Carla Neggers - Keeper's Reach

“Did Mason say anything else?” Mike asked.

“He gave me a few more names. I wrote them down, too. My mind’s a sieve these days. Let me see. One’s a woman’s name, I remember that.” Another long pause, more paper shuffling. “Here we go. Buddy Whidmore, Ted Kavanagh and Naomi MacBride. Mr. Mason says he expects them to be at the Plum Tree in addition to Reed Cooper.”

Mike absorbed the silence of his isolated stretch of the Atlantic coast. The snow blanketing the evergreens that dominated the woods on three sides of his cabin muffled any sounds. He could hear, faintly, the wash of the incoming tide. Sixty years ago, his grandfather, his mother’s father, a Rock Point harbormaster, had built the cabin as a getaway. He had never lived up here full-time. Mike had since leaving the army.

“Mike? Are you still there?”

“Still here.”

“Who are these people?”

“I knew them when I was in the army.”

“Were any of them with the Special Forces?” his mother asked.

“Reed and Jamie. Kavanagh was with the FBI. At least he was then. I don’t know if he’s retired or quit.”

“Does Colin know him?”

“I’ve never mentioned Kavanagh to Colin. No reason to.”

A moment’s silence. “What about the other two?” his mother asked finally.

Mike set his paring knife in the scratched stainless-steel sink, but he was seeing Naomi’s smile. “Civilian.” He tried to keep any tension out of his voice. “Buddy’s a tech guy. Naomi was with the State Department.”

“A diplomat?”

“I guess you could say that.”

“I don’t understand why they would come to Maine in February. The Plum Tree must have given them a good deal or something.”

“If I knew what was going on, I’d tell you.”

She didn’t respond at once. He wasn’t sure how well she could hear him, but he figured she wasn’t going to gripe about the lousy connection. It was better than nothing. She had been after him for months to get a cell phone rather than to rely on the landline at the general store.

“I hope these people aren’t a problem for you,” she said.

“They’re not. I’m glad you called. What are you and Pop up to this weekend?”

“Emma is heading up here tomorrow afternoon. She’s staying at the convent for two nights, and I’m taking her to lunch on Saturday. She’ll be on her own. I’m looking forward to spending some time with her. I’ve never had a daughter, and Emma will be my first daughter-in-law.”

Mike smiled, despite his tension. His mother’s tone said “it’s about time” even if she would never utter those words out loud. He doubted she’d ever imagined one of her sons marrying a woman like Emma Sharpe. An FBI agent, maybe. But an FBI agent who was also a member of a family of renowned art detectives? An ex-nun? Mike, the eldest, had put aside his own doubts about Emma in the months since Colin, the second-born Donovan, had met her, fallen for her and asked her to marry him.

“Mike...” His mother hesitated. “This Reed Cooper...”

“It’ll be fine. Don’t worry. Have a good time with Emma.”

When she disconnected, Mike could tell she wasn’t satisfied. She might not be able to put her finger on exactly why, but she had well-honed instincts after all this time. Her four sons had been in plenty of jams—and she was well aware she didn’t know about all of them and there were likely more to come. Mike was ex-army living out on the Bold Coast as a wilderness guide and outfitter. Colin was an FBI agent based in Boston. Andy was a lobsterman. Kevin was a Maine state marine patrol officer.

Frank Donovan, their father, would just tell his wife, “The boys know what they’re doing.”

Sometimes it was true. Not always.

Mike stepped outside onto the porch. He had his grandfather’s old wooden canoe turned over on a rack. It needed work. Winter was a good time to fix things that the busy warm-weather months didn’t allow time for. He had the occasional backcountry skier or snowshoe group request his skills as a wilderness guide and outfitter, but not many people were interested in a trek along the icebound cliffs of the Bold Coast in the dead of winter.

Even in summer, he seldom had company. On a cold February night, he might see a white-tailed deer or a moose, but otherwise he had his spot in paradise to himself. His clients never came to his place, winter or summer. He would meet them at the general store in the village a few miles down the road. Some of them would ask, “Hey, Mike, where do you live?” He would say, “On the coast,” as if it could be anywhere on Maine’s more than three thousand miles of coastline.

The sun first hit the Continental United States on the Bold Coast, and he liked to be up for it, no matter what time. It was noticeably earlier now that it was late February. That morning the ocean had glowed with shades of deep orange, red and purple. Now it reflected the night sky of sparkling stars and a quarter moon.

He breathed in the salt-tinged air and listened to the tide wash over ice, rocks and sand. He liked to tell himself this place wasn’t an escape, as it had been for his grandfather. He lived here.

His mother wanted him to get a dog. Dogs are good company , she would tell him.

His father had been more direct: There must be women up there.

If his parents guessed there had been a woman during their firstborn’s time in the army, they didn’t say.

Mike had no photos of Naomi MacBride.

He didn’t need any. Every inch of her was etched in his mind forever. He could see her wide smile and dark, wild, curly hair. He could hear her laughter—she had an indomitable sense of humor—and he could feel her skin, hot and smooth, under his hands.

He turned away from the water and walked back to his cabin.

* * *

An ancient Vermont Castings woodstove served as the cabin’s sole source of heat. It had to be tended, but Mike had people who could do that for him when he was away. He might like his solitude but that didn’t mean he was without friends.

He checked his phone. No texts or emails.

He put another log on the fire and went back to cooking his dinner. He sautéed garlic, ginger, green beans, ground beef, soy sauce and rice vinegar and made brown rice. The kind of meal he could eat for a couple of days.

He dumped his dinner on a plate and sat by the fire.

Should he tell his FBI brother about another FBI agent coming to Maine this weekend for a get-together with private security contractors?

Probably, but Mike didn’t see any big rush. He’d call Colin in the morning.

He felt the heat of the fire and tried to remember the last time he had allowed himself to think about Naomi. Months, anyway. A year? Longer?

Not longer.

He didn’t know what he would do about Reed Cooper and the gathering at the Plum Tree. He did know that nothing good ever happened when Naomi MacBride was anywhere near his life.

It was something he couldn’t let himself forget.

4

Near Stow-on-the-Wold, the Cotswolds, England Thursday, 8:00 a.m., BST

The insistent crow of a rooster and the smell of rain roused Naomi MacBride from a not-so-dead sleep. She rolled onto her back and opened her eyes, trying to shake off dreams of a life and a man she had left behind years ago. She was in England, in a quiet Cotswolds village two hours west of London. It was February, and from the crowing rooster, she would guess it was morning, although it was still quite dark. She was in a double four-poster bed in a cute room in a small building located across the courtyard of a classic English pub complete with low, beamed ceilings and a huge open fireplace. She’d had a pint there last night before venturing into her room and falling into bed. It had been a long week.