulled into the mill and found her father down by the dam. With feigned nonchalance, he drank his coffee and watched the water sparkling in the sunlight. “Your mother tell you about seeing a therapist?”

  “Dad…”

  He held
up a hand without looking at her. “It’s okay. I’m not asking you to betray a confidence. I know. And those damn dots. I figured it out. We’re crowding her, Liv. All of us.”

  “I don’t think it’s that simple, Dad.”

  “I just don’t want her to be afraid. Her, you, Jess.”

  “You’ve always tried to protect us.” Olivia wasn’t sure what to say. “Sometimes we have to fall and get bruised, or even if we don’t have to, we will.”

  He made a face and finally turned to her. “What happened in Boston, Liv?”

  She shivered in a cool breeze. She’d let the sunshine fool her and hadn’t worn a sweater. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

  “I didn’t say you couldn’t handle it.”

  “I know, Dad. It’s behind me.” She smiled. “I’m not afraid or hurt.”

  He dumped the last of his coffee into the dirt. “What about this guy McCaffrey? He’s gone back to San Diego?”

  “For now. If he thinks his father was after lost treasure here, he’ll be back.”

  “There’s no treasure in Knights Bridge, Liv.”

  She seized on the change in subject. “What about Quabbin? Do you remember any stories about treasure from when you were a kid?”

  “The valley was flooded before I was born. I knew some of the old-timers who moved here from the lost towns.” He bent down and picked up a loose rock and rubbed the dirt off it with a thick, callused thumb. “There was some bitterness about what happened, but people moved on, lived their lives. I didn’t know any rich people, Liv. The people I knew owned farms and small shops, worked in the mills. I can’t imagine any of them having the kind of treasure that would have interested Duncan McCaffrey.”

  “He was a legitimate treasure hunter. I have no reason to think he did anything sleazy or unethical.” Olivia sighed, the water on the millpond rippling in a stiff breeze. “I don’t know if he was even after treasure, never mind if it had anything to do with the building of Quabbin. It feels as if it was so long ago, but then I see Grace with her binoculars…”

  “Hell, it was a long time ago, Liv. Grace is older ’n dirt.”

  “Dad!”

  He grinned. “You were getting awfully serious.”

  “Aren’t you even a little curious?”

  “No. I have to deal with the here and now. Rich treasure hunters like Duncan McCaffrey and his son can fool with this stuff. Grace had nothing to do with whatever they’re after.”

  “Would Grandma know anything?”

  “Doubt it. You can ask her but you’ll get the whole town talking. Do you want that? Do you want Grace to hear you’re looking into something in her past?”

  “You make it sound like I’m being nosy.”

  He arched a brow. “Well?”

  He walked up to the mill to work. Olivia didn’t follow him and instead drove into the village and stopped at the library, a small brick building just off the town common. She wasn’t even sure what she was looking for but the library seemed like a good place to start. The main reading room had framed black-and-white photographs on the walls of the Swift River Valley before and after Quabbin. She wondered if Dylan’s father had figured out that the treasure he was after was now under water. Not long ago, divers had surveyed the former valley floor, discovering interesting tidbits but no sunken treasure.

  She found the librarian, Phoebe O’Dunn, one of Maggie’s sisters, shelving books in the children’s section. Olivia came straight to the point. “Do you have much on Knights Bridge during the building of Quabbin?”

  Phoebe gathered up books off a cart. Her strawberry-blond hair was a tone darker and six inches shorter than her sister’s, but just as curly. “Are you looking up something because of your house? It’s the last one on an old road that leads right into the water.”

  That hadn’t occurred to Olivia. What if Duncan McCaffrey had bought Grace’s house because it was next to hers? What if whatever he had been after was there?

  “Do you get a lot of requests for information on Knights Bridge and Quabbin?”

  “Rarely. It’s been a couple of years, at least. Most people specifically curious about Quabbin visit the Swift River Valley Historical Society in New Salem or the Visitors Center at Quabbin. They don’t come here.”

  “Do you remember who was here a couple of years ago?”

  “Yes, definitely—it was the man who bought Grace Webster’s house. I don’t remember his name. I remember he said he was from California.”

  “He died not long after he was here.”

  “Oh, how sad,” Phoebe said, pausing to shelve several of her armload of books.

  “What did he want, do you remember?” Olivia asked.

  “He didn’t go into detail. He was up there.” Phoebe pointed to black-painted metal stairs that led to a small balcony. “That’s where the local papers from the 1930s are located. He didn’t say why he wanted them, but he was up there for a long time.”

