That Night on Thistle Lane (28 page)

Had she abandoned the life—escaped the life—Phoebe was now living?

She gave an inward groan. So what if her mystery seamstress had hated Knights Bridge? Phoebe didn’t. She loved her work. She loved her cottage. She loved her family and friends, being close to them, connected to her childhood.

She was just on edge and overthinking everything because of what had happened between her and Noah. She never should have let herself get so carried away with him. What had she been thinking?

She hadn’t been thinking, obviously.

Once again she opened the yellowed copy of Le Petit Prince, its pages brittle with age.

Lorsque j’avais six ans j’ai vu, une fois, une magnifique image, dans un livre sur la Forêt Vierge qui s’appelait “Histoires Vécues.”

Could her unknown seamstress have taken off to France? Phoebe flipped through the Antoine de Saint-Exupéry novel. She didn’t know what she hoped to find. An old letter tucked in the pages? A signature?

She opened her Diet Coke and methodically checked each of the books, looking for anything that could offer answers, even a clue that would point her in the right direction.

There was nothing.

Had her mystery woman sat here, in this spot, listening to the crickets on a pleasant summer evening?

She heard a knock on her front door. “Phoebe?” It was her mother’s voice. “Can I come in?”

“Of course,” Phoebe said.

She started to get up but her mother was already through the living room. “I worked late and thought I’d stop by,” she said, getting a glass down and filling it with water from the tap. “You don’t mind, do you?”

Phoebe shook her head. “It’s water, Mom. Do you want anything else?”

“No, this is fine.”

She had on her work clothes, a flowered tunic over wide-legged white linen pants with neutral-colored slides. Phoebe had changed into shorts for her gardening. “Mom?”

She drank some of her water, then set her glass on the counter and walked over to the table. She patted the top book on the pile. “The Vogue Sewing Book. My mother had a copy. She taught me to sew. I was never any good at it, but she did her best. I was always more interested in gardening and boys. My best subject in school was math. Isn’t that funny? It didn’t translate into being good with money, obviously.”

“You’ve always managed to get by,” Phoebe said.

“Barely.” She tapped a finger on the front cover of the sewing book. “Ava and Ruby told me about their visit to the library this morning. They said you gave them permission to tell me about the attic room.”

“Did you know about it?”

“No. I’ve only been in the attic once. A friend and I went up there in search of ghosts. We were in junior high…” She sank into a chair, clearing her throat before she continued. “We took French together. My friend was good at it but I just couldn’t get the hang of it. There was a young woman who worked at the library who was fluent in French. She offered to tutor me.”

Phoebe stared at her mother. “What was her name?”

“Debbie Sanderson.”

“Sanderson?”

“She said she was George Sanderson’s great-great-granddaughter but none of us ever believed her. She was here such a short time. It’s been forty years, Phoebe. I was just a kid myself.”

“What was her job at the library?”

“I don’t really know. An assistant, I think. She wasn’t a librarian. I know that much. There was a bigger staff in those days.”

“Four people instead of two,” Phoebe said with a smile. “How long was she here, do you know?”

“It couldn’t have been more than two years. She tutored me for half the school year. She didn’t want any money, but my parents insisted on paying her.”

“Did it work? Did you pass French?”

“I most certainly did pass.”

As she watched her mother pick up the copy of Le Petit Prince, Phoebe envisioned Elly O’Dunn—then Elly Macintosh—at twelve, conjugating French verbs. “What was Debbie Sanderson like?”

“She never wanted to be a librarian, but she had a fantastic imagination and loved to read. She loved to dress up in exotic clothes and speak French to us, and she loved movies, gothic novels and poetry.”

“Poetry?” That caught Phoebe by surprise since she hadn’t discovered any poetry books in the box.

“That’s right. I remember because…” Elly set Le Petit Prince back on the table. “Oh, Phoebe. I haven’t thought about Debbie Sanderson in such a long time.”

“Mom, you’re about to cry. We don’t have to talk about her—”

“It’s okay. It’s not that. I just tend not to let myself go back too far into the past. I didn’t know your father yet when Debbie was tutoring me. He had just moved here. It wasn’t long after he got back from Vietnam. He’d put enough money together to buy a few acres and was building his shed. He was a recluse, really.”

