Fifteen
Samantha was almost to the library when she decided she’d had her fill of walking Knights Bridge’s back roads, at least for a while. She was ready to toss her backpack into the nearest trash bin and call a cab.
Not much farther, she told herself. She could see the library just ahead, on the corner of South Main Street and a narrow side street. She would hide out in a quiet spot, catch her breath, see what she could find out about Zeke and Henrietta of 1915 Knights Bridge and decide what to do next about her own life. She had outlined options in her head while trying not to think about Justin and the mess she was in, simply because she had ventured to his town in the snow a little over two years ago and hadn’t told anyone.
Of course, it wasn’t quite that simple.
She should have known better, given that her decision to keep quiet had involved Harry Bennett and a long-dead pirate, both of whom had lived complicated lives.
Complicated lives that had now complicated her life.
Except she had no one to blame for her decisions except herself.
She slowed as she came to a patch of shade under an old maple tree and recognized Maggie Sloan loading a crate into the back of her van, parked in front of a small “gingerbread” house.
“Well, good morning, Samantha,” Maggie said, red hair flying as she stood straight.
Samantha eased her backpack off her sore shoulders. “Morning.”
Maggie’s smile turned to a wince. “Uh-oh. You’ve got the look that says you’ve just had a run-in with a Sloan.”
“Do I?”
“I had that same look for months when Brandon and I were on the skids. Now it’s only from time to time. The Sloans are good at building things and putting out fires and such. You want one of them around when it’s your house being built or you’re in an emergency, but subtlety isn’t in their nature. Every last one of them should have ‘blunt as hell’ as their middle name.” She shut the van doors. “You don’t look daunted, though.”
“It’s my own fault. I wasn’t as forthcoming as I should have been—”
“You worked for Duncan McCaffrey. I heard. My mother met him on one of his visits to town. I never did.”
“I thought it would be easier for everyone if I didn’t mention our history.” Samantha rubbed her stiff right shoulder. “I was a bit rattled after the fire, but it’s no excuse.”
“Are you kidding? It’s a damn good excuse.” Maggie tightened her long, flowing sweater around her. “You don’t seem like trouble, Samantha. You seem more like someone on a mission. A personal mission. Maybe you’re telling yourself it’s professional, but it’s not, is it?”
“In my world, the lines between professional and personal can get blurry before you know it.” She picked up her backpack. “You’ve got a wedding to put on. I won’t keep you.”
“Will you be staying in town a while longer?” Maggie asked.
“Not if your Sloan brother-in-law can help it.”
The words were out before Samantha could take them back. Maggie gave her a knowing look, but Samantha said goodbye and continued on her way. She’d been too impulsive in coming to Knights Bridge. She should have had contingency plans. A damn car.
But how could she have planned for a fire—or for Justin Sloan?
The Knights Bridge public library was located in a solid Victorian stone-and-brick building with its own grand piano, a small stage, a fireplace, an imposing oil portrait of its founder and all sorts of nooks and crannies. Samantha settled into a quiet corner in a small reading room on the main floor and immersed herself in finding out more about the Hazelton family, early settlers of Knights Bridge and the original owners of the country store and Justin’s cider mill. She quickly discovered that the library was a treasure trove of information on the history of the town and the Swift River Valley. There was also a local historical society, headquartered in one of the oldest houses in the village.
She felt more at ease. Musty books, archives, old photographs—this was a world she knew well and could navigate with confidence, without second-guessing herself.
Unlike navigating the loyalties and suspicions of the people in a small town.
She got to work, losing herself in the history of one family. In a little over an hour, she discovered that the Hazeltons had settled in Knights Bridge in the 1740s, three decades before the American Revolution. They became farmers along Cider Brook and a small spring-fed pond—the same parcel of land where, in 1874, their descendants built a prosperous cider mill. In 1915 the family opened the general store that became a town institution.
Now, another century later, not a single Hazelton resided in Knights Bridge.
Samantha didn’t discover so much as a hint of any Hazelton family association with Benjamin Farraday as a semirespectable privateer or, later, a wanted pirate. At least not in Knights Bridge. She supposed the two parties could have met prior to the Hazeltons’ arrival in town. She didn’t know where they had originated.
That was a question for another day. She could dig up more information—births, deaths, marriages—but she didn’t know what that would accomplish, and in the meantime, she needed a break. She collected her backpack and headed outside. It was sunny, brisk and beautiful, but she opted against a sandwich on the common. She decided to try Smith’s, the only restaurant in the Knights Bridge village.
As she crossed the street to the common, she glanced around, in case a Sloan was watching her, but she didn’t see anyone. She was on her own, and that was just fine with her.
