After they disconnected, Noah peeled the top off the soup container. It was frozen solid. He heard an owl or a wild turkey or something in the woods and fields out back. Then he remembered the Sloan boys were camping with their father.
He left the soup to thaw on the counter and went into the living room. Buster had escaped from the mudroom and was back on the couch. Noah left him in peace and cleared a space in front of the fireplace. He eased into a series of basic fencing moves, then switched to karate and did several katas. He focused on his movements, his technique, his breathing. The positioning of a foot, a hand, a shoulder—even a knuckle—mattered. Every detail was important, worthy of his attention.
When he finished, he took a shower in the upstairs hall bathroom, using a fresh bar of lemon-scented goat’s milk soap. It was mild, soothing, reminded him of the beauty of the Swift River Valley and surrounding hills, of the sensibilities of the smart, kind and deceptively tough women who lived there.
He dried off and wrapped his towel around his waist as he went into one of Olivia’s unused guestrooms. He noticed neatly ironed vintage pillowcases stacked at the foot of the queen-size bed. He looked out the window at the field behind the house, quiet in the early-evening light.
The library’s fashion show was coming up soon. The Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn dresses Maggie and Olivia had worn in Boston weren’t the only ones in Phoebe’s hidden room copied from Hollywood movies.
Noah turned from the window. Thoughts and possibilities—odd connections—came at him fast and furiously. They might amount to something, or they might amount to nothing, but he definitely had to go back to San Diego and talk to Loretta.
And to Julius Hartley.
He walked down the hall to his bedroom and pulled on clean clothes, then headed back downstairs. Buster had vacated the couch and was sniffing at the counter.
“That’s my soup, my friend,” Noah said, getting out a bowl. He glanced at his watch. He had time to eat his soup before he had to be at the small private airport for his flight.
He didn’t have time to eat his soup and stop to see Phoebe.
Seeing Phoebe won over Olivia’s soup, as good as it no doubt was.
“On second thought, Buster,” Noah said, “the soup is all yours.”
Not that the big dog was seriously interested in tomato-basil soup. Noah filled Buster’s bowls with food and water, figuring he’d ask Phoebe to make sure someone looked after their friend’s dog. It could be his excuse for stopping to see her, should the O’Dunns, the Frosts, the Sloans and the rest of little Knights Bridge be keeping an eye on Thistle Lane.
Seventeen
Phoebe had said goodnight to the last of a summer reading group that had met while she and the fashion show committee had gone over the last details of what promised to be a fun night. How profitable it would be was anyone’s guess but at least they were managing to keep costs down.
She was tidying up the circulation desk, about ready to lock up and head home, when she heard the front door creak. She was surprised to see Noah enter the library. He moved with his usual smoothness, and he wore jeans and a black button-down shirt, his sleeves rolled up. She smiled to herself. He was even sexier than he’d been in his black cape and mask.
He pointed toward the children’s section. “I’ll just be in here while you finish up,” he said, then stepped into the empty alcove.
Phoebe stifled images of him as a five-year-old—then as a father, taking his children to the library. But would he? Had he ever gone to the library himself as a boy, picked out books, sat with other kids through a story hour? With her evening meeting, she’d had a long day and had spent much of it—even while picking mint with him at Carriage Hill—thinking about how little she really knew about Noah Kendrick.
Being a librarian, she’d searched out more information on him that afternoon, beyond what Vera had read at the hairdresser’s or what everyone in town already knew since Dylan’s arrival there in the spring. Phoebe had a few more facts at her fingertips. Noah was thirty-three, the only child of a structural engineer and a high-school chemistry teacher, both retired and living at their wealthy son’s California Central Coast winery.
In addition to the winery, Noah owned a house in San Diego and a condo in Hawaii, and he collected antique swords.
He’d sailed through MIT. No surprise there.
Phoebe thought of her avocado-colored refrigerator and her flea-market finds.
A different world.
The women in Noah’s life tended to be very attractive actresses, with or without talent.
Talent, Phoebe suspected, wasn’t that big an issue to him.
She glanced at her watch as if she had somewhere else she needed to be, but she didn’t. And as Noah left the children’s section and returned to the main room, book in hand, she realized she didn’t want to be anywhere else.
“You read The Tale of Peter Rabbit to the kids?” he asked her.