Secrets of the Lost Summer (22 page)

“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 there 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

“H
oly 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.”

Dylan parked in the driveway. For once, Noah wasn’t wearing a black suit. He was in his idea of wilderness clothes: black jeans and an L.L.Bean hiking shirt. He’d felt mildly guilty at pulling Dylan from his mission in Knights Bridge and had insisted on flying east with him.

“It’s beautiful here, though,” Noah said as he got out of the car and breathed in the clean country air. “What a spot.”

“But you’re not staying,” Dylan said. It was more like an order than a question. The last thing he needed to do was to find a place for his friend to sleep in the crumbling house. Noah had been particular about his comforts even when he’d been broke.

“Not a chance. Relax.”

“Olivia Frost is highly annoyed with me.”

“Like you’re not used to people being annoyed with you.” Noah motioned toward the woods behind the house. “Do all these trees make you claustrophobic?”

“No.”

“Not even now that they’re leafing out?”

“No. There are fields, too, Noah. You’re just focused on the woods.”

“I don’t think I’m cut out for New England. I don’t need four seasons. Let’s take a walk. I want to stretch my legs.”

In other words, he wanted to see The Farm at Carriage Hill and meet Olivia Frost. Dylan didn’t dissuade him, and they headed down the narrow road. He explained what he could about the Quabbin Reservoir and what the area must have been like in 1938 when Lord Ashworth was being robbed in Boston to the east.

Noah was quiet. “Have you considered that your father might have been scammed by these people?”

“How? He got a good price on the house. The land alone would sell for what he paid.”

“That’s because the house is worthless. It should have been a negative. Think of what you’ll have to pay to have it torn down.”

“I haven’t thought that far ahead.”

Noah glanced at him. “You know where you’re headed but you focus on where your feet are planted right now. It’s why you don’t get blindsided by jackasses.”

“We all get blindsided by jackasses.”

“This jewelry heist. Suppose these people lured your father to their quaint little town in order to manipulate him into finding the missing jewels. What if he found them, and they’re hidden away in this old lady’s bank vault, or the Frost family vault?”

Dylan had told Noah about the robbery because he was his friend and was good at patterns and connections. Now he regretted opening his damn mouth.

Noah took a few more long strides. “You might want to keep your eyes open for anyone with a sudden influx of funds.”

“That’s conspiratorial even for you, Noah.”

Dylan had discovered long ago that Noah Kendrick tended to be naive. At the same time, he had a conspiratorial mind. The two weren’t as mutually exclusive as people often thought but played off each other, the naïveté fueling the conspiracies and vice versa. He didn’t think in straight lines. Dylan could cut to the chase with people. Love, greed, fear, sex, violence. Motivations were everything. He had met people who acted out of a sense of honor, integrity, courage, but his sole focus was whether they were okay or not okay for Noah and his business.

“You’re a guy’s guy, Dylan,” Noah said, matter-of-fact. “Your father was, too. Women like you. They liked him. This Olivia Frost never met him?”

“No. What are you getting at?”

“Nothing. Just taking a walk on a fine spring day. I’m waiting for a cloud of blackflies to descend. I read about them. They can be nasty this time of year.”

They came to Olivia’s house. Dylan felt as if he’d been gone for weeks instead of just a few days. Purple, white and yellow tulips blossomed beneath a sign she’d put up for The Farm at Carriage Hill, painted with chives like the ones on the card she’d sent.

Noah gave a low whistle. “Very nice. It’s more upscale and tasteful than I expected. Not cutesy. Does that describe your Liv Frost?”

“She’s not mine, and you tell me,” Dylan said as she came out the door, obviously not expecting them. Her hair was pulled back, and she had on jeans and a dark green top that brought out all the colors in her eyes. He smiled. “We were just admiring your new sign.”

“Thanks.” She brushed her hands off on her jeans. “I’ve been digging in the dirt since first thing this morning. For some reason I thought it’d be fun to plant a hundred yellow pansies out back.”

Dylan noticed her muddy knees but realized he was starting to stare and jerked himself back to the business at hand. He introduced Noah. “Olivia, this is Noah Kendrick. Noah, Olivia Frost, proprietor of The Farm at Carriage Hill.”

She came forward on the stone walk, smiling graciously. “It’s great to meet you, Noah. Welcome to Knights Bridge.”

“Great to meet you, too, Olivia. This place is fantastic.”

“I’m glad you like it. I’m hosting a mother-daughter tea tomorrow. It’s sort of an unofficial opening day.”

“Terrific. A tea. That’s just what I expected from the note card you sent Dylan, but Carriage Hill itself isn’t as unfinished and rustic as what I expected from his description.”

