Secrets of the Lost Summer

by Carla Neggers

  Twenty-Six

  Dylan stood back as the search-and-rescue team took over and strapped Grace Webster to a stretcher. She was dehydrated and suffering from mild hypothermia, but she was already rallying, arguing with the paramedics. She wanted to walk back to her friend’s car. “If I could walk out here on my own,” she said, “I can certainly walk back on my own. I’ve done it many, many times.”

  “When you were a teenager,” Olivia reminded her, then glanced at Dylan. “I’ll walk a little ways with her and then come back.”

  “Take your time.”

  She was obviously relieved that Grace was alive, even if she was showing a little of the stern Latin and English teacher of old. Dylan was relieved, too. He saw her off with the rescue team and then walked back down to the pond. He stood on Grace’s rock, looking out at the quiet water, the ducks, the marsh, the seemingly endless wilderness, and he wondered if his father had ever made it out here.

  In a few minutes, Olivia joined him. “Why did Grace come back here now?”

  Dylan could see she already knew the answer, but he said, “Because of me.”

  “She figured out you knew about the missing Ashworth jewels and realized that was what your father was after.” Olivia walked closer to the water, her shoes sinking into the soft ground; she looked back at him. “I have a feeling Grace fell for this scoundrel British jewel thief.”

  “Maybe he wasn’t such a scoundrel.”

  “What are you thinking?”

  Dylan winked at her. “I’m thinking today has worked out all right.” He hopped off the rock, slipped his arms around Olivia and held her close. “And some things are just meant to be.”

  “They’re all nuts,” Mark Flanagan said as he and Dylan surveyed the exterior of his house in Knights Bridge, getting a sense of the possibilities—or, more likely, the extent of the problems. “Jess, Olivia, their mother. Randy, too. I don’t know if I’m coming or going half the time.”

  Dylan grinned at him. It had been twenty-four hours since he and Olivia had found Grace Webster, and she hadn’t died in the woods, and it was a beautiful day. “Could be because you’re besotted,” he said lightly.

  “Besotted? What the hell?” Mark laughed in surprise. “You’ve been listening to Grace, or living here has started to affect you.” He pulled back a bush of some kind and checked what appeared to be a section of rotted wall just above the foundation of the old house. “You’re right, though. I just can’t figure out what Jess wants. She’s never wanted to live anywhere but Knights Bridge, but she’s planning a trip to Paris and who knows where else.”

  “The two aren’t mutually exclusive.”

  “What if she gets to Paris and decides not to come back?”

  “You’re going with her, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah, but I have to come back. My work’s here.”

  “Her work’s here, too,” Dylan said. “So is her family. This isn’t about Jess, is it?”

  “Maybe not.” Mark paused a moment, considering, then shook his head. “I’m not going to be tempted to leave Knights Bridge. Not again. I don’t care if anyone thinks I’m boring.”

  “Boring? What’s that about? You’re a successful architect—”

  “I was engaged in my early twenties for about ten minutes. It didn’t work out for a lot of reasons, but basically she thought I was a bore.”

  “I don’t think Jess thinks you’re a bore, Mark. I think she just wants to go to Paris.”

  He replaced the bush back in front of the wall. “Hides that mess.”

  “It’s a problem?”

  “One of many problems. This house isn’t in good shape.”

  “So it looks run-down because it is run-down.”

  “I’ve discovered in my work that not all old houses can or should be saved. I’ve said for a long time this one should probably be condemned.” He looked up at the second-floor window above him, grimaced and then turned back to Dylan. “Olivia doesn’t have Jess’s wanderlust. She wants to make this getaway of hers work. It’s off to a good start. She has a real chance. Is she why you have me out here?”

  “I have to figure out what to do with this place,” Dylan said, deliberately keeping his answer vague.

  Mark shook his head. “No, you don’t. You’re rich. You could go back to San Diego and do whatever you’ve been doing for the past two years.” He started around to the back of the house. “You need something to do, Dylan. You’re not one to be idle. Any chance of moving Noah Kendrick out here?”

