Phoebe watched him walk in the shade. He was one of the wealthiest people in the country, brilliant, successful, a master fencer, an expert in karate. As far as she could see, he was just missing the black cape, mask and sword at his side to be a real swashbuckler.
Had her seamstress looked out at the window at a man crossing the common, yearned for him—for a life other than the one she had, tucked up here with her fabrics and sewing notions?
Phoebe’s throat tightened at the thought of the carefully conjugated French verbs. A student doing homework, or a young woman dreaming of a different life?
Noah disappeared from her view. Phoebe shut the corner door, the little children rolling in the grass now, playing some kind of game.
Who was she kidding?
This Monday wasn’t like last Monday. Last Monday, she hadn’t met Noah Kendrick.
She left the hidden room, ran down the stairs and got back to work.
*
Phoebe left the library at four, as she did every Monday, and dropped off books at Rivendell, an assisted-living facility on a ridge just outside the village center. As she carried a box of fiction and nonfiction titles to the main entrance, she could see a peek of Quabbin in the distance, its pristine waters barely visible in the steamy haze. A number of the elderly residents remembered the Swift River Valley before it was flooded, and several were from the lost towns, including Grace Webster, Dylan’s newly discovered grandmother.
After leaving the books in the reading room, Phoebe went down a wide corridor to the sunroom, its tall windows overlooking the center’s beautifully landscaped grounds. Grace was seated next to Audrey Frost, Olivia’s grandmother, each with a set of binoculars. Grace, a retired teacher in her nineties, was an avid bird-watcher. Audrey, a former bookkeeper at the high school and a few years younger than Grace, was always up for a new hobby and was getting into the spirit of things.
“Phoebe, so good to see you, dear,” Audrey said, lowering her binoculars. She had told Phoebe that she loved assisted living because she didn’t have to cook every meal for herself, although she could if she wanted to, and she could still have her car. “Did you bring us some good books? Your friend says he saw you at the library this morning.”
Phoebe frowned. “My friend?”
“Noah Kendrick,” Grace said. “You know him, don’t you? He’s Dylan’s business associate and friend from San Diego.”
“He was here?”
“He still is here,” Audrey said. “He stepped outside for a minute to look at the view.”
Phoebe sank into a cushioned rocker and looked out at the array of bird feeders just outside the sunroom. They were empty now but would be kept filled over the winter. Bird-watching was a favorite activity for Rivendell residents.
The two older women eyed her. In addition to her work at the school, Audrey Frost had helped her late husband in his business specializing in custom reproduction millwork. Their son, Randy Frost, Olivia’s father, now ran the mill with his wife. It was located behind a nineteenth-century sawmill the Frosts had converted into a residence.
Until recently, people in Knights Bridge would have said they knew all there was to know about Grace Webster’s life. She’d moved to Knights Bridge as a teenager with her father and grandmother and became an English and Latin teacher. She’d lived out on Carriage Hill Road until two years ago, when she’d sold her house to Duncan McCaffrey and relocated to Rivendell. But Grace had her secrets. As a teenager, her family facing expulsion from their home ahead of the damming of the Swift River for Quabbin, she’d created a hideaway in a cabin on a small pond and met a British flyer on the run. They’d fallen in love, but he’d gone back to England, promising to return.
With a war on, starting her life over in a new town, Grace had discovered she was pregnant and realized her British flyer wasn’t coming back to her. She gave birth to a baby boy in a Boston area hospital, put him up for adoption and went back home to Knights Bridge, only her grandmother and father ever aware of her secret.
Seventy years later, Dylan’s treasure-hunting father showed up in Knights Bridge and unearthed the story of his birth mother—met her—just before he died. Only he’d failed to tell his son, leaving Dylan to find out on his own. Even Grace hadn’t realized that the handsome daredevil in his early seventies was the baby she’d never even held.
Phoebe felt a rush of emotion, as she did whenever she thought of Grace’s story. No one in town had ever guessed. People were still getting used to the idea that the starchy retired teacher was Dylan McCaffrey’s grandmother.
Phoebe realized that Audrey Frost was peering at her. “What’s on your mind, Phoebe?” the older woman asked.
She collected her thoughts. “I was wondering if you remember anyone from your days at the high school who was especially good at sewing, maybe took French and had an interest in Hollywood. She might have worked at the library, either as an employee or a volunteer.”