The River House

Four

Maggie Sloan arrived first, with dinner and brownies. “I thought you might want to try my brownies since they’re on the menu now for Saturday,” she said, setting a picnic basket on the counter in the barn’s kitchen. She grinned at Felicity. “That’s my excuse, anyway.”

“As if you need an excuse to make brownies,” Olivia said, now sitting at the table.

Felicity shut her laptop at the end of the table. “I’ve heard stories about your brownies, Maggie.”

“They’re one of my signature desserts. It’s hard to mess up a brownie, but I do love my recipe.” She lifted a foil-wrapped package from her basket. “I say we start with sharing a brownie. Plan?”

Olivia laughed, clearly fully recovered. “An excellent plan.”

Maggie unwrapped the brownies and broke one into thirds, then distributed the pieces among three napkins. Felicity took one to Olivia before returning to her laptop seat with hers. Her generous chunk of brownie was moist, chocolaty and irresistible. She immediately thought of Gabe. Even if she’d made him brownies three years ago, they wouldn’t have been this good.

“Incredible as always, Maggie,” Olivia said, turning to Felicity. “People argue it’s hard to have a bad brownie. Then they try Maggie’s, and that’s that.”

“They’ll work for Saturday?” Maggie asked, leaning against the kitchen counter.

“Definitely,” Felicity said. “Thanks.”

With Gabe on the way, she was tempted to skip dinner and just eat brownies, but she limited herself to the pre-dinner morsel and helped Maggie unload the rest of the food. There was plenty for the three of them. Olivia hadn’t exaggerated.

“I made enough for Dylan and Gabe,” Maggie said. “There’s probably enough for Russ to have a bite, too, but I figure he’ll want to get home to Kylie.”

They set the table and enjoyed the simple fare of grilled chicken, summer squash and sliced tomatoes, but with Maggie’s flair. Afterward they walked the short distance to Dylan and Olivia’s new house. Felicity knew she was pushing it if she wanted to get out of there before the guys arrived. She’d skip checking the space at Olivia’s inn. It’d be fine. She followed Maggie and Olivia inside through the side door and into the kitchen. It was dusk, the fields behind the house quiet on the still evening.

“You should get home to Tyler and Aidan,” Olivia said, referring to Maggie’s sons. “Felicity, you can head home, too. I’ll be fine here on my own.”

Maggie shook her head, clearly unimpressed. “I’ve had two babies, Olivia. I’m staying until Dylan gets here. The boys are with my mother. She’s teaching them how to feed the goats. They’re all excited. Brandon doesn’t want to have anything to do with the goats, so they’re taking advantage of him being away.”

Maggie immediately filled up a glass of water at the sink and handed it to Olivia. “Drink up.”

“The house is amazing,” Felicity said, noticing the adjoining den also had a large stone fireplace.

Olivia smiled, water glass in hand. “Thank you. We love it. Mark was the perfect architect. He did a great job on your house, too. I envisioned a quiet country destination inn that I’d run while freelancing as a graphic designer, but then I wrote to Dylan, thinking he was his father, to clean up his eyesore of a yard or I’d do it myself...” She sipped some of her water. “I soon discovered his father had died before he had a chance to tell Dylan about this property and Knights Bridge.”

Felicity knew the story, or at least the highlights. Duncan McCaffrey, a treasure hunter and adventurer, had gone on a search for his birth mother, never thinking he’d find her—or certainly that she’d still be alive. His search had led him to tiny Knights Bridge and Grace Webster, a nonagenarian retired English and Latin teacher who’d never married. She’d moved from one of the lost Swift River Valley towns in her late teens, while pregnant by an English pilot who’d gone home to the war. She’d given birth to a baby boy and he was adopted, unaware of her identity until he himself was in his seventies. Grace had just moved into assisted living when Duncan arrived in Knights Bridge. He’d bought her house, and a short time later, he died in a tragic fall on a Portugal treasure-hunting venture.

In the meantime, Olivia had purchased the center-chimney house, built in 1803, long before construction of the Quabbin Reservoir had turned Carriage Hill Road into a dead-end, stopping it from winding into the small towns of the now-flooded Swift River Valley. The house’s previous owners had lovingly restored the property, including adding extensive herb and flower gardens. Olivia had set about converting the house into a destination inn, hosting parties, small weddings and other events. Her main obstacle was Grace’s former house up the road. It had fallen into neglect, its unsightly yard, broken shutters and peeling paint not exactly conducive to Olivia’s new business. She located its owner in San Diego and wrote him a letter. She’d confused Dylan with his father. When Dylan had received her handwritten note, he’d decided to head East and find out for himself what his father had been up to in little Knights Bridge and why he’d left him a dilapidated old house.