  Dylan realized Mark was joking. Just about the last place in the country anyone ever would expect to see Noah Kendrick was little Knights Bridge. Noah knew Boston from his MIT days and appreciated New England, but moving out here?

  Dylan smiled. It was even crazier than him moving out here.

  Mark stopped at the back steps and just shook his head at more rot. “This isn’t good. In fact, Dylan, this is really bad.”

  “Wrecking ball time?”

  “Past time.”

  “All right. Tell me more about what kind of house you could design here that would blend in with the surroundings.”

  “Blend in with The Farm at Carriage Hill, you mean?”

  “I wouldn’t want to create another eyesore,” Dylan said with a smile.

  Mark shifted his attention from the house to Dylan. “I was away from Knights Bridge for a long time. I never thought I’d come back. This isn’t San Diego, Dylan. Don’t talk yourself into thinking it is. It’s a pretty little town and I’m glad I came back, but it’s not a city.”

  Dylan had the feeling Mark’s words had more to do with him and Jess Frost than anything else. Mark grew silent and edgy and left abruptly, as if he understood himself what he’d been getting at. Maybe he knew what he had to do now, Dylan thought, and headed back inside.

  He looked at the old maps and Grace’s musty books, and he realized that Mark Flanagan wasn’t the only one who had to figure out what he had to do.

  Dylan picked up one of the Latin primers. He’d never studied Latin. He’d never even remotely wanted to study Latin. He imagined Grace Webster here as a young teacher, a young woman who had figured out early in life that she had to rely on herself.

  He knew what he had to do.

  The truth might change Knights Bridge—and him—forever, but he couldn’t run from it.

  He was halfway to the village when Loretta called him. “I’ve been trying to reach you,” she said.

  He pulled over. “Lousy cell service.”

  “Your kind of place,” she said sarcastically. “I don’t know if there are rocks you don’t want me to turn over. Tell me what you don’t want to hear.”

  “I want everything, Loretta. The good, the bad and the ugly.”

  “I did some digging. Philip Rankin died early in the war. He was a fighter pilot with the Royal Air Force. He went down during the Battle of Britain.”

  Dylan noticed a few drops of rain on his windshield. The information wasn’t a surprise and yet he felt a sense of loss. “The jewels?”

  “You were right. There’s no report that they were ever recovered. It’s hard to say if the police or anyone else suspected or had any evidence that Philip stole them, but I imagine there was talk. His wife—Lady Helena—died before the war, but you have that. Their daughter’s alive, still in England. She has a grown son and daughter and several grandchildren. A granddaughter’s in London. Alexandra Rankin Hunt. She’s a clothing designer, of all things. She plays up the mystique of the missing jewels.”

  “What else, Loretta?”

  Loretta hesitated. “What do you mean, ‘what else?’ Never mind. I have to go.”

  “Loretta—”

  She’d already disconnected. Dylan tossed the phone onto the seat and continued on through the village. The rain picked up. He turned on the wipers, noting how green the landscape was now, so different from his first day in Knights Bridge.

  Audrey Frost had forgiven Grace her adventure with her car and joi
ned her and Olivia for afternoon tea at Grace’s apartment at Rivendell. Olivia had made scones and brought them over with her. Afterward, she cleaned up the kitchen area while the two older women discussed their plans for the week. Grace had recovered fully but she was more subdued than usual, and her friend finally left, promising to see her tomorrow at yoga class.

  “Come, Olivia,” Grace said. “Walk with me to the sunroom. It’s my favorite spot in this place.”

  “You’re happy here, aren’t you, Grace?”

  “Yes, I am. I truly am.” When they reached the sunroom, she grabbed Olivia’s hand, an intimate, emotional gesture for such a starchy woman. “He’s a handsome man, this Dylan McCaffrey.”

  Olivia smiled. “He is.”

  Grace squeezed her hand, then released it as she settled into a high-backed chair. “You’ve fallen for him, have you?”

