The River House. Carla Neggers

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       Four

      Maggie Sloan arrived first, with dinner and brownies. “I thought you might want to try my brownies since they’re on the menu now for Saturday,” she said, setting a picnic basket on the counter in the barn’s kitchen. She grinned at Felicity. “That’s my excuse, anyway.”

      “As if you need an excuse to make brownies,” Olivia said, now sitting at the table.

      Felicity shut her laptop at the end of the table. “I’ve heard stories about your brownies, Maggie.”

      “They’re one of my signature desserts. It’s hard to mess up a brownie, but I do love my recipe.” She lifted a foil-wrapped package from her basket. “I say we start with sharing a brownie. Plan?”

      Olivia laughed, clearly fully recovered. “An excellent plan.”

      Maggie unwrapped the brownies and broke one into thirds, then distributed the pieces among three napkins. Felicity took one to Olivia before returning to her laptop seat with hers. Her generous chunk of brownie was moist, chocolaty and irresistible. She immediately thought of Gabe. Even if she’d made him brownies three years ago, they wouldn’t have been this good.

      “Incredible as always, Maggie,” Olivia said, turning to Felicity. “People argue it’s hard to have a bad brownie. Then they try Maggie’s, and that’s that.”

      “They’ll work for Saturday?” Maggie asked, leaning against the kitchen counter.

      “Definitely,” Felicity said. “Thanks.”

      With Gabe on the way, she was tempted to skip dinner and just eat brownies, but she limited herself to the pre-dinner morsel and helped Maggie unload the rest of the food. There was plenty for the three of them. Olivia hadn’t exaggerated.

      “I made enough for Dylan and Gabe,” Maggie said. “There’s probably enough for Russ to have a bite, too, but I figure he’ll want to get home to Kylie.”

      They set the table and enjoyed the simple fare of grilled chicken, summer squash and sliced tomatoes, but with Maggie’s flair. Afterward they walked the short distance to Dylan and Olivia’s new house. Felicity knew she was pushing it if she wanted to get out of there before the guys arrived. She’d skip checking the space at Olivia’s inn. It’d be fine. She followed Maggie and Olivia inside through the side door and into the kitchen. It was dusk, the fields behind the house quiet on the still evening.

      “You should get home to Tyler and Aidan,” Olivia said, referring to Maggie’s sons. “Felicity, you can head home, too. I’ll be fine here on my own.”

      Maggie shook her head, clearly unimpressed. “I’ve had two babies, Olivia. I’m staying until Dylan gets here. The boys are with my mother. She’s teaching them how to feed the goats. They’re all excited. Brandon doesn’t want to have anything to do with the goats, so they’re taking advantage of him being away.”

      Maggie immediately filled up a glass of water at the sink and handed it to Olivia. “Drink up.”

      “The house is amazing,” Felicity said, noticing the adjoining den also had a large stone fireplace.

      Olivia smiled, water glass in hand. “Thank you. We love it. Mark was the perfect architect. He did a great job on your house, too. I envisioned a quiet country destination inn that I’d run while freelancing as a graphic designer, but then I wrote to Dylan, thinking he was his father, to clean up his eyesore of a yard or I’d do it myself...” She sipped some of her water. “I soon discovered his father had died before he had a chance to tell Dylan about this property and Knights Bridge.”

      Felicity knew the story, or at least the highlights. Duncan McCaffrey, a treasure hunter and adventurer, had gone on a search for his birth mother, never thinking he’d find her—or certainly that she’d still be alive. His search had led him to tiny Knights Bridge and Grace Webster, a nonagenarian retired English and Latin teacher who’d never married. She’d moved from one of the lost Swift River Valley towns in her late teens, while pregnant by an English pilot who’d gone home to the war. She’d given birth to a baby boy and he was adopted, unaware of her identity until he himself was in his seventies. Grace had just moved into assisted living when Duncan arrived in Knights Bridge. He’d bought her house, and a short time later, he died in a tragic fall on a Portugal treasure-hunting venture.

      In the meantime, Olivia had purchased the center-chimney house, built in 1803, long before construction of the Quabbin Reservoir had turned Carriage Hill Road into a dead-end, stopping it from winding into the small towns of the now-flooded Swift River Valley. The house’s previous owners had lovingly restored the property, including adding extensive herb and flower gardens. Olivia had set about converting the house into a destination inn, hosting parties, small weddings and other events. Her main obstacle was Grace’s former house up the road. It had fallen into neglect, its unsightly yard, broken shutters and peeling paint not exactly conducive to Olivia’s new business. She located its owner in San Diego and wrote him a letter. She’d confused Dylan with his father. When Dylan had received her handwritten note, he’d decided to head East and find out for himself what his father had been up to in little Knights Bridge and why he’d left him a dilapidated old house.

      No one in Knights Bridge had realized that Grace had born a child. She’d met Duncan, her son, before his untimely death, and now she had Dylan—her grandson—in her life, and a great-grandchild on the way. Her English fighter pilot had died early in World War II, but no one doubted he’d have come back for the young woman he’d fallen in love with in New England the summer prior to the outbreak of the war, as her home and town were razed, the land scraped bare to make way for a reservoir.

      Felicity liked Grace, who was preparing a lecture on Jane Austen for Sunday’s tea.

      She found herself not wanting to leave just yet and go home to her empty house and buzzing thoughts. “Was it difficult tearing down Grace’s house?” she asked.

      “In some ways,” Olivia said. “Grace was for it, though. She’d lived in the same house since she arrived in Knights Bridge with her father and grandmother after they were forced out of the valley. When she turned ninety, she decided it was time to move to Rivendell. She loves it there. It’s home now.”

      “Grace gained a grandson and Dylan gained a grandmother,” Felicity said.

      “And family in England,” Olivia added, sinking onto a couch in the den with her glass of water. “Philip Rankin—Dylan’s grandfather—was a widower, and his daughter and granddaughter welcomed us into the family.”

      Maggie pointed to the glass. “You’re going to finish that, right, Olivia?”

      Olivia smiled at her friend. “I’ll keep it СКАЧАТЬ