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Olivia wasn’t sure she wanted answers. They were moot questions now, anyway.
“Make friends with a plumber or a kindergarten teacher or something,” her father had advised. “Forget other designers. They’re your competition.”
It wasn’t how Olivia viewed herself or the creative world in which she operated, but now she wondered if he didn’t have a point.
She loved her little apartment and she loved Boston, but as she lifted her winter coat, she knew she was done. It was spring. The wintry weather would end. The magnolias would soon be in bloom on Commonwealth Avenue. All would be well, she thought as she put on her coat. She’d head back to work, but as she locked her apartment door behind her, she pictured the herbs on the windowsill and knew, deep in her gut, that it was time to make a change.
It was time to go home to Knights Bridge.
Olivia didn’t wait. She got busy that night, packing her books and calling her sister to borrow her truck. The next morning, she gave Jacqui official notice. Jacqui asked her to stay, but she also indicated she was open to having Olivia freelance. Roger Bailey had finally called, first Olivia, then Jacqui, to explain his defection to Marilyn Bryson. He insisted it wasn’t a reflection on Olivia’s work. He just needed a fresh eye.
Jacqui was obviously disappointed but also philosophical. “You know this business, Liv. The only constant is change.”
She did know.
A week later, when Jessica Frost arrived on Marlborough Street in her pickup truck, Olivia had what she wanted from her apartment ready to go. She and Jess would load everything into the truck themselves.
“I don’t know how you lasted here all this time,” Jess said as a cockroach scurried across the kitchen floor.
Olivia smiled. “It’s only the occasional cockroach. I think it’s because I stirred things up in here when I started packing.”
“Oh, that’s reassuring.”
Jess, eighteen months younger, was blunt to a fault, as pragmatic as their father and as caring as their mother. She wore a faded blue plaid flannel shirt over jeans that were baggy on her slender frame. Her hair, as dark as Olivia’s, was chin length but still managed to look wild and unruly. Her eyes were flat-out green, not Olivia’s hazel mix. Her sister’s one concession to not looking as if she had just stepped out of a barn was a silver Celtic-knot necklace, a present from Mark Flanagan, a Knights Bridge architect who specialized in historic preservation and restoration. Olivia, and no doubt everyone else in town, expected an engagement ring would be forthcoming.
It was Mark who had introduced Olivia to Roger Bailey in the first place.
“How long are you keeping your apartment?” Jess asked.
“Through April, at least. I’ll be freelancing for a while, but my landlord won’t have trouble finding another renter when the time comes.”
“You’ll miss Boston.”
“It’s not even two hours from Knights Bridge. I’m not moving to Tucson.”
Jess lifted a box of dishes. “Have you decided on a name for this getaway of yours?”
“I have. I’m calling it The Farm at Carriage Hill. What do you think?”
“Love it.” Jess headed through the kitchen into the living room with her box, but stopped abruptly at a large open box on the floor. She glanced back at Olivia. “Why do you have a hundred sets of sheets?”
Olivia smiled at her sister’s exaggeration. It was at most fifty sheets—a lot, she knew, by most standards. “They’re antique sheets. I’ve been collecting them at flea markets and yard sales and such.”
“What are you going to do with them?”
“I don’t know. Something will come to me.”
Jess shrugged. “You’re the one with the creative flair.”
When they finished loading the truck, they threw a blue tarp over the back and secured it with bungee cords as best they could. Olivia could have hired a mover but why spend the money? She had always watched her expenses. A good thing, she thought, now that she wasn’t drawing a regular paycheck. In the back of her mind, especially lately, she had known she would go back to her hometown one day and start her own business. Over the past week she had wondered if that was part of the reason she hadn’t experienced the kind of explosive success Marilyn was enjoying. Then she reminded herself that she had enjoyed great success and was still a sought-after designer.
Her sister was frowning at her and Olivia forced herself to stop thinking about the past. She couldn’t let Marilyn get to her. Marilyn was a superb designer. Her work was striking a chord with people. Olivia didn’t want anything bad to happen to a friend, even if that friend had betrayed her trust and dropped her once she was no longer of use.
She’d just learn to watch her back.
“No one’s here to see you off?” Jess asked.