Phoebe pictured her father roaring with laughter when she and Maggie had told him about getting the better of the Sloan boys at the pond at the Frosts’ sawmill. Ava and Ruby had been toddlers at the time, and he’d had them bouncing on his lap.

“He never liked being around a lot of people,” Phoebe said. “But he didn’t stay a recluse.”

Her mother nodded, then said quietly, “Because of Debbie.”

“Did they—were they an item, anything like that?”

“It wasn’t like that. He stopped at the library for a do-it-yourself book on plumbing, and she was there. She introduced him to poetry. He couldn’t concentrate on a novel back then, but he could read a poem. He especially loved Robert Penn Warren’s poetry.”

“I remember,” Phoebe said.

“He went on to reading novels. Robert Parker, Tom Clancy, Ross McDonald. He had so many favorites, but he continued to read poetry, too.” She blinked back tears. “He was a wonderful man, Phoebe. I had him—we had him—for the time we did because of Debbie Sanderson and the library. They helped him heal. They saved his life. There’s no question in my mind.”

Phoebe felt her throat tighten with emotion. “Do you know why Debbie came to Knights Bridge?”

“She chose it because of her great-great-grandfather, but I think she came here to heal, too. I didn’t realize she liked to sew as much as she must have, or that she was so good at it that she could copy Hollywood dresses. I knew very little about her. Just what I’ve told you.”

“Did she say goodbye when she left town?” Phoebe glanced around her small kitchen, wondered if it’d been much the same forty years ago. “Did anyone notice she was gone?”

When her mother looked away, focused on the darkening night out the window by the table, Phoebe could see a glimpse of Elly Macintosh O’Dunn at twelve. “It was summer,” her mother said. “I didn’t even realize Debbie had left until I started school in September. I should have taken more of an interest. She was invisible, in a way.”

“Mom, you were twelve.”

“When I think back, I realize how young she was, too. Maybe twenty-one. She was such a dreamer. I could see it when she tutored me. She wanted a life that Knights Bridge couldn’t give her.”

“And all Dad wanted was Knights Bridge,” Phoebe said quietly. “He read poetry to us as kids.”

“Poetry helped him cope with his experience in combat,” her mother said. “He didn’t have a long life but he lived longer than many of the young men he served with. He took each day as it came and lived in the moment. Maybe that meant he wasn’t as good with money and planning as some.”

“But we have the land because of him.”

Her mother turned from the window. “I have a good life, Phoebe. I like my job. It gets me out every day. What would I have done with a big insurance policy?” She smiled, a spark coming back into her eyes. “Blown it on horses instead of making do with goats.”

Phoebe smiled, too. “Now the goats are coming in handy with Maggie and Olivia’s soap making.”

“Who’d have ever thought?” Her mother laughed, but her lightheartedness didn’t last. She leaned forward, took Phoebe’s hand. “Honey, I know you’ve helped me and I appreciate all you do, but I don’t want you to worry about me. I don’t want you not to live your life—to feel tied to Knights Bridge—because of me.”

“I’ve never felt tied to Knights Bridge because of you or anyone else,” Phoebe said. “I like my life.”

Her mother didn’t seem to hear her. “Change is a part of life. Even if I knew deep down it was a delusion, I thought I’d grow old with your father. Instead I became a young widow with four teenage daughters. You have a big heart, Phoebe. Sometimes you ignore it so that you can be quote-unquote sensible. Don’t ignore it now, okay? Not because you’re worried about me, or your sisters. Open up your world if that’s where your heart takes you.”

Phoebe shot to her feet, uncomfortable. She and her mother seldom had deep conversations and she didn’t know what to make of this one.

“You have things to do,” her mother said, rising. “And I have more tomatoes to can tonight. I might turn them into sauce. I’ll decide on the way home.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Phoebe said as she followed her through the living room. “Thanks for stopping by.”

“Phoebe…”

“I’ll be fine. Don’t you worry about me, either, okay?”

“I’m your mother. It’s my job to worry.” She laughed, and became her bouncy self again as she left.

Phoebe returned to the kitchen and threw out the rest of her Diet Coke. She poured the last of a bottle of pinot grigio, took it out to the front porch and sat on the steps. So much for not drinking alone. It was quiet on Thistle Lane, but it always was. She sipped her chilled wine and smelled roses in the night air. A half moon created shadows that stirred in a gentle breeze.

