That Night on Thistle Lane (17 page)

“I left right after I overheard the conversation,” she said. “I thought it could be a marital situation. I didn’t know… I knew he was talking about the swashbuckler I’d danced with but I didn’t know the swashbuckler was you. I was avoiding Dylan and Olivia. Maggie, too. Otherwise you and I might have met as—” As what? Phoebe smiled. “As ourselves.”

“I’m sorry about this, Phoebe.”

“It’s not your fault. If I remember anything else, I’ll let you know, but I’m sure I’ve told you everything.”

He came closer to her. “If you see Hartley or hear from him—”

“I’ll tell you right away.”

“Call me. You have Olivia’s landline, and I’ll give you my private cell phone number.” He gave a small smile. “I had a new phone delivered. I was angry at myself for having lost you and threw my last one in the sink on Saturday morning. I tend to go through phones.”

“You can only take so much intrusion.” When he seemed surprised at her observation, she added, “There’s a core stillness about you, and you concentrate deeply, even if you have a number of thought threads going on at once. My nephew Tyler is a bit like that. Not Aidan.” She paused. “Of course, I don’t know you well. I just observe a lot of people in my work.”

“I imagine you do,” he said. “I want your number, too, Phoebe.”

She saw the relentless entrepreneur in him. The drive. The self-possession. The focus on the next step he had to take—on action. “I understand. Noah, if this man is a threat to you—” She broke off, took a moment to collect her thoughts. “A man in your position must have enemies. If Hartley thinks someone in Knights Bridge is involved in whatever bone he has to pick with you, that could be a problem.”

Noah winked at her. “You have backbone, Princess Phoebe.” He touched the wet bark of a tree. “This is almost the same color as your dress the other night. It was a richer brown.”

“Beautiful, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“I wish—”

When she broke off, he fastened his blue eyes on her, his intensity almost palpable. “You wish what?”

“Nothing. I don’t even know what I was going to say.” Which was true, and not like her. “Thank you for dancing with me. It was fun.”

Noah started to say something but she pulled away from him when she saw her brother-in-law ambling down the road. Thunder rumbled in the distance, to the east, but rays of late-afternoon sun were shining now on puddles and dripping leaves.

“Hey, Phoebe,” Brandon said. “Here for more basil?”

She shook her head. “I gave Noah a ride back from Rivendell. What are you doing here?”

“I’m working up the road,” he said, a tightness to his expression.

“At Dylan’s place?”

He hesitated, then nodded. “That’s right.”

Phoebe tried to contain her surprise. “Does Maggie know? Where are you staying? Are you working for your family?” The questions tumbled out, and she was aware once more of Noah watching her, tuning in to the dynamics between her and her sister’s husband. “Never mind. It’s none of my business.”

“I need to talk to Maggie first,” Brandon said. “She doesn’t know I’m in town. I don’t want to be a distraction. She’s got a lot on her plate.”

“You could be a help,” Phoebe blurted.

“Maybe I could be, but it’s not all up to me, is it? Maggie has a say.” He turned to Noah with a wry smile. “That was Phoebe’s stern librarian voice you just heard. Can you imagine turning in a book late to her? I once had gum stuck in a book I returned. It wasn’t my gum but that’s another story. Phoebe was already volunteering at the library then. What were we, thirteen?”

“About that.” Still reeling from her conversation with Noah, she pointed a finger at her brother-in-law. “You’re putting me in a difficult position, Brandon. I’m not going to get caught between you and Maggie, but I can’t not tell her that you’re in town.”

Brandon was unperturbed. “You don’t have to tell her. I will in about five minutes. She’s on her way over with the boys.” He kept his gaze on Phoebe, the slightest hint of humor in his dark eyes. “I have spies everywhere.”

“Your brothers, you mean.”

He shrugged, as if she’d stated the obvious, then glanced at Noah. “Was I interrupting anything?”

“Nothing,” Phoebe said, answering for Noah. She crossed the road back to her car. “I’ll be on my way. Tell Maggie I said hi.”

Neither man stopped her as she climbed back behind the wheel of her old Subaru.

As soon as she arrived on Thistle Lane, the skies opened up again, but it was just a passing shower, no thunder and lightning. She parked in her driveway, then ran through the rain onto the porch. Soaked and shivering, she sat on a wicker chair, smelling roses and wet summer grass and thinking about Noah Kendrick’s hand on her cheek.