* * *
Smith’s was already filling up with locals when Samantha arrived at the converted 1920s house just off the town common. Its wide front porch was decorated with magenta-colored mums and hanging baskets of deep pink geraniums, still vibrant in late September. She sat in a small booth at the far end of the main dining room, where she could see everyone but wouldn’t be easily spotted herself.
Her waitress, a stout, cheerful middle-aged woman who didn’t appear to be a Sloan, recommended the turkey club. Samantha went with it and coffee, figuring she needed sustenance after her encounter with Justin, her hike into town and her research at the library. She also had no idea what she would be doing the rest of the day, or where she would be sleeping tonight. Not, she thought, at Carriage Hill.
Her coffee arrived first. She sipped it as she dug out her documents pouch. She’d jotted down notes on the Hazeltons in her newly returned journal but would look at them later. Her eye was drawn to a passage in the anonymous story of the kidnapped aristocratic Lady Elizabeth and her worldly pirate captor.
Lady Elizabeth appreciated the simple pleasures of a good cup of tea. Captain Farraday seemed to have no idea what that meant to her. She didn’t tell him that it reminded her of home, of soft scents and sweet memories. She wouldn’t tell him.
Better, she thought, that the man with her fate in his hands not know everything about her.
Samantha understood that sentiment. She folded the pages and tucked them back into the pouch, sliding it into her pack on the bench next to her. When she looked up, she saw that Justin had arrived. What were the odds? He was laughing with two men she recognized from the fire. Her throat tightened with an uncomfortable mix of guilt, attraction and lingering jitters. She hadn’t counted on meeting local people—meeting Duncan’s son.
Liking them.
The two men eased away, and Justin walked straight to her booth and sat across from her without waiting to be invited. “I heard you were still wandering around town,” he said.
“Your brother Eric told you?”
“He keeps an eye on the goings-on in town.”
The cop brother. And she was a “goings-on.” Great. She picked up her sturdy coffee mug, tried to look casual. “Are you surprised to find me having coffee and a sandwich after I was run out of town?”
“You weren’t run out of town. Obviously, since you’re still here.”
She pointed at his menu. “I ordered the turkey club. What else is good here?”
“Not the chef’s salad. It’s the worst. Everything else is fine.” He leaned back, clearly amused. “Feeling claustrophobic?”
“It’s a lovely place. I feel...” She sipped her coffee, set the mug back on the table and smiled at him. “Watched.”
“I wonder why we’d watch you, don’t you, Sam Bennett?”
“I just spent over an hour in the library doing dull, tedious research.”
“Into what?”
She decided to tell him. “The Hazeltons.”
His eyes held hers just for a split-second longer than was comfortable. “Why?”
“Curiosity. I doubt they have anything to do with Captain Farraday, but a lot of what I do is dry and uninteresting, even if it involves pirates and missing treasure.”
“Why pirates?”
The waitress returned and took Justin’s order. He went with iced tea and grilled chicken on a green salad, which made Samantha feel marginally guilty about her club sandwich and fries—but he hadn’t walked to town with a loaded backpack.
He rested his arm across the back of the bench, looking casual, at home. Of course, he was at home. She was the stranger. He tapped the table with his free hand. “Pirates, Sam. Why pirates?”
“I became enthralled with them when I was a kid on my parents’ research-and-salvage ship. I was often alone. Pirates were good company.”
“During the summer?”
She shook her head. “I was privately tutored until I started high school.”
“What did you do for friends?”
“I hung out with members of the crew and their families. My parents’ friends and colleagues at various stops. It was a different upbringing but not as isolated as it sounds.”
“And high school?”
“Boston. My grandfather lived there. I spent a lot of time with him. But he wasn’t always there. He was active into his nineties.”
“Was he interested in pirates, too?”
“He was interested in everything.”
Justin lowered his arm and sat up straight. “You have an interesting life. Why hire on with Duncan McCaffrey and become a treasure hunter?”
“It just happened. My grandfather and I...” She picked up her coffee again, covering for an unexpected wave of emotion. “He died a few months before I came out here and you saw me. I often kept him company. He’s the one who introduced me to Benjamin Farraday. Grandpa was such a presence—so resilient, so full of life. Sometimes it’s still hard to believe he’s gone.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Justin said.
His simple words and obvious sincerity caught her by surprise. “Thank you. He had a good, long life. I’ve spent most of the past two years—since Duncan fired me—going through Grandpa’s things.”
“Your curating, archiving and research.”
She smiled. “Exactly.”
The waitress returned with the turkey club and a heap of fries. Samantha noticed Justin’s eyebrows go up. She picked up a fry and motioned at her plate with it. “Help yourself. I could eat every one of these fries, but I’m not going to.”
“It’s real bacon on the club,” he said.
“So I see.”
He snatched a fry. “What was the fate of your Captain Farraday?”