Olivia glanced at Dylan with an unexpected spark of humor. “We’ll have to work on your talking points.”

Noah winced. “Dylan was enthusiastic about the place—”

“Mmm. I’m sure.” She was clearly not insulted at all, but she added, her tone more guarded, “Dylan didn’t bring you here to help him dig for buried treasure, did he?”

“You mean the long-missing Ashworth jewels,” Noah said, innocent.

Dylan grimaced at his friend’s bluntness, but Olivia didn’t seem surprised that he’d told Noah the story and not her. She motioned toward her house. “Can I offer you gentlemen something to drink?”

“That’d be great,” Noah said. “I’d also like to see your gardens, if you don’t mind.”

“I’d love to show them to you.”

She seemed genuinely pleased and started up the walk. Noah hung back and gave Dylan a tentative look. “I’m not screwing things up for you, am I?”

Dylan shook his head. “Just be yourself. Don’t worry.”

The ground was soft and moist as they followed Olivia around to the back of the house, but Noah was dressed for the conditions. Dylan was, too, but that was nothing new. He watched Olivia leading his friend through the parsley, chives and such, her easy manner slowly wearing down Noah’s self-consciousness. He was less awkward, and genuinely interested in the various herb, flower and vegetable gardens and, especially, for reasons only known to him, the potting shed with its bags of soil, fertilizer and compost, mounds of small stones and stacks of old pots.

“My sister found this one in back at the mill,” Olivia said, pointing to a blue-glazed pot that came to her knees. “Isn’t it great? I’m loading it up with red flowers and putting it on the terrace. The red should attract hummingbirds. I love finding old things that I can make new again. I look clever when I’m just pinching pennies.”

“You’re very talented,” Noah said. “Dylan, would you know what flowers to plant to attract hummingbirds?”

“Probably not,” he replied, teeth clenched. Was Olivia deliberately turning on the charm with Noah, or was he just bringing it out in her?

“You have a decent garden at your place on Coronado,” Noah said.

“The house came with landscaping. I didn’t plant anything myself.”

“Got an urge to dig in the dirt at your house up the road?” his friend asked, amused.

Dylan gave him a sharp look, but Noah was oblivious and asked more gardening questions as Olivia led them inside. She pulled a large mason jar out of the refrigerator filled with what Dylan assumed was tea. Noah took it upon himself to get glasses out of the cupboard, add ice to them and set them on the counter.

Olivia poured the tea. “It’s regular old black tea, in case you’re wondering.”

Dylan was. He took a glass, remembering their kiss in the kitchen. He noticed her cheeks color, as if she could read his mind.

For all he knew right now, she could.

“I’m trying a new vegetable soup recipe,” she said, handing Noah a glass of tea. “You’re welcome to stay. I have some homemade bread. I’ve been experimenting. It’s all good, though. I’ve tried everything—well, not the soup, but you can’t go wrong with vegetables.”

She was as unselfconscious as Noah was self-conscious. He tried his tea and gave Dylan a pointed look. “Knights Bridge is full of surprises.”

“We don’t have to stay,” Dylan said.

“I’m going to resist homemade vegetable soup and homemade bread? I don’t think so.”

“Olivia has a big day tomorrow—”

“I can give you some to take with you,” she said.

She had the windows open and the house was cool, the temperature dropping with the waning afternoon. Everything about Carriage Hill exuded her personality, her taste, her warmth, but Dylan could also see just how much work she had to do before The Farm at Carriage Hill was a profitable business. He remembered what it was like to be working night and day toward realizing a dream while at the same time knowing deep down it might not happen despite his best efforts.

She wrapped the bread in foil and put it and a container of soup into a brown paper bag for him and Noah to take back with them.

“Good luck tomorrow,” Noah said.

Olivia thanked him, obviously taken in by the founder and chairman of NAK, Inc.

Dylan carried the bag and scowled at his friend when they reached the road. “When did you go to charm school?”

“What? I was trying to make a good impression. I figured if I was a jerk, she’d be more likely to think you’re a jerk.”

“She does think I’m a jerk.”

“Because you didn’t tell her about your father’s interest in this 1938 jewelry robbery.” Noah continued up the road, finally shaking his head. “You’re in trouble, Dylan, my friend. Big trouble.”

“I don’t belong, do I?”

“You’re the stranger in quiet and quaint Knights Bridge.”

“It’s not that quiet and quaint.”

“It is compared to our world. Time stopped here when the buggy whip went out of style.”

“I suspect we underestimate these people at our own peril. They’re as much in this century as you and I are.”