“It’s a workday and I’m not going far.”
As she pulled open the passenger door, Olivia felt a sense of excitement tempered by no small measure of uncertainty at what lay ahead. Maybe on some level she was running from failure and disappointment, but she was also running to something. A new life. A new set of challenges.
“All set,” Jess said, climbing in on the driver’s side. She gave her sister a sideways glance. “Are you sure you don’t want to change your mind?”
“Positive.”
“It’s warmer here than at home. We still have snow on the ground.”
Olivia settled into the passenger seat with her little pots of herb seedlings on her lap. The dill was tall enough to tickle her chin. “I know, Jess. I was just there.”
“All right, then. Let’s go.” Jess was still obviously unconvinced. “Olivia, are you sure—”
“I’m sure.”
“Nothing’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong.”
“Liv—”
“It’s just time to make a change, Jess. That’s all.”
Her sister gripped the steering wheel. “It’s Marilyn Bryson, isn’t it? She’s done something. Flaming narcissist. Never mind. You’ll tell me if you want to. I’m not going to pry.”
Olivia said nothing, watching out her window as urban sprawl gave way to rolling hills and fields.
The Farm at Carriage Hill…
It was perfect, she thought. Just perfect.
A winding, off-the-beaten track road led from the main highway to Knights Bridge, often cited as one of the prettiest villages in New England. Situated on the edge of the Quabbin Reservoir and its protected watershed, the village had changed little in the past century, at least in appearance. Olivia watched the familiar landmarks pass by: the white church, the brick library, the town hall, the general store, the school, the pristine town common surrounded by classic houses, the oldest built in 1794, the newest in 1912. When her historic house came onto the market in October, the idea of converting it into a getaway had seemed more like a fantasy than a realistic goal. Regardless, she had expected to keep her job and apartment in Boston for the foreseeable future.
Jess was silent as she turned onto a narrow road just past the village center and navigated a series of potholes as they came to an intersection with an even narrower road. Olivia grimaced at the run-down house on the corner. The whole place had become an eyesore. The house, built in 1842, was in desperate need of repair, its narrow white clapboards peeling, sections missing from its black shutters, its roof sagging. If possible, the yard was worse, overgrown and littered with junk.
Its one redeeming feature was its location, one of the most beautiful and desirable in Knights Bridge with its sloping lawn, mature shade trees, lilacs, mountain laurel, surrounding fields and woods—and, peeking in the distance, the crystal-clear waters of the Quabbin Reservoir.
Jess downshifted as she turned onto the quiet one-lane road. They were only two miles from the village center, but it seemed farther. “Mark says the house should be condemned.”
“At least someone should clear the junk out of the yard. Grace hasn’t seen it, has she? She’d be devastated.”
“I don’t think she’s been back here since she moved out.”
Olivia noticed a rusted refrigerator on its side amid brambles, melting snow and brown, wet leaves. Whoever had bought the house two years ago from Grace Webster, a retired English and Latin teacher, hadn’t done a thing to it.
“How did a refrigerator end up in the yard?” Olivia asked.
“I don’t know,” Jess said. “Kids, probably. The house has sat empty for two years. There’s a washing machine, too.”
Indeed there was.
Olivia had asked her friend Maggie O’Dunn, a local caterer, to find out what she could about the absentee owner. So far, Maggie had discovered only that it was an older gentleman from out west. California, probably. Maggie, however, was sure that her mother, Elly, who worked at the town offices, could produce a name and address.
“Why would someone from California buy a house in Knights Bridge and then disappear?” Olivia asked.
Jess shook her head. “No idea.”
The Websters had moved to Knights Bridge more than seventy years ago, after they were forced out of their home in one of the Swift River Valley towns that was depopulated and flooded for the reservoir. Grace was a teenager then. She never married and lived in her family home alone until a small assisted living facility opened in town and she finally decided to move.
Olivia pondered the situation as the truck rattled down the road to her own house, a gem set among open fields, stone walls and traditional, well-established landscaping. When the house was built in 1803, the road wound into a pretty valley village, now under water. These days the road led to a Quabbin gate, then through what was now a wilderness and eventually straight into the reservoir itself, a reminder that, as beautiful as it was, it was a product of both man and nature.
