“I’m sorry about this, Phoebe.”
“It’s not your fault. If I remember anything else, I’ll let you know, but I’m sure I’ve told you everything.”
He came closer to her. “If you see Hartley or hear from him—”
“I’ll tell you right away.”
“Call me. You have Olivia’s landline, and I’ll give you my private cell phone number.” He gave a small smile. “I had a new phone delivered. I was angry at myself for having lost you and threw my last one in the sink on Saturday morning. I tend to go through phones.”
“You can only take so much intrusion.” When he seemed surprised at her observation, she added, “There’s a core stillness about you, and you concentrate deeply, even if you have a number of thought threads going on at once. My nephew Tyler is a bit like that. Not Aidan.” She paused. “Of course, I don’t know you well. I just observe a lot of people in my work.”
“I imagine you do,” he said. “I want your number, too, Phoebe.”
She saw the relentless entrepreneur in him. The drive. The self-possession. The focus on the next step he had to take—on action. “I understand. Noah, if this man is a threat to you—” She broke off, took a moment to collect her thoughts. “A man in your position must have enemies. If Hartley thinks someone in Knights Bridge is involved in whatever bone he has to pick with you, that could be a problem.”
Noah winked at her. “You have backbone, Princess Phoebe.” He touched the wet bark of a tree. “This is almost the same color as your dress the other night. It was a richer brown.”
“Beautiful, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“I wish—”
When she broke off, he fastened his blue eyes on her, his intensity almost palpable. “You wish what?”
“Nothing. I don’t even know what I was going to say.” Which was true, and not like her. “Thank you for dancing with me. It was fun.”
Noah started to say something but she pulled away from him when she saw her brother-in-law ambling down the road. Thunder rumbled in the distance, to the east, but rays of late-afternoon sun were shining now on puddles and dripping leaves.
“Hey, Phoebe,” Brandon said. “Here for more basil?”
She shook her head. “I gave Noah a ride back from Rivendell. What are you doing here?”
“I’m working up the road,” he said, a tightness to his expression.
“At Dylan’s place?”
He hesitated, then nodded. “That’s right.”
Phoebe tried to contain her surprise. “Does Maggie know? Where are you staying? Are you working for your family?” The questions tumbled out, and she was aware once more of Noah watching her, tuning in to the dynamics between her and her sister’s husband. “Never mind. It’s none of my business.”
“I need to talk to Maggie first,” Brandon said. “She doesn’t know I’m in town. I don’t want to be a distraction. She’s got a lot on her plate.”
“You could be a help,” Phoebe blurted.
“Maybe I could be, but it’s not all up to me, is it? Maggie has a say.” He turned to Noah with a wry smile. “That was Phoebe’s stern librarian voice you just heard. Can you imagine turning in a book late to her? I once had gum stuck in a book I returned. It wasn’t my gum but that’s another story. Phoebe was already volunteering at the library then. What were we, thirteen?”
“About that.” Still reeling from her conversation with Noah, she pointed a finger at her brother-in-law. “You’re putting me in a difficult position, Brandon. I’m not going to get caught between you and Maggie, but I can’t not tell her that you’re in town.”
Brandon was unperturbed. “You don’t have to tell her. I will in about five minutes. She’s on her way over with the boys.” He kept his gaze on Phoebe, the slightest hint of humor in his dark eyes. “I have spies everywhere.”
“Your brothers, you mean.”
He shrugged, as if she’d stated the obvious, then glanced at Noah. “Was I interrupting anything?”
“Nothing,” Phoebe said, answering for Noah. She crossed the road back to her car. “I’ll be on my way. Tell Maggie I said hi.”
Neither man stopped her as she climbed back behind the wheel of her old Subaru.
As soon as she arrived on Thistle Lane, the skies opened up again, but it was just a passing shower, no thunder and lightning. She parked in her driveway, then ran through the rain onto the porch. Soaked and shivering, she sat on a wicker chair, smelling roses and wet summer grass and thinking about Noah Kendrick’s hand on her cheek.
Eleven
Maggie fidgeted, grabbing a canvas bag of who-knew-what out of the back of her catering van just to give herself something to do, fussing at Aidan and Tyler when they jumped out of the back straight into a puddle. She didn’t care one way or the other whether they got wet or muddied their shoes, and she wasn’t at Carriage Hill to cook. She was just checking on the place.