That Night on Thistle Lane (25 page)

Noah hesitated but he knew he had to ask. “Did Patrick O’Dunn commit suicide, Brandon?”

Brandon shook his head but the question clearly hadn’t come as a shock. “It crossed everyone’s minds, but no, he didn’t. It was just a stupid accident. Phoebe’s guy—he couldn’t take it, having her in the middle of a family crisis. It was all about him. He gave her an ultimatum. Transfer out of UMASS and move with him to Florida or they were through.”

“Phoebe’s still here,” Noah said.

“So she is. She hasn’t been serious about a guy since then. Not that she’d tell me.” Brandon settled back with his beer, no indication he had any bitterness toward Phoebe given his own troubled situation with her younger sister. “You know sneaking into that ball the other night was a big deal for her, right?”

Noah nodded. “She didn’t tell anyone she was going.”

“It was a last-minute decision. Phoebe’s usually not impulsive. I ran into her. I kept my mouth shut but I guess the cat’s out of the bag now.” Brandon again narrowed his gaze on Noah. “You two…”

“I won’t cause problems for her,” Noah said quietly.

“As you say, not everything is predictable. It’s up to us to respond to the unexpected. You didn’t expect Phoebe. She didn’t expect you.” Brandon got to his feet. “Life does have a say, doesn’t it?”

Noah leaned back in his chair and thought he could smell orange mint in the warm air. “You’re not telling me all this as a friend. You’re warning me.”

“I guess you could look at it that way. I’m only telling you what everyone in town already knows.”

“You don’t want Phoebe hurt again.”

“Let’s just say I’m doing what I can to assess and manage risks.”

And I’m the risk, Noah thought. He was the stranger sweeping their Phoebe off her feet. Another man who could break her heart. She was happy with her life. No one wanted him to screw that up.

Noah didn’t want to, either.

He decided to shift the subject. “What happened with you and Maggie?”

“I’m in a tent for a reason.” Brandon looked up at the sky. “I’m not getting her back, Noah. It’s not going to happen.”

“Giving up easily, aren’t you?”

Brandon sighed. “Looking reality square in the eye. It’s not something I always like to do, but I want Maggie to be happy. I know that much.”

“Because you love her,” Noah said.

“Always have, always will. That doesn’t mean we can be together. Ack. I hate this kind of deep talk. I’ve been practicing, because she wants me to talk. Listening isn’t enough. She says she has to hear my voice. I should practice talking to Buster. Hell of a lot easier to talk to a dog than to an O’Dunn.”

Despite Brandon’s attempt to lighten his mood, Noah felt the other man’s pain. “I need to go back to San Diego to check on a few things,” he said. “You can see to Buster?”

“Sure. I’ll see to him.” The big dog sat at Brandon’s feet, obviously wanting to be petted. Brandon complied and grinned, his dark mood dissipating rapidly as some of his natural spark returned. “The O’Dunn women are smart and quirky and pretty as hell, but damn, they’re not easy.”

Noah smiled. “What fun would easy be?”

“Maggie’s dress the other night makes me wonder if maybe she just wants a little old-fashioned romance in her life. What do you think?”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Wooing.”

Noah stared at his new friend. “Wooing?”

Brandon laughed. “Yeah. I’ll figure out some wooing options that won’t break the bank. Meantime, I’ll go up and take a shower with the goat’s milk soap.”

Brandon seemed reenergized as he headed through the mudroom into his friend’s house. Noah moved his chair into the sunlight and finished his beer. Bumblebees were again in the catmint.

No one in Knights Bridge had expected a man like him—maybe any man—to float into their librarian’s life. It wasn’t just his net worth. It was California. His work. His MIT background. His experience.

He was forbidden, he thought with a sigh.

At the same time, he liked the challenge, just as Brandon Sloan liked the challenge of “wooing” his wife back.

But what if Julius Hartley was right? Noah stood up in the sunshine, listened to the bees in the catmint, crows out in the fields. It didn’t feel as if he’d seized on Phoebe because he was bored, but what if he had? What if he was drawn to her because she was so different, so out of reach? He wasn’t playing games, and he was confident she was as attracted to him as he was to her.

Well. Maybe not that confident. But confident that his interest wasn’t one-way.