She’d brought her cell phone out with her and stared at it in her palm. She had Noah’s number memorized. That was a clue to her feelings, wasn’t it? She debated just texting him but instead dialed the number.

He picked up right away. “Phoebe.”

His voice was calm, deep and made her heartbeat quicken. “Hi. I hope I’m not catching you at a bad time—”

“Not possible.”

She smiled and told him about Debbie Sanderson, her mother’s French lessons, her father’s poetry. He didn’t interrupt. She could feel him listening to every word she said. She told him she’d brought her sisters up to the attic room that morning but didn’t mention their questions about him.

He asked about the fashion show and what she was doing, where she was right now.

“It’s a beautiful night,” she said. “It’s nice after the heat.”

“Helps since you have no air-conditioning.”

“I only wish I had it a few nights a year. I have fans. I put one at the foot of my bed and…” Phoebe stopped herself. “I manage.”

Noah was silent, and she wondered if he was picturing her lying on her bed in next to nothing, or nothing at all, with a fan on her.

“Tell me about San Diego,” she said.

“It’s warm, sunny and not humid.” He paused, and she could feel his smile. “The same.”

“Have you been to your office?”

“Yes. I had pencils to sharpen.”

She laughed. “I love a good pencil.”

“So do I, techie that I am. I’m meeting Loretta Wrentham tomorrow. She’s getting Julius Hartley down here.”

“I hope you get to the bottom of what he’s up to.”

“I’m sure we will,” Noah said. “Tell me again about Debbie Sanderson and her time in Knights Bridge.”

Nineteen

Loretta paced on Dylan’s porch while she waited for Julius Hartley to park his BMW and join her. She could smell the ocean and taste it on the breeze, but she didn’t care. That told her just how keyed up she was. She loved the ocean, the sand, the rocks, the birds, the colors of sky and water. Watching Navy SEALs run on the beach wasn’t bad, either. She lived in La Jolla but she enjoyed coming out to Coronado.

Just not today.

Dylan had disappeared with Olivia, saying something about stuffed giraffes from the zoo for kids back in Knights Bridge. Loretta knew what that meant: she was on her own. She’d helped make this mess with Hartley by trusting him, by not realizing sooner that he was Noah’s mystery man.

Now she could clean it up.

Noah was back in San Diego, on his way to Coronado. He and Dylan would have already talked. She didn’t know that for sure, but it was how the two of them operated. It was how it had always been and always would be. Friendships like theirs were rare. She’d seen that the first time she’d met them. Dylan and Noah had each other’s backs. Dylan had a woman in his life now who understood that. Loretta didn’t know if Noah ever would.

She watched Hartley mount the steps to the porch. He had on an expensive pale blue polo shirt and dark tan trousers, and he looked more like a country-club type than a scumbag private investigator. She’d dressed in a crisp black suit with her red heels and hoped she looked like she not only wanted to kick him down the stairs but could do it.

He smiled at her, no sign he knew how mad she was. “Hi, Loretta. Nice day, isn’t it?”

“It’s Southern California. It’s always nice.” She let him get onto the porch before she glared at him. “You took it upon yourself to snoop on Dylan McCaffrey and especially Noah Kendrick. You snooped on a little rural town in New England.”

“Yeah. Sure. It’s what I do.”

She pointed a red-nailed finger at him. “You’re a son of a bitch, Hartley.”

He shrugged. “Okay.”

“Who were you on the phone with on Friday when Phoebe O’Dunn overheard you?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter.” She paused to catch her breath. He was as roguishly good-looking up close, out of the sunlight. She reminded herself to stay focused. The man couldn’t be trusted. “Was it your client? Are you working for an attorney, or is this one of your private clients?”

He turned and faced the water. “This is nice. McCaffrey’s giving up this place for Knights Bridge, huh?”

“For Olivia Frost, and I don’t know that he’s giving it up. He hasn’t asked me to look into putting it onto the market. Not that he will.” Loretta gritted her teeth. “I’ll probably be banished from Noah’s and Dylan’s sight before cocktail hour tonight, thanks to you.”

“That’s some drama going there.” Hartley gave her a sideways glance. “Am I supposed to—what? Feel guilty?”

“You’re supposed to tell the truth. I can’t believe I didn’t see through you sooner, but I just didn’t take you for a snake.”