Cider Brook(A Swift River Valley Novel)

Twenty-Six


“So the stud with the groceries is the one who saved you from the fire and ratted you out to McCaffrey?” Caleb Bennett shook his head as he and Samantha set the big table in the kitchen. “You remind me a lot of Pop, Sam. You don’t do anything by half measures.”

She sighed, grabbing the stack of napkins Maggie had thoughtfully included in her delivery. “You’re making assumptions, Uncle Caleb.”

“Based on hard evidence. It’s a good thing we’re here. A dose of your family will jump-start your brain.”

“I’m not discussing Justin Sloan—or anyone else in Knights Bridge—given your mood.”

“What mood?”

“You’ve been driving for several days with your eighteen-year-old son. Isaac’s great and you love to drive, but you have a lot on your mind.” Samantha set the napkins on the table for people to take as needed. “You’re worried about Isaac going to school on this side of the Atlantic.”

Caleb got the salad off the counter and set it on the table. “I went to school on this side of the Atlantic.”

“Your parents lived in Boston.”

“They weren’t there all the time. We live in a big world. See what I’m saying, Sam? This town’s affecting you.”

“Don’t let Caleb fool you,” her mother said, joining them in the kitchen. “He knows you have to figure out the situation here for yourself, and what’s next for you. So does your father.”

“There’s more to be done at Grandpa’s house in Boston,” Samantha said. “My skills are replaceable.”

“But you’re not,” her mother said.

“Thank you.”

Her father came into the kitchen and snatched a slice of cucumber out of the salad. “You’re as driven and impulsive as any Bennett.” He headed to the stove and got the lasagna out of the oven. “All kidding aside, Samantha, this is your gig. We’ll do anything we can to help you, and we’ll try to stay out of the way of you and this Justin Sloan character.”

“Do you think there’s pirate treasure out here?” she asked quietly.

“Anything is possible.” He set the lasagna onto pot holders on the table. “Lightning did strike the other day.”

As she stood in the warm kitchen with her parents and uncle, Samantha realized the aftereffects of her scare had eased. “All’s well that ends well, as Grandpa used to say. He left me with unanswered questions about his own interest in Benjamin Farraday. He never mentioned him to any of you?”

“Not a word,” her uncle said.

Her parents agreed. Samantha started to bring up The Mill at Cider Brook or The Adventures of Captain Farraday and Lady Elizabeth, but Olivia, Dylan and Loretta arrived, bearing wine from Noah Kendrick’s winery.

Any lingering misunderstanding or doubts about Samantha’s history with Duncan McCaffrey and Loretta Wrentham’s role in getting her fired dissipated over dinner. The conversation centered on Olivia and Dylan’s upcoming wedding, plans for The Farm at Carriage Hill and life in San Diego and Knights Bridge. Olivia and Isaac talked about Amherst, and she gave him more a sense of what it was like today versus eighty years ago when Harry Bennett had been there.

No mention was made of pirates, or of last week’s fire and Samantha’s rescuer.

After their guests left, she dug out a Scrabble set, and she, Ann, Eloisa and her father played a game on the dining room table. Samantha found an old score card of a series of games between Justin and his brothers. He’d lost every one of them—except the last one, which he’d won by a hundred points. She could see him letting his younger brothers win, then nailing them, just to remind them he could do it.

She bunked with Ann and Eloisa under the eaves in an upstairs bedroom. The girls were drooling over Dylan McCaffrey and Justin Sloan.

“If that’s what the guys are like here,” Ann said, “we’re moving to Knights Bridge.”

* * *

In the morning, Samantha led her father and uncle down the trail along Cider Brook to the old mill while her mother, aunt and cousins stayed back at the cabin. The Bennett brothers examined the fire damage and interrogated Samantha about her interest.

“You didn’t just happen on this place,” her father said.

“I did and I didn’t.” She nodded to them. “Did Grandpa ever mention a painting of a cider mill to you? And a handwritten draft of a story about Farraday and a British aristocrat?”

The two men frowned at her. Caleb shook his head. “No.”