He’d had his share of Hollywood babes disappear on him. More who’d needed a push out of his life. He didn’t want Phoebe to disappear and he didn’t want to push her or cause her embarrassment, scrutiny or anything she’d live to regret.

After his shower, Brandon walked up the road to Dylan’s place instead of cutting through the field. Noah almost went with him, but there wasn’t much to see. Dylan had shown him the plans for the new house and a barnlike building for his fledgling adventure travel business. He was also talking about finishing some of his father’s treasure hunts. He and Olivia would live in the house, which would allow The Farm at Carriage Hill to function exclusively as a destination getaway. In addition to soap making, she and Maggie were talking about offering herbal lunches, tours and lectures at Carriage Hill.

Unlike Noah, Dylan and Olivia and their friends in Knights Bridge didn’t lack for ideas of what to do with themselves.

If Olivia hadn’t met Dylan, she would have happily continued to live and work at her center-chimney house, with guests coming and going. Noah didn’t see Dylan sharing a bedroom with her down the hall from strangers.

He’d shown Grace Webster the plans for her former property, too. She’d told Noah when he’d visited her that she couldn’t wait to see the new house.

“I expect to live that long, you know,” she’d said with a twinkle in her aged eyes.

He had no doubt.

He occupied himself with a few NAK-related calls, cleaning Buster’s bowl, vacuuming Buster’s hair off the couch and picturing Phoebe harvesting orange mint.

Then he arranged for his flight back to San Diego himself. At six, he was scrounging in the freezer for something else to thaw for a quick dinner when Dylan called. Noah didn’t bother hiding his relief. “Someone to talk to who’s not from Knights Bridge. At least not yet. What’s up?”

“You tell me,” Dylan said. “Is there anything else I need to know about you and Phoebe O’Dunn?”

His friend might as well have been reading his mind. Noah was used to it. “I won’t screw things up for you here, Dylan.”

“That’s not an answer, is it?”

“Why are you asking?”

“I had a drink last night with Loretta and Olivia at the Hotel Del. We got to talking. It’s been on my mind all day. Olivia asked how fencing has influenced you.”

Noah frowned as he dug out another container of frozen soup. Tomato-basil. Sounded good, and he didn’t need much to eat before his flight. “Influenced me how?”

“In life. How you think, how you look at the world.”

“Mostly in fencing I’m trying not to get a blade driven into my heart.”

“Exactly Olivia’s point. Loretta agrees. You should have seen her. It was as if she’d had this sudden epiphany about you, what makes you tick.”

Noah set the container on the counter. “Dylan? Are you still jet lagged? You’re not making any sense.”

“You’re skilled at avoiding the touch of a sword,” Dylan said, apparently undeterred. “Any touch, not just one that goes to the heart.”

“That’s because any touch can be fatal.”

“Is that how you’re thinking now, about Phoebe?”

Noah made a face. “That she’s—what, a fencing partner?”

“That in life as well as in fencing, you seek to avoid the blade.”

“That’s a tortured metaphor, Dylan.”

His friend sighed. “I had to try.”

“Phoebe and Maggie were here earlier getting a start with making essential oils. That’s all I know.”

“Essential oils?”

“For the goat’s milk soaps. You know, this soap making is interesting.”

Silence on the other end of the phone.

Noah grinned. “You’re interested. You’re just surprised that I am, too. Never mind. I haven’t talked to Loretta today. Anything to add about Julius Hartley?”

“He does a lot of work in Hollywood,” Dylan said. “You have both business and personal connections there.”

“I did have personal connections. I haven’t in a while.”

“Maybe that’s why Hartley’s on your tail. Maybe some pissed-off actress you dated sicced him on you when you didn’t bankroll her in a movie.”

“Maybe,” Noah said. “I need to know.”

“I agree.”

“I’m having a bowl of soup and then flying to San Diego later tonight.”

“Good,” Dylan said. “You, Loretta and I need to put our heads together and see if we can figure out what’s going on.”

“Loretta and I can.” Noah felt a light breeze through the window above the sink. “You and Olivia will be walking on the beach.”

“She wants to go to the zoo.” Dylan sounded reasonably enthusiastic. “She promised to bring back stuffed giraffes for Maggie’s sons.”

Noah smiled. “Then the zoo it is.”

“Enjoy your soup. What kind?”

“Tomato-basil. I might add some of the pesto Phoebe and I made, although that could be overkill.”

