Their waitress delivered Hartley’s club sandwich and Noah’s iced tea.
Hartley helped himself to a golden-brown fry. “I can’t remember the last time I had fries and a club. I should have ordered a chocolate shake. What the hell, right?” He reached for a bottle of ketchup on the side of the table. “I’m not a threat, Kendrick. If there’s a threat, it’s these people and their ideas about you and yours about them.”
“And you know what their ideas about me and my ideas about them are?”
“They know you don’t belong here. You’re trying to pretend you do.”
Noah didn’t rise to the bait. “You were on my tail in San Diego and then you followed me out here. Why?”
“I didn’t ‘follow’ you. Careful with the language.”
“I’m giving you a chance by meeting you here by myself. I could have called my security team at NAK and had them arrange for people to meet you here.”
“That’d get this town talking. You don’t want that, do you? You can fool them into thinking that you’re normal until you summon a big black SUV filled with private security types.”
Noah hadn’t tried to fool anyone, and even if he had, he hadn’t met anyone in Knights Bridge who gave a damn that he was a billionaire. Except Phoebe, and then only because he’d kissed her.
“You don’t think like normal people, Kendrick.” Hartley dipped a fry into his mound of ketchup. “You’re a solo operator when it comes right down to it. Dylan McCaffrey got that about you in first grade. That’s why you two get along.”
Noah drank some of his tea. He was used to people trying to figure him out. “Does your presence here have anything to do with Dylan?”
Hartley ate his fry in two bites. “He and Olivia Frost are an interesting pair, aren’t they? I drove out to the Frost sawmill. Pretty setting. Must be tough, your best friend, maybe your only real friend, falling for a woman on the other side of the country. Think that’s making you vulnerable to Phoebe O’Dunn’s charms?”
“You’re not answering my questions,” Noah said.
“You date beautiful Hollywood actresses who want you to bankroll their chance at the big time. Phoebe’s not in their league when it comes to being a good trophy.” Hartley picked up a triangle of his club sandwich, then grinned at Noah. “You’re doing fencing breathing, slowing your heart rate, so you stay calm and don’t go for my throat?”
It wasn’t that far from the truth. “Did an actress I dated hire you?” Noah asked calmly.
“You’re assuming anyone hired me. Relax. I’m leaving Sleepy Hollow as soon as I finish my dinner. The club really is good. You should try it.”
Noah wasn’t even close to being hungry. “It’s good you’re leaving town but I still intend to find out why you’re here.”
“Go for it. The O’Dunns might grow tomatoes and raise goats and such, but it would be a mistake to think they’re pushovers, or that they need you to protect them.”
Noah didn’t want his presence in their town to harm them. Then why had he stayed? Why did he continue to stay?
Hartley wiped his fingers with a cloth napkin. “One of the dessert specials is something called apple brown betty. It’s made with local apples. First of the season, apparently. I don’t think I can resist. I’ll be in Boston tonight and back in sunny Southern California tomorrow.”
Noah got to his feet and tossed a few bills on the table for his tea. “Then what?”
“We’ll see. Have fun in Sleepy Hollow, Noah. Every town has its secrets.” Hartley grinned. “So does every redhead. Ask your mild-mannered librarian how she got the scar on her knee.”
“We’re not done, Hartley.”
“Nothing more dangerous than a bored billionaire,” Hartley said, more amused than intimidated.
Noah left the restaurant and walked up to Main Street where he’d parked. It was a pleasant summer evening. He was used to being a fish out of water wherever he was and Knights Bridge was no exception, but it was also different—and not just because it was small. His friend had discovered a grandmother here and fallen in love here, and now he was making a home here.
And there was Phoebe.
She was as intriguing as a small-town librarian as an Edwardian princess.
As he started to get into Olivia’s car, he noticed Phoebe across the street on the common. She was with her sister Ruby and another young woman he took to be Ruby’s twin, Ava.
Phoebe waved to him. He thought she smiled.
Noah was in no rush to get back to Buster. He crossed the quiet street.
Phoebe broke away from her sisters and intercepted him by an old-fashioned gazebo. “That was a fast dinner,” she said. “Was Hartley there?”