That Night on Thistle Lane (24 page)

“You’re right. I don’t want to underestimate Phoebe. She can hold her own with a California billionaire.” Olivia turned, the light from the hotel catching her green eyes as she smiled. “I’d put running a small-town library on a shoestring right there next to running NAK.”

Loretta thought she heard a hint of homesickness in Olivia’s voice. They found their way down to the waterfront behind the main hotel and sat at an outdoor table overlooking the wide beach and glittering ocean. They ordered piña coladas and watched the crowd. Loretta heard teenagers laughing, noticed a young couple holding hands, two older couples chatting quietly together over drinks.

“Do you come here often?” Olivia asked.

“From time to time. It’s a good place to take out-of-town guests.”

“It’s so romantic. Dylan says you two used to come here for a drink after you talked business.”

“Money’s never been his favorite topic,” Loretta said with a smile. “That’s how he ended up sleeping in his car. As they say, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. He wasn’t as broke as he thought he was. I’d tucked some money away.”

“But you didn’t tell him,” Olivia said.

“I told him when I did it. He just didn’t pay attention.”

Olivia laughed, looking at ease with herself, her relationship with the man she would soon marry. Loretta felt a sudden sense of loss as she gazed out at the water. The wind had died down. She listened to the waves washing on the sand and wondered what her life would be like right now if Duncan McCaffrey had never gone to Knights Bridge, Massachusetts.

“I’ve known Noah and Dylan for a long time,” she said finally. “Dylan had just started with the NHL and Noah was still a student at MIT. I met Noah when he was out here on a break and went to one of Dylan’s hockey games.”

“They’re like sons to you, aren’t they?”

Loretta ignored a sudden tightness in her throat. “Now you’re making me feel old.”

“I hope not.” Olivia sat back with her piña colada and looked out at the dark ocean. “What a beautiful spot.”

“Some Like It Hot was filmed here.”

Olivia smiled. “I’m glad Phoebe didn’t try to put me in a Marilyn Monroe dress. It’s so beautiful here, Loretta. Dylan’s a very lucky man, and I love having him in my life. I love him. We never would have found each other without you.”

Loretta fought back tears that took her by surprise. She wasn’t one for tears. As she studied the woman across from her, she was satisfied that Dylan had made the right choice in asking Olivia Frost to marry him—as if choice had anything to do with it. The man was in love, and from what she’d heard in Noah’s voice since he’d danced with Phoebe O’Dunn, he wasn’t far behind. Loretta just wasn’t sure he was in for as happy an ending as Dylan.

She kicked off her shoes and enjoyed her drink, subtly sniffling back any tears so Olivia wouldn’t notice. Maybe Olivia had a point. Maybe in a way Dylan and Noah were like sons to her. She’d never regretted not having kids of her own.

Noah had always struck her as a man looking for a real soul mate. A woman he loved, and who loved him, without condition. A woman he’d fight for, die for. It was the swordfighter in him, Loretta thought.

She’d never met two more decent men than Dylan McCaffrey and Noah Kendrick.

What was she going to do if they both moved to Knights Bridge?

Sixteen

Noah was in jeans—no shirt, no shoes—when Buster stirred and went to the kitchen door, barking through the screen as the two eldest O’Dunn sisters jumped out of Maggie’s catering van. “Company, Buster,” Noah said, rising from the table with the last of his second cup of coffee. He figured he’d need a full pot of coffee before noon. It’d been a long night alone on the edge of Quabbin. Even Buster had been restless.

Maggie and Phoebe approached the kitchen ell with an ease that suggested they’d forgotten he was dog sitting, which Noah doubted, or had heard rumors to the contrary. They were dressed in shorts and sport sandals. Maggie had on a Red Sox T-shirt, Phoebe a close-fitting tank top in a deep turquoise blue that matched her eyes.

Noah finished his coffee as they entered the kitchen.

And he’d told Buster it would be a boring morning.

Phoebe all but gasped at seeing him. “We didn’t think anyone would be here.” She kept one hand on the screen door, as if ready to bolt for the van. “We thought—we heard you’d left for California.”

“Who told you that?” Noah asked.

Phoebe averted her eyes. “It was the talk of the country store this morning.”

A vague answer at best but Noah let it go. “I see.”

“We’re here to harvest mint,” Maggie said, setting a basket on the kitchen island.