Samantha filled them in as they walked back to the cabin together. Her aunt and cousins had been out kayaking on the pond. Her mother was reading a book on the porch, wrapped up in one of the Sloan quilts. They all had lunch together. Then Samantha waved Caleb and his gang goodbye, as they left in the old Mercedes, and saw her parents off in their rented car. They were all heading up to the old Bennett farm, via a stop in Amherst so Isaac’s younger siblings could see where their grandfather had gone to college—and where Isaac hoped he’d be going. Then they would meet Samantha in Boston.

With her family safely back on the road, she walked down Carriage Hill Road. It was much easier without a backpack. She’d left hers on the cabin porch. She would fetch it once she figured out where she would be tonight. She ran through her options as she came to Grace Webster’s old place. She noticed Justin’s truck in the driveway. No surprise, since he was the contractor, but she still felt her heartbeat quicken.

Loretta was by the trailer and waved to her. Samantha headed up the driveway. “It’s freezing,” Loretta said, shivering in her leather jacket. “Dylan says I’m being dramatic, but I swear I woke up with icicles on my bed. Apparently Olivia doesn’t like to turn on the heat this early in the season, never mind the temperature.”

Justin ambled out of the trailer, grinning at her. “It’s sixty degrees out, Loretta.”

“Fifty-nine. I just checked, and it wasn’t fifty-nine this morning.”

“Do you ever back down?”

“Never. Even if I know I’m going to lose, I at least find a way to save face.” She gave a satisfied sigh. “It’s crazy that I came out here, but it’s good, too. Cathartic. I didn’t realize just how much I had repressed the past two years.”

“How long will you be staying?” Samantha asked.

Loretta glanced at her wristwatch. “Another forty-five minutes. I have a flight this evening that I don’t intend to miss. Need a ride to Boston?”

Samantha hesitated only a fraction of a second. “Yes—yes, that would be great. I just have to stop at the cabin for my backpack.”

“We’ll pick it up on the way. My car’s still at Carriage Hill. Let me say goodbye to Olivia and Dylan and meet you back here.”

“Perfect. Thank you.”

Loretta seemed pleased as she turned to Justin. “I’ll see you again at the wedding. I’ll be sure to bring my parka then. This trip...” She paused, glancing at the construction. “It was necessary and necessarily short.” She straightened, smiled. “Anyway, Dylan mentioned a path along the stone wall, instead of walking back down the road. Can you point me in the right direction?”


“I’ll walk you over there,” Justin said.

Samantha waited by the trailer, watching the workers. She could tell they were watching her, too. She didn’t blame them. When Justin returned, she noticed his broad shoulders, the shape of his mouth, his jaw. It was crazy, this awareness of him. Just as well her family hadn’t stuck around. “My family just left,” she told him. “They love Knights Bridge. They’re off to Amherst and Grandpa Bennett’s old farm in southern New Hampshire. I’ll see them all again before they return to England and Scotland.”

“In Boston,” he said.

She nodded. “I hadn’t thought about when or how I’d get back, and then Loretta said—well, you heard her. I seized the moment.”

“Did your family have any insights into your pirate?”

“No, but it doesn’t matter—”

“Doesn’t it, Sam? And when this mystery is solved? On to the next one?”

“I don’t know what’s next. I’m counting on serendipity to lead the way.”

“Serendipity,” Justin said, with just a twitch of his lips. “Right.”

She met his eyes, almost a midnight-blue in the shade. “There’s something in Boston that I want you to see.”

“There is, is there?”

“Two things, actually. You don’t have to go there. I can bring them here.”

“Do you own a car?”

“No, but I can wait for Uncle Caleb to come back with Grandpa’s old car. It might be a few days.” She smiled brightly, with more confidence than she felt. “I’ll plan the next visit better than this one.”

“Boston isn’t that far. I have some business there I’ve been putting off. Maybe I’ll take a drive over there.”

Samantha pictured him pulling up to her grandfather’s Back Bay house in his dusty-gray truck, and smiled at the image. “That would be great. When could you get there?”

He leaned in close to her. “Before your family gets back from their wandering.”





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