Carla Neggers - Cider Brook

Samantha hoped her own dealings with the Sloans had ended that afternoon. She wanted to know more about the cider mill, but she would figure out a way to get information without involving its present owner.

“Knights Bridge seems like a great town,” she said.

“I love it,” Olivia said without hesitation. “I lived in Boston for a while, but I always wanted to come back home to Knights Bridge. Dylan still has a house in San Diego. Coronado, actually. We were just out there. It’s gorgeous.”

“Will you two divide your time between here and San Diego?”

“We’ll see. I’m trying not to launch myself too far into the future.”

Samantha stood up from the table, her legs steadier under her than she would have guessed they would be. The soup and conversation had helped. She hadn’t touched the bread. As good as it looked, her mind was now on cake and snuggling under the comforter in her pretty room upstairs.

Waiting until morning to meet Dylan McCaffrey seemed like a smart idea, too.

“You definitely look beat,” Olivia said, easing to her feet. “I’ll get you your cake.”

She went to the counter, lifting the glass lid off the round, double-layer cake, just the tiniest sliver already cut out of it. She grabbed a knife from a rack and cut a generous slice of the cake, setting it on a small plate.

Samantha stifled a yawn. “I guess I am falling over.”

“Please, go on up to your room and relax.”

“Tea, cake and a warm bed do sound great right now.”

“I’ll make tea and bring it up with the cake.” Olivia raised a hand, stifling any protest from Samantha. “I’m happy to do it. You’ve had a tough day. Relax and make yourself at home.”

Samantha was tempted to tell Olivia about her connection to Dylan’s father. She hadn’t lied, but she hadn’t been forthcoming, either. She was too rattled to trust herself to be able to explain properly. She didn’t want to end up causing more problems than she solved.

Best to head up to her room, keep to herself and call it a night.

* * *

After her cake and tea, Samantha changed into her flannel pajamas—which didn’t smell that smoky—and sat cross-legged on her bed under the comforter, her back against an array of fluffy pillows.

She breathed deeply, listening to an owl outside her window.

It was such a tranquil spot.

She knew how to settle in to new places. A ship sailing the Caribbean Sea, a friend’s apartment in Paris, her aunt and uncle’s house in the Cotswolds, her grandfather’s house in Boston and apartment in London. She had no home base of her own, but she’d always liked being able to pick up and leave a place without a lot of fuss. Her grandfather had enough possessions to keep her mind off anything she might want to buy for herself. She couldn’t figure out what he’d wanted even with a tenth of what she’d sorted through so far.

The owl went quiet. She couldn’t hear anything now, not a passing car, not even a breeze. She couldn’t see Duncan ever making his home in Knights Bridge. He’d seemed more suited to Los Angeles, where she’d first met him—after she’d heard about his interest in Knights Bridge and she’d ventured out here.

She lifted her documents pouch off the bedside table and opened it, pulling out the copy of the tri-folded, yellowed handwritten pages she’d found in her grandfather’s office closet. The original was still safe at his Boston house. As painstaking and tedious as it could be at times, Samantha had to admit that going through his cluttered house and apartment had brought her closer to him. She knew him better in some ways now than she ever had in his long life.

She smiled at the feminine cursive handwriting.

The Adventures of Captain Farraday and Lady Elizabeth

She had no idea how the captivating tale had ended up in her grandfather’s possession, or what it could possibly have to do with the real Benjamin Farraday or a painting of a nineteenth-century New England cider mill.

She put the pages aside and pulled out a 1903 map of the Swift River Valley, then an idyllic setting of picturesque towns and villages. She carefully unfolded the worn, yellowed sheet onto the comforter. The towns of Prescott, Enfield, Dana and Greenwich lay before her. By most accounts, they had been blissful places, but as early as the late-nineteenth century, engineers and politicians had eyed the valley as a potential site for a massive reservoir, given its abundance of streams, rivers and lakes. Less than a hundred miles from Boston, the valley’s upland location meant a reservoir there could deliver water through an elaborate aqueduct by gravity alone, eliminating the need for artificial filtration. The planners had been right. Damming Beaver Brook and the three branches of the Swift River that wound through the valley had solved Boston’s water problem for the foreseeable future. It had also dislocated thousands of people.

Samantha ran her fingertips over lakes, roads and landmarks that were long gone from the landscape. So few were left who remembered life in the lost towns. She touched hills where children once sledded that were now uninhabited islands surrounded by the beautiful waters of the reservoir. She traced the twists and turns of the middle branch of the Swift River, long before it had been allowed to overflow its banks and flood the surrounding valley.

She located the faded line that was Cider Brook.

What if she’d simply told Duncan McCaffrey the truth?

But she hadn’t, and not without reason.

Seven

Loretta Wrentham paced in her La Jolla living room. She didn’t want to fly back East to Knights Bridge. She’d been there recently, and it was a pleasant town and the people were nice—but she didn’t want to go again this soon. She would be flying out there for Dylan and Olivia’s Christmas wedding, and she had things to do at home.

Such as figure out what to do about this Hollywood private investigator.

Damn him.

His name was Julius Hartley, and he was a smart, sardonic, all-too-good-looking, all-too-knowing divorced father of two grown daughters. He was sitting on her butter-colored leather couch with one arm across the back and one leg thrown over the other as he watched her pace. He had on golf clothes and looked as if he’d just stepped out of an expensive country club. Loretta hated golf.

He was also a private investigator for a law firm in Los Angeles. She swore he knew where every skeleton in Southern California was buried, locked or cremated.

One of those skeletons had brought him to her attention in August and then led to her traveling with him to Knights Bridge.

It was all crazy, confusing, complicated and more fun than either of them had had in a long time.

Without pausing, Loretta threaded her fingers through her short gray hair. She’d stopped dyeing it when she’d turned fifty. Instead of thinking she was older because of the gray, people thought she was younger. Hell if she could figure out that one, but she was good with it.

Julius uncrossed his legs and put both feet flat on her floor. “What do you know about Samantha Bennett?”

Loretta stopped dead in her tracks. “Samantha Bennett? Why do you ask?”

He shrugged, all innocence. “I overheard you on the phone with Dylan.”

Of course. That made sense. Julius might not even have been eavesdropping, although she wouldn’t put it past him. But she’d shrieked. Samantha Bennett was the last name she’d expected to hear Dylan utter. She hadn’t uttered it herself in the two years since his father’s death.

“You have to fire her, Duncan. You have no choice.”

“I know, I know.”

Loretta composed herself. She hadn’t told Dylan all or even a lot of what she knew about Samantha. She needed time to get her bearings. She’d promised to call him later tonight or in the morning. He’d been intrigued but patient, obviously sensing that he’d stepped into another emotional minefield that involved his late father.