Noah placed his mug in the sink. “Dare I ask what you want to do with your mint harvest?”

Maggie turned to him. “Olivia and I are having a go at making our own essential oils. She has several herbs that could work. We’ll start with the orange mint.”

“It’ll have to dry first,” Phoebe said. “We won’t actually be making essential oils today.”

“You’re off today?” Noah asked her.

“Just this morning. I have an evening meeting.”

She let the screen door shut behind her. Noah took that as a sign that she intended to stay for the mint-harvesting.

“Phoebe hasn’t taken any vacation time this year,” Maggie said. “Right, Phoebe?”

“I took time off in the spring to paint the porch.”

“I rest my case,” Maggie said, digging a pair of utility scissors out of an island drawer. “If you want to help, Noah, that’d be great, but I suggest putting on a shirt. It’ll be buggy in the mint patch.”

He smiled. “If you’re warning me about insects, it means I should expect the worst.”

Maggie laughed and grabbed her empty basket. “You’re a riot, Noah,” she said, heading for the mudroom and out the back door.

Phoebe had her hair in a long, loose ponytail. She redid a clip that held stray curls off her face. Noah reached for a black shirt he’d brought downstairs with him. As he shrugged it on, he was aware of Phoebe watching him. He appreciated her reaction.

He fastened a few buttons. “Did you sleep well last night?” he asked her softly.

Buster stirred, and she patted him. “I read Mary Stewart until the wee hours. You?”

“I was up late looking for things to do. Wood to chop, wild animals to slay. I did manage to chase Buster off the couch.”

She laughed, visibly more relaxed. “Olivia will appreciate that. Dylan won’t care. Sorry we disturbed you. You don’t have to help with the mint—”

“I don’t mind.”

Noah had a feeling he’d be learning more about essential oils and soap-making than he ever thought of knowing before the morning was done.

Phoebe followed her sister outside, and he put on shoes, grabbed the bug spray and Buster and joined them. The orange mint was at the end of the garden, almost at the shed where he’d first spotted Phoebe and hadn’t even considered she might be his princess. He watched her squat down with a pair of clippers, snipping off the tops of the orange mint. He noticed the shape of her slim, bare legs.

It was definitely turning into a different morning than he’d planned. He was glad he hadn’t called for a plane, after all.

He helped harvest the mint and bring it into a small room that shared the center chimney. Apparently Maggie and Olivia had conferred and decided the mint would dry there.

“What’s it do for you?” Noah asked as they spread the mint on a table, a flea-market find that Olivia had teased about putting on his painting list.

“Orange mint is supposed to be uplifting,” Maggie said, then grinned at him. “Aren’t you uplifted?”

“It’ll be highly concentrated as an essential oil,” Phoebe said. “It’s supposed to blend well with other essential oils.”

“You never use essential oils directly on the skin,” Maggie added. “They’re always diluted somehow.”

Making an essential oil was a relatively complicated process that also involved a still, which Maggie said she had on order. Noah found the details surprisingly interesting. As they returned to the garden, she explained saponification, the chemical process that transformed a fat and alkali into soap and glycerin.

“We use only fresh goat’s milk, not powdered,” Maggie said. “Soap making involves a range of my interests. Cooking, gardening, aromatherapy—and my mother’s goats, I guess. They’ve grown on me, finally. Each batch of our soap is handmade. I like that. We leave in the glycerin. A lot of commercial soap makers remove it because they can sell it.”

“It’s an ingredient in nitroglycerin,” Noah said.

She wasn’t that amused. “Glycerin is a natural humectant. Goat’s milk is very mild. A lot of people with sensitive skin swear by it because it has a pH level that’s close to that of our skin.”

“So that explains my baby-soft skin,” Brandon Sloan said, climbing over a stone wall into the garden. “I’ve been using the soap in Olivia’s upstairs shower.”

Maggie wasn’t that amused by her husband, either, but Noah could see Phoebe holding back a smile. He kept his mouth shut.

“Where are the boys?” Brandon asked.

“With a couple of their friends. I’m picking them up for lunch.” Maggie stepped onto the terrace, her enthusiasm for talking about mint harvesting and soap making on the wane.

Maggie immediately headed back into the kitchen.

Phoebe turned to Noah. “Just leave the mint in the back room, out of any sunlight. It’ll be fine.” She smiled. “Or it won’t be fine and we’ll toss it into the compost bin. Anyway, I should go. I have to be at the library soon.”