Eleven

Maggie fidgeted, grabbing a canvas bag of who-knew-what out of the back of her catering van just to give herself something to do, fussing at Aidan and Tyler when they jumped out of the back straight into a puddle. She didn’t care one way or the other whether they got wet or muddied their shoes, and she wasn’t at Carriage Hill to cook. She was just checking on the place.

Checking on why she’d seen Phoebe driving in this direction with Noah Kendrick in the front seat of her car.

Maggie shut the van door. She just needed to stay busy, give herself a chance to think.

Phoebe, Noah.

Brandon.

It was too much.

Brandon scooped up his sons, one in each arm as if they weighed nothing. They got mud on his cargo pants but he didn’t seem to notice as he set the boys on the grass in the front yard and turned to Noah. “These are my sons, Tyler and Aidan Sloan. Guys, this is Noah Kendrick.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Noah said as the boys greeted him politely, then promptly went back to their puddle-stomping. He glanced at Brandon, then Maggie. “I’ll be out back.”

Maggie almost stopped him so that she wouldn’t be alone with Brandon, but she kept quiet. She was being ridiculous. She’d known Brandon all her life. Even if he didn’t want to live in Knights Bridge, his family was here. Now his sons were here. Whatever her relationship with him had become, he was still a part of her life.

She held her canvas bag against her hip, remembered that it contained different oils she and Olivia wanted to try out in their soap-making. Olive, almond, soy, coconut. “Where’s your truck?” she asked Brandon.

“Up at Dylan’s.”

“I didn’t see it there.”

“It’s out back.”

“What did you do, park where I wouldn’t see it?”

“I didn’t want you to run away or throw a brick through the windshield.” When she glared at him, he held up a hand. “It was a joke, Maggie. If you have things you need to do here, I can take the boys up to Dylan’s and show them what’s going on. Demolition starts this week.”

“I’m not staying. I should get Aidan and Tyler home and into the tub.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re dirty, Brandon.”

“I mean why the rush?”

“Schedules. Routine. Summer’s winding down. School will be starting soon. Anyway, I don’t have time to explain their day-to-day lives to you.” She immediately regretted snapping at him. “I’m sorry. I’ll give them a few more minutes to get wet and muddy and then go.”

Brandon didn’t fire back, as he would have six months ago. “They can see Dylan’s place another time.”

“Another time? Aren’t you going back to Boston?”

“No. I’m working here, Maggie.”

She was so shocked she gasped. “With your family?”

He nodded without hesitation, without any indication he was embarrassed, bitter, settling, anything.

“But why?” she asked.

“It’s a job.” He spoke with a finality that shut down further questions.

Maggie took a breath. “Okay, then. Where are you staying? You’re not commuting from Boston—”

“I pitched a tent at Dylan’s.” He gave her that devil-may-care Sloan smile. “It’s rent-free. I promised the boys I’d take them camping. I was thinking we’d just camp out here.”

“They’d like that,” Maggie said, her throat tight with emotion.

He started for the kitchen door. “I’ll head upstairs. I need to take a shower. Helps with the camping out.”

“Helps with the smell, too.”

He grinned at her. “You never were one to beat around the bush.”

“You’re sweaty. It’s not…” Why had she brought up something as personal, as intimate, as that? “Olivia and I made a spearmint-olive oil soap. I think there’s some in the hall bathroom.”

“No goat’s milk?”

Maggie didn’t know if he was making fun of her and Olivia’s goat’s milk soaps or if he was genuinely curious. She decided to give him a straight answer. “It’s the one soap we’ve tried so far that doesn’t have goat’s milk. Spearmint works for guys as well as women. You know. Instead of a lilac scent or something.”

He scratched the side of his mouth and let his gaze linger on her. Maggie knew he was thinking about the two of them in the shower. She didn’t know what had gotten into her, bringing up soaps. She wanted to blame him, because it’d be just like him to lead her down a dead-end road and let her figure out how to get out of there on her own.

He swaggered inside. He knew what she was thinking. He always knew. That was half their problem. She wished sometimes she wasn’t so damn transparent.

She saw that the boys had settled into making mud pies and checking out worms. “I’ll be in the kitchen,” she told them. “I can see you from the window.”

