Why was Brandon back working with his family?
It wouldn’t last. He disliked construction on a good day. He did it to make a living. They’d married so young, had the boys so young. They’d both had to juggle dreams and practicalities. He was already restless, frayed at the edges, when his work slowed down in Boston last year and he got laid off. Brandon didn’t do well being idle. No Sloan did. One day, Maggie came home to a note telling her he’d taken off on a canoe trip down the Moose River in Maine. He’d be back “whenever.”
And that was that. She’d packed up herself and the boys and moved to Knights Bridge. She started her own catering business, and now she was working with Olivia, not just providing food for events but helping to shape The Farm at Carriage Hill.
Maggie loved what she was doing, but her relationship with Brandon remained unresolved, in that no-man’s-land between estrangement and divorce.
It wasn’t as if there was another man in her life. It’d always been just the two of them.
Noah came in from the mudroom, where Buster was sound asleep. In a combative mood, Maggie decided to confront him about Phoebe. “My sister gave you a ride back here? Why?”
“It was raining and I’d walked into town.”
“Phoebe’s…” Maggie smacked a bottle of coconut oil onto the island with more force than was necessary. “She loves books and history, and she knows everything that goes on in town. She’s a good soul.”
“She’s a little quirky, too,” Brandon said, entering the kitchen from the living room. He’d made fast work of his shower, the ends of his dark hair still damp.
Maggie flashed him a look. “Phoebe’s reserved.”
He shrugged. “Compared to you and the twins, maybe. Ask the boys about her at story hour. She gets into it.”
“I’m here every week for story hour. I have asked them.” Maggie gritted her teeth, wishing she’d just gone straight home instead of coming out here, then smiled apologetically at Noah. “I should go.”
Noah’s interest clearly was piqued but he seemed to contain it. “Was there a story hour when you all were Aidan and Tyler’s age?”
“There was,” Maggie said. “Brandon was disruptive.”
He grinned at her. “You remember.”
She resisted comment.
“Phoebe and I know we danced with each other at the masquerade the other night,” Noah said calmly.
Maggie didn’t bother hiding her relief. “I’m glad that secret’s out, at least among us. The whole town doesn’t need to know.” Then she remembered who she was talking to. “The whole world in your case, I guess.”
She wondered how Phoebe had taken discovering that Noah Kendrick was her swashbuckler but supposed her sister had more on her mind now. Maggie didn’t want to get into the mystery man Phoebe had overheard. Let Noah explain to Brandon.
Suddenly she just wanted to go home, walk over to Phoebe’s house and talk about flowers and flea-market finds and never mind about men.
Brandon eyed her but made no comment as he turned to Noah. “Let’s have a beer before I head back to my tent.”
Noah nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”
Maggie gathered up the boys, who wanted to stay so they could see if the rain had brought out slugs, too. She told them they could check at home. She got them in the van with a promise they’d stop at Phoebe’s house on the way back. They adored their aunt Phoebe.
But when Maggie pulled up in front of her sister’s small house on Thistle Lane, no one was there. She drove past the library, noticed a light on in the attic. Phoebe was probably hunting for more clothes for the fashion show. Maggie almost stopped and joined her. She’d never been up to the library’s attic. Given the stories of ghosts, she wasn’t sure she ever wanted to, either.
“Oh, Phoebe,” she whispered. “Phoebe, Phoebe.”
Her sister, the romantic at heart. Her sister, whose heart was broken so long ago. For all her own heartbreak, Maggie would make the same stupid mistakes, fight the same useless battles and press the same empty arguments if that was what it took for her to have her sons. They were worth the agony of what she was going through with their father now.
And she wouldn’t give up the good years she’d had with him. Not for anything.
She looked up at the lighted attic. Was this life of her sister’s worth what she’d endured? There’d been no full-on struggle when Phoebe’s heart was broken.
It wasn’t like Brandon and me.