No one in Knights Bridge had realized that Grace had born a child. She’d met Duncan, her son, before his untimely death, and now she had Dylan—her grandson—in her life, and a great-grandchild on the way. Her English fighter pilot had died early in World War II, but no one doubted he’d have come back for the young woman he’d fallen in love with in New England the summer prior to the outbreak of the war, as her home and town were razed, the land scraped bare to make way for a reservoir.

Felicity liked Grace, who was preparing a lecture on Jane Austen for Sunday’s tea.

She found herself not wanting to leave just yet and go home to her empty house and buzzing thoughts. “Was it difficult tearing down Grace’s house?” she asked.

“In some ways,” Olivia said. “Grace was for it, though. She’d lived in the same house since she arrived in Knights Bridge with her father and grandmother after they were forced out of the valley. When she turned ninety, she decided it was time to move to Rivendell. She loves it there. It’s home now.”

“Grace gained a grandson and Dylan gained a grandmother,” Felicity said.

“And family in England,” Olivia added, sinking onto a couch in the den with her glass of water. “Philip Rankin—Dylan’s grandfather—was a widower, and his daughter and granddaughter welcomed us into the family.”

Maggie pointed to the glass. “You’re going to finish that, right, Olivia?”

Olivia smiled at her friend. “I’ll keep it at hand. I’ve drank so much water I could float away.” She turned to Felicity, who remained on her feet, half ready to bolt. “How do you like being back in Knights Bridge? Did you ever think you’d return here to live?”

“I never gave it much thought one way or the other. I’m good at planning events, but planning my life is a different story.”

Maggie snorted in solidarity. “I can identify with that. I plan. Then I revise the plan when life intervenes, which it always does. I mean, an O’Dunn and a Sloan together? How could my life be anything but chaotic?”

“Also perfect,” Olivia said.

“Mostly perfect. I have a tendency to take on too much in case you haven’t noticed.”

Both Olivia and Felicity laughed along with Maggie at her dead-on insight into herself. In addition to Brandon and their two young sons, his parents, feisty grandmother, four brothers and one sister, and her own three sisters and widowed mother, Maggie was also a caterer, innkeeper and budding entrepreneur of handmade essential oils and goat’s milk bath products. It was a full, busy life, for sure, but Felicity could see how it could get overwhelming. Any sense of “overwhelm” in her own life came not from the sort of abundance Maggie enjoyed but from her own bad habits.

“I hadn’t really considered moving to Knights Bridge until Mark put the house up for sale,” Felicity said. “Once I toured it, I knew. I’ve always loved that spot on the river.”

Maggie tilted her head back. “Nothing to do with the Flanagans?”

She tried to look as if mention of the Flanagans didn’t faze her. “I remember before Mark built the house. I assumed he and Jess would stay there, but they seem happy in the village. It makes sense they’d want to restore an old house.”

“Gabe never wanted to live in Knights Bridge,” Maggie said.

Olivia nodded. “That’s why he let Mark buy out his interest in the riverfront property.”

“Mark bought Gabe out?” The words were out before Felicity could contain them. “Never mind—”

“They pitched in together to buy the camp from their grandfather,” Olivia said. “Didn’t you know?”

Felicity shook her head. “I didn’t know.” She absorbed the news and shut down the dozen questions that erupted all at once. She forced a smile. “I guess it doesn’t matter. I’m enjoying putting my own stamp on the place.”

“You can plant all the flowers you want,” Olivia said lightly. “Jess says Mark didn’t want so much as a petunia out there. He’s more amenable to flowers in the village. I think he still sees the river house as a camp.”

Maggie grinned. “I’d get a flower doormat, too. De-Flanagan the place altogether.”

Felicity couldn’t help but laugh, but she also decided a shift in subject was in order. Then a quick exit. “How did Dylan get Gabe to do the boot camp?”

Olivia shrugged. “I don’t know the details. I imagine Mark was involved. Gabe has quite a reputation as a start-up entrepreneur. He’ll have a lot to offer on Saturday.”

“You two were always tight, Felicity,” Maggie said, plopping onto a chair by the cold fireplace. “You didn’t stay in touch?”

“We did for a while.” Felicity left it at that and hoped it was a sufficient answer and didn’t sound evasive. She didn’t want to get into any details about her and Gabe’s parting-of-the-ways. “I should get going. Thanks so much for dinner, and the company. Take care, Olivia, okay?”

“I will. Thank you again. I’m glad you were there when I went wobbly.”

Felicity didn’t argue, but she was convinced Olivia had actually fainted.

Maggie took another glass off an open shelf. “You’ll have to join us for one of our girls’ nights out, Felicity. We’re overdue for one.”