“Weren’t you two planning a picnic lunch?” Brandon asked mildly. “You know Maggie. She’s always got food figured out.”

Phoebe scowled at him. “Our morning didn’t go quite as planned.”

He shrugged. “You could always leave the food for your poor starving brother-in-law.”

“It’s still in the van,” Phoebe said, as if that explained everything.

She glanced at Noah, then left without another word.

Noah stepped onto the stone terrace. He didn’t know if he should follow Phoebe out to her sister’s van and see them off—or if he was supposed to take her retreat as her wish that he stay away. Dylan would know. Noah had no illusions that he was particularly good at figuring out what people were trying to say. Much easier if they just said it.

Brandon picked up stray mint leaves off the terrace table. They heard the van start up out front. “Fast exit,” he said.

“Time got away.”

“Yeah. That must be it. Did you just spend the morning picking mint?”

“I walked Buster, too.”

The big dog opened one eye from his spot under the table, as if he knew that life was rough for his dog sitter.

Brandon grinned. “Time to go back to San Diego?”

Noah didn’t answer as he went into the kitchen, grabbed two beers out of the refrigerator and brought them outside. “It’s now officially after noon and I have nothing to do, so I can have a beer. If you’re on the job—”

“I’m not. I’m taking the afternoon off. Maggie’s dropping off Aidan and Tyler after lunch. We’re hiking up Carriage Hill, then camping out at Dylan’s place.” Brandon uncapped his beer. “Maggie’s giving them instructions on spotting deer ticks. She’s paranoid about Lyme disease. I guess that makes sense.”

“I hadn’t thought about Lyme disease,” Noah said, then grinned. “Now I will.”

“Going out of your mind in our little town?”

“It’s only been a few days. I can do anything for a few days, but I’ve discovered that Knights Bridge is more complex than it might seem at first, despite the absence of traffic lights.”

“I used to think it’s isolated. It’s really not. It’s just small. It does help to have a driver’s license if you’re going to live here.” Brandon dragged out a chair and sat down heavily, as if suddenly he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. “You and NAK—did you ever expect it to take off, get as big as it did?”

“I worked toward that. It’s the outcome I wanted.”

“There were setbacks?”

“Inevitably.” When Brandon seemed to be looking for more, Noah added, “We took steps each day, assessed, made adjustments, managed risk and learned to cope with uncertainty.”

“No crystal ball?”

Noah smiled. “No crystal ball.”

“Maggie never used to mind taking a few risks. She jumped into catering with both feet, moved back here without a real plan, but she doesn’t see it that way because it’s her hometown. Her sisters are here. Her mother.” Brandon drank some of his beer. “It’s me she wants to be practical.”

“I think you can be practical and still take risks. You just want to be careful about not risking more than you can afford to lose, and you have to manage the uncertainties and unpredictability of the future.”

Brandon glanced back toward the kitchen, as if he were thinking about his estranged wife and their two young sons. He seemed to give himself a mental shake. “Going public involved uncertainty, didn’t it?”

“It still does.” Noah sat down, drank some of his beer. “I didn’t consider what I’d do after NAK went public as carefully as I could have.”

“So that’s why you’re here dog sitting.”

“Maybe so.”

“Any paths not taken that you can take now that you can be free of the day-to-day running of your company?” Brandon seemed to want to add something but was silent a moment. Finally he said, “I suppose we all have paths not taken.”

Noah hadn’t considered his situation in quite that way. “I suppose so. What about Phoebe?”

Brandon narrowed his gaze on Noah. “What about her?”

“Her father died when she was in college and she stayed in Knights Bridge.” Noah spoke carefully, aware that Phoebe was Brandon’s sister-in-law, a woman he’d known since childhood versus a few days. “Was that always her plan, or is there a path not taken?”

“More like there’s a guy who took off to Orlando without her. He wasn’t from here,” Brandon added quickly, as if that were a significant fact. “They were at UMASS together. He was a senior and she was a junior when her father died. This guy didn’t like sharing Phoebe with her mother and sisters on a good day.”

“You met him?”

“Yeah. Once. I was with Maggie at her mother’s place. Those were tough days, right after their dad died. For a while they just didn’t know…” Brandon scowled as if irritated with himself. “I’m talking too much. I never used to talk at all but I’ve been practicing.”