Jess pulled into the gravel driveway. “Do you want to wait for Dad and Mark to get off work, or shall we unload the truck ourselves?”
“We loaded it ourselves. We can unload it. Unless you have something else you need to do—”
“Nope. I’m all yours for the day.”
“Thanks, Jess.”
“No problem. It’ll be great having you back in town.”
Olivia got out of the truck, herb seedlings cuddled in her arms like little babies. The air was cold, clean, smelling faintly of wet leaves. “Home sweet home,” she whispered, even as she felt a stab of panic at the uncertainty of her future.
Jess joined her on the driveway. “It’s so quiet here. You’re close to the village, but that way…” She paused and gestured down the road, toward Quabbin. “That way, Liv, it’s nothing but wilderness and water for miles and miles.”
Olivia smiled. “I know. It’s perfect.”
“So you say now. Wait until it’s two o’clock on a moonless night, and it’s just you out here with the bats, bears, eagles and mountain lions.”
“There’s been no confirmed sighting of mountain lions yet in Quabbin.”
“I wouldn’t want you to be the first to see one,” Jess said with a grin.
They went inside before unloading the truck. The rustic, homey kitchen, in an ell off the original 1803 structure, was washed in the bright midday light. Her friend Maggie had left a lunch basket and a milk-glass pitcher of forced forsythia on the table, a square, battered piece of junk Olivia had discovered at a yard sale and repaired and painted a warm, cheerful white.
She felt some of her tension ease. It was almost as if the forsythia were smiling at her. Suddenly she couldn’t wait to get her stuff from Boston into the house and make it feel like home.
Jess lifted chocolate chip cookies, apples and cloth napkins out of the basket. “Lunch first, or unload the truck first?”
Olivia opened the refrigerator and found sandwiches and a mason jar of tea. She grinned at her sister. “I’m starving. My question is whether we have the cookies first or the sandwiches first.”
Jess handed her an index card she found in the basket. “Maggie left you a note.”
Olivia glanced at her friend’s messy handwriting: Mom came through with info on the owner of Grace Webster’s old house.
Maggie had jotted down a name and address.
“Dylan McCaffrey,” Olivia said, not recognizing the name. “Ever hear of him, Jess?”
Her sister bit into an apple. “Uh-uh.”
It was a San Diego address. Far away for the owner of a wreck of a house in Knights Bridge to be living.
Olivia slid the card under the edge of the pitcher of forsythia. She didn’t care where Dylan McCaffrey lived or why he’d bought the house up the road. She just wanted him to clean up the place.
Two
The note was handwritten on a simple yet elegant white card decorated with a sprig of purple clover. It came with a half-dozen color photographs in a matching envelope, also with a clover sprig. Dylan McCaffrey pushed back his chair, put his size-twelve leather shoes on his desk and contemplated his twentieth-story view of San Diego, which, on a good day, such as today, was nothing short of breathtaking.
Who the hell was Olivia Frost, and where the hell was Knights Bridge, Massachusetts?
Dylan read the note again. The handwriting was neat, legible and feminine, done in forest-green ink—probably a fountain pen.
Dear Mr. McCaffrey,
We’ve never met, but I’m your neighbor in Knights Bridge. I own the center-chimney 1803 house just down the road from your house.
Dylan stopped right there. What was a center-chimney house, and why was he supposed to care?
He gritted his teeth and continued reading:
You might not be aware of this, but your house is in rough shape. The structure itself isn’t my concern, but the yard is. It’s overgrown and strewn with junk, including, as you can see from the enclosed photographs, a discarded refrigerator.
He had lined up the photographs side by side on his dark wood desk. He glanced at the leftmost one. It did, in fact, show a rusted white refrigerator cast on its side amid brambles and melting snow. The fridge had to be at least thirty years old. Maybe older. He wasn’t an expert on refrigerators.
He returned to the note:
I understand if you’re unable to clean up the yard yourself and would like to offer to do it myself, with your permission. Of course, I’ll waive any liability if I get hurt, and if I find anything of value, I’ll let you know.