  Olivia thanked her and headed up the narrow stairs to a row of neatly dusted dark wood shelves. She imagined Dylan’s father in the Knights Bridge library, searching for…what?

  She found a bound copy of papers dated Summer, 1938. She had no idea what she was looking for. An article about a train robbery? An armored car robbery? Stolen paintings? Duncan McCaffrey had varied interests. He could have been after anything.

  Or nothing, she reminded herself, although that seemed unlikely at this point.

  She sat cross-legged on the floor and flipped through the newspapers from 1938.

  Within five minutes, she had her answer.

  It wasn’t so hard after all to find out what Duncan McCaffrey had been up to—and now what his son was up to.

  “Jewels,” Olivia whispered, stunned.

  In early September of 1938, a British aristocrat—Lord Charles Ashworth—was robbed at his hotel in Boston of a fortune in jewels that he had inherited upon the death of his sister.

  Olivia might have sailed right past the article but for the business card marking it. The card belonged to Duncan McCaffrey. It included his name, cell phone number, email address and a California post office box.

  The Ashworth heist wasn’t front-page news in Knights Bridge. It was just an interesting filler tucked on an inside page two days after the robbery; police were still looking for whoever had made off with three rings and a necklace. No precise description was provided. At least one of the rings had been given to Lord Ashworth’s great-grandmother by Queen Victoria herself.

  Nothing like jewels with a British royal connection to spark the imagination.

  Had Duncan McCaffrey suspected Knights Bridge held clues to the whereabouts of the Ashworth jewels?

  Her hands shaking, Olivia slipped the card into her pocket and replaced the bound papers on the shelf. The metal steps clattered as she ran back down to the main floor. She waved to Phoebe and didn’t slacken her pace until she was outside, on the sidewalk in front of the library. She took a moment to catch her breath and calm herself, then crossed the quiet street to the common and called Dylan, using the number he’d left her the first time he’d gone back to San Diego.

  He answered on the second ring, but she didn’t let him say a word. “Do you think we’re thieves out here?”

  “What? Olivia…” He sounded half-asleep. “I just rolled out of bed. Who’s a thief?”

  It would be just after seven on the West Coast. Olivia pushed back an image of him in bed. Unshaven, shirtless. More than shirtless. “Jewel thieves, specifically,” she said. “Do you think one of us stole the Ashworth jewels?”

  He sighed, fully awake now. “I don’t think anything.”

  She took in a breath. “How long have you known?”

  “Not long. My last trip back here.”

  At least he wasn’t denying it, she thought as she stepped into the cool shadow of a granite statue of a Union soldier. “I see.”

  “What did you find, Olivia?”

  “I just came from the library. Your father was th
ere before me. I found an article about a jewelry robbery in Boston in 1938. Dylan…” She swallowed, controlling her emotions. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t know enough. I figured the last thing you all needed was some wild story about missing jewels.”

  “Your father left a card in the newspapers. I’ll give it to you when you’re back.”

  “Olivia…”

  But Dylan seemed at a loss, and she remembered that Duncan McCaffrey was his father, not a stranger. “I should go, let you go back to sleep or get on with whatever you’re up to today—”

  “Where are you?”

  “Standing in front of our Civil War statue.”

  She thought she heard him chuckle before they disconnected.

  She went home and worked on the hutch. She’d decided to add stenciling; being creative always settled her mind and helped her think. The Ashworth jewels would be worth millions, if they existed, if they were genuine. She could suddenly understand why Dylan hadn’t mentioned the 1938 robbery.

  The hutch loomed above her as she carefully hand-painted a flower motif to a small door at its base. She thought the flowers added a needed bit of bright color and contrast to the light blue of the hutch but also looked modern. As she worked, doubts assaulted her. Maybe she was fooling herself after all. She loved how the house and landscaping were shaping up, but had she done enough? What wasn’t she doing that she didn’t even know she wasn’t doing? Where were the gaps, the weaknesses, the problems in her plans and vision for Carriage Hill?

  Was she insane not to take Jacqui’s offer and return to work in Boston?

  Even more so, was she insane to still be thinking about Dylan McCaffrey?

  Fifteen

  “Holy hell,” Noah said when he and Dylan arrived at the Webster house. “It’s a bigger dump than I imagined.”

  Leave it to Noah to be blunt. “It used to be a cute house.”

  “For an old Latin teacher.”

  “Did you take Latin?”

  “Uh-huh. Four years.”