“I’d like that. The brownies are great, Maggie. They’ll be perfect for the party.”

“We’ll have low-carb goodies, too,” Maggie said. “It’s awesome to have an event planner in town. I’m good with food, but party favors, guest lists, registrations, RSVPs, entertainment—my head starts to spin.”

“We make a good team, then, because I’d poison everyone if I did the food.”

“Accidentally, of course,” Maggie said with a grin.

“Don’t get Maggie started,” Olivia said, tucking her feet under her on the couch. “She’s got a list of people she’d merrily poison.”

All in good fun, Felicity thought as she said good-night and headed outside.

She took the stone walk back to her beat-up Land Rover. It was tucked in the back of the barn’s discreet parking area. She understood that buying the house from Mark was naturally a source of curiosity in town, but she doubted anyone knew just how much work it had taken the past three years to get to the point where she could qualify for a mortgage. No doubt in her mind she’d have done it without Gabe’s prodding, but she doubted he’d see it that way. He’d take credit.

Didn’t matter. He didn’t need to know her financial status.

And it was a reach, wasn’t it, to think he might be interested? He’d had three years to show an interest in her, and he hadn’t.

“Just as well.”

She focused on the drive out to her house. It was a beautiful evening, the sort that used to draw her and Gabe out to the river to sit on a blanket and look up at the stars.

It was nearly dark when she arrived. She went inside, poured herself a glass of merlot and took it out to the deck. She was grateful she’d been there to help Olivia and that she’d only been a bit dehydrated. She didn’t want to imagine what would have happened if she’d left two minutes earlier and Olivia had fainted without anyone around. If she’d hit her head... But she hadn’t, and all was well.

Felicity listened to the river as she sipped her wine and forced herself to relax, calm her thoughts. “I love it here,” she whispered. “Totally love it.”

Gabe’s arrival in Knights Bridge and his involvement with the boot camp party were temporary distractions. Get through Saturday, and her life would return to normal.

* * *

Felicity refilled her wineglass, lit a citronella candle and sat with her feet up on another chair, listening to the soothing sounds of the river as dusk gave way to night. She deliberately avoided thinking about work. Her days often didn’t have hard start and stop times, and she always had eighty million things on her to-do list. All eighty million could wait until tomorrow.

Halfway through her wine, she heard a car out front. Hers wasn’t a well-traveled road. She expected the car to continue on its way and loop back to the main river road, but instead she heard an idling engine and, in another moment, silence.

Company?

She set her wineglass on the table, jumped to her feet and trotted down the deck steps and out to the driveway. A gray BMW SUV was parked behind her car. A man was behind the wheel, but she couldn’t make out his face. No one else was with him. She didn’t recognize the car. Dylan McCaffrey, here to get reassurance about his pregnant wife’s fainting spell?

Then the driver’s door opened, and Gabe Flanagan got out, stretched and looked straight at her in the shadows. “Hey, Felicity. Long time.”

“Almost three-and-a-half years.”

He grinned. “I knew you’d remember.”

She’d fallen into that one, hadn’t she? Not off to a great start. What was he doing here?

He shut the driver’s door, standing now in the light from the house. He was as strikingly good-looking and confident as ever. Visibly muscular and more obviously the successful start-up entrepreneur in his expensive, perfectly fitting clothes. Three years ago, he’d sit for hours at his laptop in a T-shirt and cargo shorts.

“We’re all set for Saturday,” Felicity said. “We’re having the party at Olivia’s inn. I need to take a quick look at it. Everything’s well in hand, but we can talk tomorrow if you’d like.”

“No problem. You’ll do a great job.”

It struck her as more than an offhand comment—as if what she did was so easy anyone could pull off a one-day boot camp of hard-driving, successful entrepreneurs and their aspiring audience. It was Dylan’s first major event, too. But, sure. Anyone could do it.

Felicity gave herself a mental shake. Gabe didn’t necessarily mean that at all. She knew better than to make assumptions. “Are you staying with Mark?” she asked. “Your dad? With Olivia and Dylan at their house? Did a room open up at Olivia’s inn?”

“None of the above.”

“Your grandfather at Rivendell? I don’t think that’s allowed.”

Gabe walked to the back of the car, opened the hatch, took out a duffel bag and shut the hatch with a soft thud.

Why would he need his duffel bag?

He edged toward her. “Remember when you said you owed me for letting you sleep on my couch?” He hoisted his bag’s strap on one shoulder, the light from the house creating shadows on his angular face, making his expression even more difficult to read. He didn’t smile, but he didn’t not smile, either. “I’ve come to collect.”

“You want to sleep on my couch?”