My family runs a small business in town that specializes in architectural reproductions and components—doors, windows, mantels and so forth. We’ve been in Knights Bridge for generations. I would hate to get the town involved in this matter. I look forward to putting it behind us and meeting you one day soon.
Thank you so much,
Olivia Frost
Whoever she was, Dylan suspected Olivia Frost thought the man she was writing to was old, or at least feeble. He was neither. He had to admire how she managed to offer help at the same time she threatened to sic the town on him, an outsider. His main issue with her note, however, was more immediate and direct.
He didn’t own property in Knights Bridge, Massachusetts.
He dropped his feet back to the floor and tapped a few keys on his laptop, pinpointing the town on a map of Massachusetts. It was on the northern edge of what appeared to be a large lake, the largest by far in the small New England state.
He sat back.
Knights Bridge and Olivia Frost still didn’t ring any bells.
He was about to zoom in for a closer view when Noah Kendrick entered the sprawling corner office. The door was open. Noah and Dylan had been best friends since first grade in a Los Angeles suburb. Noah, the genius geek. Dylan, the C-student hockey player. Now they were business partners, except it wasn’t that simple. Dylan owed Noah his livelihood and maybe even his life. Noah said the same thing about Dylan, but it wasn’t true and they both knew it. NAK, Inc., was Noah’s brainchild, a four-year-old, highly profitable high-tech entertainment software company named for him—Noah Andrew Kendrick. Dylan had just helped put it together and keep it together. He knew how to fight. Noah didn’t.
“What’s up?” Noah asked.
Noah had on, as always, a black suit. He didn’t care that he looked like an undertaker. He thought black made him look older and tougher. He was thirty-three, but even in his suit, he looked much younger. He was fair and angular and had to be coaxed into sunlight. He was deceptively tough and fit—a fencer and a brown belt in karate.
Dylan was the opposite. He was thirty-four but looked older. He and Noah had met in first grade and graduated high school the same year, but Dylan had repeated kindergarten after his mother decided she should have held him back a year to begin with. The school didn’t disagree. Everyone said it was because of his September birthday. Maybe, but he’d never been a great student.
He’d discovered ice hockey in fifth grade. No looking back after that. After twenty years on the ice, finishing up in the NHL three years ago, he was fit, scarred and lucky to have all his teeth. He could clean up a yard in New England if he needed to, even a yard with a refrigerator in the brambles.
Unlike Noah, Dylan wore jeans and a sweater. No suit, black or otherwise, today. He only donned a suit when necessary, such as when he had to be a fly on the wall for one of Noah’s meetings and warn him that someone was a jackass who should be thrown out the nearest window.
Not that Dylan had ever thrown anyone out a window or ever would. He could give the heave-ho to most people he met. He knew how, and he had the strength. His gift, however, was his keen instinct—at least compared to Noah—for people who were looking to cause trouble.
He sighed at his friend. “I didn’t buy a farm in Massachusetts when I was drinking Guinness one night, did I?”
“Not that I recall. Have you ever been to Massachusetts?”
“Boston Garden when we played the Bruins. Since then, I’ve visited Alec Wiskovich a few times. He’s a former teammate. Otherwise…that’s it.”
Noah leaned over his shoulder. “Go to street view.”
Dylan did, and in a moment a quaint village with clapboard houses and shade trees materialized on his screen.
“No horses and buggies, at least,” Noah said. “Who’s the letter from?”
“Louisa May Alcott.” Dylan handed over the note card.
Noah gave a low, amused whistle as he read. “Do you have a great-uncle Dylan McCaffrey? Maybe Olivia Frost confused you with him.”
“No.”
Noah, of course, knew that Dylan had no family left on the McCaffrey side. His father, an only child, had died two years ago. His grandparents were gone, too.
“Maybe it’s a long-lost uncle,” Noah said, placing the note next to the photos lined up on Dylan’s desk. “I bet Miss Frost will fly out here and smack your hand with a ruler if you don’t clean up the place. What’s The Farm at Carriage Hill?”
“The what?”
“It’s on the card. See?”
Noah tapped a finger on the back of the note card, The Farm at Carriage Hill printed in dark purple lettering. Dylan had missed it. He did a quick search but nothing came up anywhere in Massachusetts, never mind Knights Bridge.