“Noah…” Dylan broke off. “Never mind.”

After they disconnected, Noah peeled the top off the soup container. It was frozen solid. He heard an owl or a wild turkey or something in the woods and fields out back. Then he remembered the Sloan boys were camping with their father.

He left the soup to thaw on the counter and went into the living room. Buster had escaped from the mudroom and was back on the couch. Noah left him in peace and cleared a space in front of the fireplace. He eased into a series of basic fencing moves, then switched to karate and did several katas. He focused on his movements, his technique, his breathing. The positioning of a foot, a hand, a shoulder—even a knuckle—mattered. Every detail was important, worthy of his attention.

When he finished, he took a shower in the upstairs hall bathroom, using a fresh bar of lemon-scented goat’s milk soap. It was mild, soothing, reminded him of the beauty of the Swift River Valley and surrounding hills, of the sensibilities of the smart, kind and deceptively tough women who lived there.

He dried off and wrapped his towel around his waist as he went into one of Olivia’s unused guestrooms. He noticed neatly ironed vintage pillowcases stacked at the foot of the queen-size bed. He looked out the window at the field behind the house, quiet in the early-evening light.

The library’s fashion show was coming up soon. The Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn dresses Maggie and Olivia had worn in Boston weren’t the only ones in Phoebe’s hidden room copied from Hollywood movies.

Noah turned from the window. Thoughts and possibilities—odd connections—came at him fast and furiously. They might amount to something, or they might amount to nothing, but he definitely had to go back to San Diego and talk to Loretta.

And to Julius Hartley.

He walked down the hall to his bedroom and pulled on clean clothes, then headed back downstairs. Buster had vacated the couch and was sniffing at the counter.

“That’s my soup, my friend,” Noah said, getting out a bowl. He glanced at his watch. He had time to eat his soup before he had to be at the small private airport for his flight.

He didn’t have time to eat his soup and stop to see Phoebe.

Seeing Phoebe won over Olivia’s soup, as good as it no doubt was.

“On second thought, Buster,” Noah said, “the soup is all yours.”

Not that the big dog was seriously interested in tomato-basil soup. Noah filled Buster’s bowls with food and water, figuring he’d ask Phoebe to make sure someone looked after their friend’s dog. It could be his excuse for stopping to see her, should the O’Dunns, the Frosts, the Sloans and the rest of little Knights Bridge be keeping an eye on Thistle Lane.

Seventeen

Phoebe had said goodnight to the last of a summer reading group that had met while she and the fashion show committee had gone over the last details of what promised to be a fun night. How profitable it would be was anyone’s guess but at least they were managing to keep costs down.

She was tidying up the circulation desk, about ready to lock up and head home, when she heard the front door creak. She was surprised to see Noah enter the library. He moved with his usual smoothness, and he wore jeans and a black button-down shirt, his sleeves rolled up. She smiled to herself. He was even sexier than he’d been in his black cape and mask.

He pointed toward the children’s section. “I’ll just be in here while you finish up,” he said, then stepped into the empty alcove.

Phoebe stifled images of him as a five-year-old—then as a father, taking his children to the library. But would he? Had he ever gone to the library himself as a boy, picked out books, sat with other kids through a story hour? With her evening meeting, she’d had a long day and had spent much of it—even while picking mint with him at Carriage Hill—thinking about how little she really knew about Noah Kendrick.

Being a librarian, she’d searched out more information on him that afternoon, beyond what Vera had read at the hairdresser’s or what everyone in town already knew since Dylan’s arrival there in the spring. Phoebe had a few more facts at her fingertips. Noah was thirty-three, the only child of a structural engineer and a high-school chemistry teacher, both retired and living at their wealthy son’s California Central Coast winery.

In addition to the winery, Noah owned a house in San Diego and a condo in Hawaii, and he collected antique swords.

He’d sailed through MIT. No surprise there.

Phoebe thought of her avocado-colored refrigerator and her flea-market finds.

A different world.

The women in Noah’s life tended to be very attractive actresses, with or without talent.

Talent, Phoebe suspected, wasn’t that big an issue to him.

She glanced at her watch as if she had somewhere else she needed to be, but she didn’t. And as Noah left the children’s section and returned to the main room, book in hand, she realized she didn’t want to be anywhere else.