Carla Neggers - Cider Brook

Maybe he should have driven her to Amherst or Boston—away from Knights Bridge.

Or just loaned her a damn tent.

* * *

It was almost dark when he pulled into the gravel driveway just up the road from The Farm at Carriage Hill and parked behind Dylan McCaffrey’s Audi sedan. A new house and barn were going up on the site where Grace Webster, a retired teacher now in her nineties, had lived for more than seventy years. Dylan’s father had bought the property from Grace but hadn’t told his only son. Dylan had found out this past spring, when Olivia had contacted him about the mess in his yard. Before that, he’d never even heard of Knights Bridge.

Justin knew Grace, but she’d been long retired when he was in school. She’d moved to Knights Bridge as a teenager with her father and grandmother. After they’d died, she stayed on in their simple house and taught high-school Latin and English. She never married and had just moved into an assisted living facility in town when Duncan, a respected treasure hunter, had shown up and bought her crumbling old house.

Duncan had died a few months later while on an expedition in Portugal, without revealing the reasons for his interest in Knights Bridge. Dylan had figured out the truth on his own. His father hadn’t come to the little Massachusetts town for treasure but to investigate a long-dead British jewel thief and the young woman he’d met while on the run more than seventy years ago. Grace Webster and Philip Rankin were star-crossed lovers and Duncan’s birth parents.

Philip, a Royal Air Force flyer, had been killed early in World War II and never returned to Grace. She’d secretly delivered their baby boy—Duncan—who’d been adopted by a Boston couple. Grace had never held her son and had never seen him again, until he’d ventured to Knights Bridge seventy years later.

It was a hell of a story that had taken Justin and everyone else in Knights Bridge by surprise, but it had changed Dylan’s life. He had fallen for Olivia Frost and was making a home in Knights Bridge, launching the adventure travel business his father had dreamed they would start together one day.

Not one to let the grass grow under him, Dylan had hired a local architect, drawn up plans for a house and barn that could be used for the business and enlisted Sloan & Sons to do the construction. Justin—one of the sons—was in charge of the project. The foundations were in, and he anticipated finishing basic exterior work before cold weather set in. The original house hadn’t been worth saving. Grace had often said she had considered tearing it down and wasn’t at all sad to see it go, although she’d been pleased when Dylan had put aside bits and pieces to incorporate into the new house.

Olivia was involved in every decision about the construction, particularly those having to do with color. Dylan, she maintained, would default to “cappuccino” if she didn’t step in. Justin had never pictured her with a Southern California businessman and former hockey player worth upward of a hundred million, but no question she and Dylan were right together—a good thing since they were planning a Christmas wedding at Carriage Hill.

As Justin got out of his truck, he noticed the air had cooled even more in the time it had taken for the short drive. The unseasonable humidity had gone with the line of thunderstorms that had moved through. He walked up the driveway to a stack of two-by-fours that had been delivered just before the storm. Dylan was adjusting a blue tarp over the lumber. He wore a sweater, jeans and boots, looking like any other guy in Knights Bridge—except he wasn’t like any other guy in Knights Bridge.

Dylan stood straight. “I just talked to Olivia. She told me about the fire. She said you dropped off the woman you rescued. Damn, Justin. Hell of a day’s work.”

“It wasn’t that big a deal.”

“I imagine this woman thinks otherwise.”

Justin wasn’t too sure about that. “Her name’s Samantha Bennett.”

Dylan’s eyes narrowed. “Someone I should know?”

He obviously didn’t recognize her name. Justin wasn’t surprised, although he would have less explaining to do if Dylan was familiar with her. “She’s not from town.”

“So I gathered.” Dylan, known for his keen instincts about people, stood back. “What’s going on, Justin?”

“I don’t know. Maybe nothing. Your father had me out here when he was in town. I mentioned I’d seen a woman checking out the place a couple of weeks before that. I thought she was his daughter or an assistant or something, but he got quiet, asked me to describe her. He recognized her right away. He told me her name was Samantha Bennett, and she worked for him as an expert on pirates.”

“Pirates.”

“That’s right. He said she was his problem.” Justin left it there. “I never thought much about our conversation after that.”

Dylan nodded thoughtfully. “My father never liked the term treasure hunter. He loved the work, and he was serious about it. I don’t recall him mentioning pirates or a pirate expert—or this woman. Not that he would have. I wasn’t involved in his treasure hunting. Most of his unfinished projects have been taken over by colleagues. I’ve only just started sorting out the orphaned ones.”

“Maybe Samantha is in town to get in on one of them.” Justin rubbed the back of his neck, feeling the effects of fighting the fire. Hauling Samantha Bennett out of the mill hadn’t been a strain at all. She couldn’t weigh more than a few sticks of lumber. “I don’t know what she’s up to, Dylan, but maybe it wasn’t such a great idea to have her stay at Carriage Hill.”

“No, it’s fine. I’ll be there.”

Justin pulled at the tarp, letting loose a small pool of water from the earlier downpour. It streamed onto the ground. “When I described her to your father, it was clear she hadn’t told him she’d been out here.”

Dylan winced. “He wouldn’t like that. Trust was important to him. He worked hard to establish and maintain his reputation. He didn’t take well to anything that might threaten it.”

“Understandable.”

“That doesn’t mean he was thorough. He thought he was good at reading people. He hated taking the time to check people out, even people he hired. He relied on his gut. Usually it worked out, but maybe not in this case.” Dylan looked out at the rolling fields behind his house, dark now with the increasingly shorter days of autumn. “I didn’t know my father had come to Knights Bridge, and I’m his son. How did Samantha Bennett find out?”

“I don’t know.” Justin placed a rock on top of the tarp to hold it in place. “We only had that one conversation about her.”

“Did you recognize her today?”

“Just her name. I don’t know why I remembered it, but I did.”

“And it’s the same Samantha Bennett?”

“Doubt there are two, don’t you?”

Dylan nodded, sighing. “My father never mentioned her to me, but he wouldn’t have. Treasure hunting was his passion.” Dylan’s voice was laced with pain and loss, but he maintained his composure. “Hell, I miss him. I guess I always will.”

“I see that as a good thing,” Justin said simply.

“Yeah, me, too. Anyway, having Samantha stay at Carriage Hill gives us a chance to find out who she is and what she’s up to.”

“I doubt she knows I’m the one who told Duncan about her.”

“Just as well, maybe.”

Justin shrugged. “I’m not worried.”

“You’re not the worrying type,” Dylan said with a grin that quickly faded. “I’ll call Loretta and see if she knows anything about her.”

Justin had met Loretta Wrentham, Dylan’s longtime San Diego attorney and friend, when she’d blown in and out of Knights Bridge a few weeks ago. He’d spent less than ten minutes with her but could easily believe she would be someone Dylan would turn to about a mysterious woman from his father’s past.