“I guess a farm would explain the chives on the front of the card,” Noah said.
“I thought it was clover.”
“Chives are more romantic than clover, don’t you think?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever thought about chives or clover.”
Noah grinned. “Good luck. Let me know if you need my help.”
“With moving the refrigerator or figuring out why Olivia Frost thinks I own this house?”
“Either one,” Noah said.
He withdrew from Dylan’s office. His own was just down the hall, at least for the moment. NAK had gone public late last year. He and Noah had both made a fortune in the process, but NAK as a public company was different from it as a private company. The tight team of the early years was transforming into something else, and Dylan wasn’t sure what his new role would be, or if he’d have one. He’d always been willing to walk away when Noah no longer needed him.
He looked out at the view of his adopted city and dialed Loretta Wrentham, his lawyer and financial manager.
He worked for another two hours, then drove out to his house on Coronado Island, a two-story tan stucco built in the 1950s. Kidney-shaped pool out back, the Pacific in front. Loretta arrived thirty minutes later, glanced at the note card and photographs from Olivia Frost that he’d arranged on his coffee table, then walked straight across the living room to the beveled glass door that led onto his front porch. At five-nine, Loretta was almost as tall as he was, slender and impeccably dressed. Her silver curls were cut short, emphasizing her wide brown eyes, high cheekbones and strong chin.
“You inherited the house from your father,” she said, cracking open the door. She wore expensive jeans, a silky top and heels that didn’t seem to bother her but would kill most other women half her age. She glanced back at him. “I assumed you knew.”
“How would I know?”
“He was your father, Dylan. Didn’t you two talk about these things?”
“No. What about a mortgage?”
“There isn’t one. He paid cash. It wasn’t an expensive property.”
“What about property taxes? What about upkeep?”
“I’ve paid property taxes on your behalf. They’re not high. Upkeep…” Loretta grimaced. “No one’s lived in the house for a while. It was unoccupied when your father bought it shortly before his untimely death. Upkeep is minimal, just enough to prevent the pipes from freezing.”
“Who was the original owner?”
“A woman by the name of Grace Webster. I should say she’s the most recent owner. The house was built in 1842. The original owner would be dead by now for sure.”
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
Loretta grinned as she pushed the door open wide. “Oh, yes.”
Dylan leaned against the back of the couch. His house, a few blocks from the famed Hotel del Coronado, was professionally decorated in shades of cream and brown. Restful and sophisticated, supposedly. The yard, too, was professionally landscaped. No junk.
“What do you know about this Grace Webster?” he asked.
“Not much. She’s in her nineties.” Loretta stepped onto the porch, her back to him as she took in the view of the Pacific. Finally she turned to him. “Her father bought the house in 1938, after the state forced everyone out of their hometown to make way for the Quabbin Reservoir.”
That had to be the lake Dylan had seen on the map.
“Quabbin,” Loretta continued, still clearly amused, “is a Native American word that means ‘place of many waters,’ or ‘meeting of the waters.’ It refers to the Swift River Valley, which was laced with three branches of the Swift River and multiple streams—the perfect location for a reservoir.”
“Loretta,” Dylan said.
She waved a perfectly manicured hand at him. “Miss Webster’s ancestors settled in the valley in the mid-1700s. Two hundred years later, she and her family were forcibly bought out, along with everyone else in four towns, so the state could dam the valley and let it fill up with fresh water for metropolitan Boston. It’s one of the most egregious examples of eminent domain in U.S. history. I’d love to fight that case now.”
Dylan had no doubt, but he was lost. “How did you find all this out?”
“Internet. Our Grace is quoted in an interview with some of the last living residents of the valley before it was flooded. She’s a retired high school English and Latin teacher. She never married.”
Dylan considered his predicament, and the note from Olivia Frost. He couldn’t even guess why his father had bought the house, or why there was a cast-off refrigerator in the yard.
He joined his attorney and friend on the porch. A vibrant sunset filled up the sky and glowed on the Pacific across the street. “What do I do?” he asked.
“It’s your property,” Loretta said, gazing out at the sunset. “You can do whatever you want. Sell it, renovate it, give it away. Move in.”