“We don’t know for sure. I’d like to find out what happened to him. I have my own ideas. He wasn’t captured and executed, but there’s no question he was guilty of piracy.”
Justin popped the fry into his mouth. “Did he look like Johnny Depp?”
Samantha sighed. “There are no likenesses of Captain Farraday that I’m aware of. Popular culture through the centuries has painted a different portrait of what pirates were like than what current scholarship would suggest was actually the case.”
“Ah.”
“You don’t care, do you?”
“I’m interested but, no, I don’t care.”
His salad arrived. It looked good, but not as tempting as her meal. Their waitress also brought his iced tea and questioned him about the upcoming wedding, the rehearsal that evening, whether Mark and Jess were really, finally, ready to tie the knot. Justin responded without any of the curtness or suspicion that Samantha had been getting from him.
“Is she a cousin?” she asked when the woman withdrew.
“Millie? No. She’s not a cousin, but her son worked for us through college.” He picked up his fork and looked across the table at her. “Did you think if you could prove Farraday was in this area, it would somehow absolve you for what happened between you and Duncan at the end of his life?”
Samantha squirted ketchup onto the edge of her plate, avoiding his gaze. “Maybe. I don’t know. I guess I wanted to prove to myself that I wasn’t out of line in wondering if Duncan had come here because of Captain Farraday.”
“That matters to you.”
“Yes.”
“But Duncan didn’t come here because of a pirate.”
“No,” Samantha said. “He came to find out who he was.”
Justin started on his salad. “That made you feel like an even bigger heel, didn’t it? Then he dies. You go into hiding, sorting out your grandfather’s closets and drawers. Find anything interesting? The skeleton of a mastodon or an old pirate hat or something?”
She smiled. “Nothing like that.”
“Think you’re going to find buried treasure out here?”
“That would be fun, wouldn’t it?”
“Not an answer. I’m not fooled, Sam. You’re sophisticated—”
“And you’re just a simple country boy?”
He grinned. “Yeah. Just a simple country boy.”
It didn’t bother him at all.
She didn’t want to lie, but she saw no point in telling him the rest now—about the painting of the cider mill or the fictionalized account of Farraday’s adventures.
He watched her a moment, then drank some of his iced tea. “It’s been two years. Why come to Knights Bridge now? Is it because you realized Dylan was in town?”
“Partly. I’m not sure there is a logical reason for my coming here now.”
“It’s emotional?”
“Emotional and intuitive.”
He leaned over the table. “That means you don’t want to tell me the real reason.” When she started to protest, he held up a hand. “I’m just telling you what I believe. I’m not trying to put you on the defensive.”
“Thank you. Just because I don’t answer a question doesn’t necessarily mean I have anything to hide.”
“Doesn’t mean you don’t, either. Anyway, Maggie and Olivia instructed me to be nice. They also want me to invite you to the wedding tomorrow.”
“The wedding—Justin—”
“They think that I as the best man should have a guest. Doesn’t matter that my entire family will be there. They say it’s not the same.”
“It isn’t,” Samantha said.
He gave her an easy grin. “Good. That means you’ll be there.”
“That’s not what it means. I...” She picked up a triangle of her sandwich, then set it down again. “Who says I’m even going to be in Knights Bridge tomorrow?”
“That’s what I told Maggie and Olivia. They said you’ll be here. Woman’s instinct or something.”
“If there’s a woman’s instinct, I don’t have it.”
“But you’re not going anywhere, are you?”
She tried to ignore his knowing tone. “I can’t stay at Carriage Hill with a wedding there tomorrow. And why would I go as your guest? You’ve accused me of being a liar and a thief.”
“I never said you were a thief. You did break into my mill, though. Now that I know you’re Harry Bennett’s granddaughter, I’m not surprised you can pick a lock.”
“My uncle taught me. And you still haven’t answered the question.”
His deep blue eyes sparked with amusement. “You’ll go to the wedding with me because I’m irresistible.”
She shook her head. “I’ll consider it because it’s decent of Maggie and Olivia to think of me, and it’s more than I deserve after misleading them about my reasons for being here.”
“That, too. We bonded when I rescued you, Sam. Just one of those things.”
He took a sip of his drink, set the glass down on the table. She noticed a scar on his right hand, calluses on his fingers, and wished she hadn’t—but he seemed oblivious to her discomfort, her intense awareness of him.
“Do you own a dress?” he asked.
“A closetful.” Samantha smiled. “That might be an exaggeration, and I don’t have one with me.”
“I don’t know why Duncan ever believed you. You’re a terrible liar. Come on. I’ve got the afternoon off to get ready for the rehearsal tonight. We’ll find you a dress.”
Her eyebrows rose.
He grinned and winked at her. “I’m a man of many resources.”