  The question startled her but Olivia answered, “I don’t mind saying that I have. Grace, the spot where we found you—”

  “I spent many happy days there the last summer we lived in the valley.” She looked out at the rain. “It was my hideout from a world that was changing around me.”

  She drifted, lost in her own thoughts. Olivia wasn’t sure whether to leave or to stay awhile longer. Then Dylan arrived, and Grace sat up, wide-awake. She turned to Olivia. “A moment, dear.”

  Dylan remained on his feet after Olivia had left the room and glanced out the floor-to-ceiling window as a gray squirrel raced up a pine tree. The rain had stopped, but everything was still dripping, shrouded in fog. He was aware of Grace watching him from her chair. “You saved me yesterday, just as another man saved me all those years ago.” She spoke quietly, her voice steady, as if she’d guessed he would come. “You remind me of him.”

  “When did you know?” Dylan asked, turning to her.

  He could see she knew exactly what he was asking. “The moment I laid eyes on you.”

  Twenty-Seven

  Gran was the first to suspect. I think she knew before I did. “You’ll get through this. I will be there with you. You’ll do what’s best for the baby. We all will.”

  “Gran, I’m not… I don’t know what you’re thinking.”

  “You are, and I’m thinking about your future, and this baby’s future.”

  We kept it from Daddy for as long as we could. He raged and cried and I knew I had to tell him everything—about my cabin, about Philip, about how Philip was on the run from the police. I could see that the baby was one more thing that reminded Daddy that the world as he knew it was ending. He was already desperate, and now here I was, pregnant.

  I walked out to the pond. Only a few stones of the foundation of my hideaway cabin remained. I sat on my boulder and stared at the water, and I knew I would never come here again.

  Daddy had searched my room, looking for any remnants of my time with Philip. “You’re to have nothing of that man’s near you. Do you understand me, Grace? Tell me you understand.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said, “but I know what you’re saying.”

  “It’s for your sake.”

  I knew that he was terrified if anyone discovered that Philip stole the Ashworth jewels, I’d be accused of harboring a criminal, even of complicity in the robbery.

  A few months later, when it was obvious that I was expecting, he told people I was visiting a friend who owned a farm in upstate New York and hid me in my room in Knights Bridge. Daddy and Gran took good care of me in those last cold, lonely months. Gran kept thinking of alternatives to giving up my baby, but Daddy had everything arranged.

  “A childless couple who used to summer on one of the lakes in the Swift River Valley will adopt the baby,” he said. “They’re good people. They’ve wanted a child for years. They’ll give the baby a life we can’t. This way, you’ll both have a chance.”

  I had no choice. I had to do what he wanted me to do. By spring, I knew Philip wasn’t coming back. Not that he didn’t want to. He couldn’t. I read everything I could about the war that was erupting in Europe and what was going on in Great Britain. I read about the Royal Air Force. Once, I tried to run away to England. I got as far as Boston before Daddy found me. He was alone. Gran wasn’t with him, and I thought he would do something terrible. Instead, he looked at me with tears in his eyes. “Do you think I want to give up what could be my only grandchild? It’s what’s best, Grace,” he said, his voice cracking. “It’s what’s best.”

  “What if Philip comes back after the war? What if I wait and care for our child—”

  “Does he know about the baby?”

  I could tell that my father knew the answer already, but I shook my head. “He’s a good man, Dad,” I whispered.

  “I believe you, Grace. I believe he’s a good man. I believe he would come back for you if he could.”

  “Are you just saying that to keep me from killing myself after you take my baby from me?”

  “I’m saying that because this man was the love of your life. I can see it in your eyes.”

  “Is, Daddy. He is the love of my life.”

  “Grace. Ah, Grace.”

  As my due date came closer, Daddy and Gran drove me to a small, private lying-in hospital near Boston. He’d packed some of my books. “You’ll make a fine teacher, Grace. Maybe one day…” He didn’t finish but I knew what he wanted to say: Maybe one day I would find another man.

  I went into labor two days later. I wasn’t allowed to hold my baby, or to be told if I’d had a boy or a girl. I woke up alone, and it was done. My baby was gone.