It was as much a warning to stay out of trouble as reassurance that she was near. They weren’t toddlers anymore. She headed into the kitchen and set her bag on the island, then unloaded the oils. She might as well go ahead and leave them in Olivia’s pantry.

Why was Brandon back working with his family?

It wouldn’t last. He disliked construction on a good day. He did it to make a living. They’d married so young, had the boys so young. They’d both had to juggle dreams and practicalities. He was already restless, frayed at the edges, when his work slowed down in Boston last year and he got laid off. Brandon didn’t do well being idle. No Sloan did. One day, Maggie came home to a note telling her he’d taken off on a canoe trip down the Moose River in Maine. He’d be back “whenever.”

And that was that. She’d packed up herself and the boys and moved to Knights Bridge. She started her own catering business, and now she was working with Olivia, not just providing food for events but helping to shape The Farm at Carriage Hill.

Maggie loved what she was doing, but her relationship with Brandon remained unresolved, in that no-man’s-land between estrangement and divorce.

It wasn’t as if there was another man in her life. It’d always been just the two of them.

Noah came in from the mudroom, where Buster was sound asleep. In a combative mood, Maggie decided to confront him about Phoebe. “My sister gave you a ride back here? Why?”

“It was raining and I’d walked into town.”

“Phoebe’s…” Maggie smacked a bottle of coconut oil onto the island with more force than was necessary. “She loves books and history, and she knows everything that goes on in town. She’s a good soul.”

“She’s a little quirky, too,” Brandon said, entering the kitchen from the living room. He’d made fast work of his shower, the ends of his dark hair still damp.

Maggie flashed him a look. “Phoebe’s reserved.”

He shrugged. “Compared to you and the twins, maybe. Ask the boys about her at story hour. She gets into it.”

“I’m here every week for story hour. I have asked them.” Maggie gritted her teeth, wishing she’d just gone straight home instead of coming out here, then smiled apologetically at Noah. “I should go.”

Noah’s interest clearly was piqued but he seemed to contain it. “Was there a story hour when you all were Aidan and Tyler’s age?”

“There was,” Maggie said. “Brandon was disruptive.”

He grinned at her. “You remember.”

She resisted comment.

“Phoebe and I know we danced with each other at the masquerade the other night,” Noah said calmly.

Maggie didn’t bother hiding her relief. “I’m glad that secret’s out, at least among us. The whole town doesn’t need to know.” Then she remembered who she was talking to. “The whole world in your case, I guess.”

She wondered how Phoebe had taken discovering that Noah Kendrick was her swashbuckler but supposed her sister had more on her mind now. Maggie didn’t want to get into the mystery man Phoebe had overheard. Let Noah explain to Brandon.

Suddenly she just wanted to go home, walk over to Phoebe’s house and talk about flowers and flea-market finds and never mind about men.

Brandon eyed her but made no comment as he turned to Noah. “Let’s have a beer before I head back to my tent.”

Noah nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”

Maggie gathered up the boys, who wanted to stay so they could see if the rain had brought out slugs, too. She told them they could check at home. She got them in the van with a promise they’d stop at Phoebe’s house on the way back. They adored their aunt Phoebe.

But when Maggie pulled up in front of her sister’s small house on Thistle Lane, no one was there. She drove past the library, noticed a light on in the attic. Phoebe was probably hunting for more clothes for the fashion show. Maggie almost stopped and joined her. She’d never been up to the library’s attic. Given the stories of ghosts, she wasn’t sure she ever wanted to, either.

“Oh, Phoebe,” she whispered. “Phoebe, Phoebe.”

Her sister, the romantic at heart. Her sister, whose heart was broken so long ago. For all her own heartbreak, Maggie would make the same stupid mistakes, fight the same useless battles and press the same empty arguments if that was what it took for her to have her sons. They were worth the agony of what she was going through with their father now.

And she wouldn’t give up the good years she’d had with him. Not for anything.

She looked up at the lighted attic. Was this life of her sister’s worth what she’d endured? There’d been no full-on struggle when Phoebe’s heart was broken.

It wasn’t like Brandon and me.

Maggie blinked back tears, remembering her sister’s ashen face at twenty, their father not yet cold in his grave when her college boyfriend—the man everyone expected her to marry—had walked out on her. It hadn’t been “just like that.” Nothing ever was. But it had been fast, permanent and devastating.