  I always knew I had a boy. Even now, decades later, I can still remember the feeling of him moving inside me. My father said he didn’t know whether I’d had a boy or a girl, but I could tell he was lying—to spare me, to help me forget when we both knew I would never forget.

  We resumed our new lives in Knights Bridge. Eventually I got a job as a teacher. I loved my work, and I looked forward to each day. It would be easy to say that I never looked back to that long-ago summer, but I did.

  I looked back all the time.

  Twenty-Eight

  Dylan wasn’t sure at first, but then it was obvious that Grace wanted to talk, and that she had the strength and the capacity after her ordeal at Carriage Hill Pond. Otherwise he wouldn’t have stayed. He wasn’t there to upset her.

  She made him pull up a chair and sit down. The wind had picked up, blowing out the last of the rain, the fog, the clouds. He could see patches of blue sky. He didn’t argue with Grace. He suspected most people didn’t argue with her, but he knew he would never forget finding her out in the Quabbin woods.

  When she looked at him, she had the eyes of a teenager…of a young woman in love.

  “The day you walked in here with Olivia,” she said, “it was as if Philip had come back to Knights Bridge. I thought I was losing my mind. Finally I realized that you’re his grandson.”

  And her grandson, Dylan thought. “You didn’t recognize my father?”

  “Not then. Now…” She fixed her gaze on the view out the windows. “I see now that he bore a strong resemblance to my father.”

  “This story’s all in your book?”

  “It’s all there. At first I thought I was writing it in case my son found his way to Knights Bridge and wanted to know about his roots. Then I realized I was writing it for myself, and for Philip. So that people would know who we were and what we meant to each other.”

  “You never told anyone about him?”

  “Gran and Daddy knew but I never told another soul, not even my closest friends. I buried that summer very deep. I never spoke about it again after I came home from the hospital. I knew Gran and Daddy wanted to pretend it never happened. They thought that would be best for me.”

  “Did you find out what happened to Philip?”

  She took a shallow breath and nodded. “He died early in the war. He was a fighter pilot—a hero. I only found out years later, but I knew he was gone, because I never heard from him again.”r />
  Dylan leaned in close to her. “I’m sorry, Grace.”

  “If he’d come back, what would he have thought of me?” Her voice was a whisper now, and her face was pale. “How could I have told him I gave up his child?”

  “He’d have understood.”

  Grace looked at him as if he were channeling the man she’d loved. “I hope so. I think so.”

  “There was a war on. The circumstances…” Dylan tried to picture what their lives must have been like. “He’d have wanted what was best for you and his son.”

  His son. Dylan’s throat caught.

  “Philip was…” Grace raised a hand and pushed back her hair, and for a fleeting moment, she might have been a teenager again. “He was a good man, Dylan. Your grandfather was a good man.”

  “Did you ever search for the couple who adopted your baby?”

  “I never did. My son—your father—belonged with them. They were his parents.”

  “They were decent people, Grace. My father loved them.” Dylan reached over and put his hand on hers. “I think he knew. I think you’re the reason he came here.”

  “Not the jewels?”

  “Well, nothing like throwing a fortune in lost jewels into the mix. What happened—was Lord Ashworth planning to sell the jewels in Boston and then claim they’d been stolen?”

  “Something like that,” Grace said. “He was broke, or at least by his standards he was. He also resented his sister for having inherited the jewels. Philip followed him to Boston and…” Grace shrugged her bony shoulders. “You know the rest.”

  “He knocked his brother-in-law on the head, grabbed the jewels and ran. Ashworth didn’t tell the police the whole story because he’d look bad, and Philip didn’t because who’d believe him?”

  “And because Lord Ashworth was his dead wife’s brother, and his daughter’s uncle,” Grace said quietly.

  “Hell of a treasure hunt.” Dylan rose and kissed her on the cheek. “You’re a good woman. I’m proud to know you. I’m proud to be your grandson.”

  “I wanted my baby to have a good life.” Her voice faltered. “Did he?”