That Night on Thistle Lane. Carla Neggers

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СКАЧАТЬ make use of all that we have.

      That was Phoebe’s motto for the library as well as her own life. Why moan about what she didn’t have when so much was right within her grasp?

      Her older nephew, Tyler, almost seven, was sitting cross-legged on the hardwood floor in front of the stage with a book about raptors in his lap. “Aunt Phoebe, did you know that raptors have three eyelids?”

      “In fact, I did, Tyler.” She laughed. “You’d be surprised at what a librarian knows. Would you like to see a raptor’s eyelids sometime?”

      He nodded eagerly.

      “We’ll have to figure that out, then. Right now, though, let’s go in with the other kids.”

      “I want to stay here.”

      Tyler—as redheaded as his mother—preferred to read a book on his own than to be read to, especially with his squirming younger brother. Phoebe put out a hand, but he ignored it and stood up on his own. He shuffled past her into the children’s section, his head down, shoulders slumped, as if she’d asked him to walk the plank.

      He and Aidan would be tired after spending most of the day with Elly O’Dunn, their energetic maternal grandmother. She’d taken the afternoon off from her job at the town offices to look after the boys while Maggie catered a lunch and then met with Olivia at Carriage Hill. Phoebe, her mother and her two youngest sisters were doing what they could to help Maggie as she managed two young boys and a catering business on her own, without Brandon Sloan, her adrenaline-junkie carpenter husband. Phoebe didn’t have all the details, but she knew Brandon’s construction work in Boston had been on-and-off at best the past year or so. It had to have put a strain on his marriage. He had a tendency to take off into the mountains or up the coast when things got tough, instead of talking.

      Brandon was the third of six Sloan siblings—five brothers and a sister. His family owned a successful construction business in Knights Bridge and would welcome him back, but returning to his hometown would signal defeat in his eyes. Phoebe had known him since nursery school. He’d wanted out of Knights Bridge at ten. Then he and Maggie fell for each other as teenagers and married in college. Almost no one in town had believed their marriage would last. Phoebe had hoped it would, because they were so much in love.

      She sighed. She could be such an idiotic romantic. Hadn’t she learned by now?

      She gathered the dozen boys and girls onto a round, dark red rug. They came quickly to order, even her nephews. They were reading Beatrix Potter and had just started The Tale of Peter Rabbit, their last book of the summer, and they couldn’t wait to find out what happened next.

      * * *

      With Peter Rabbit and Knights Bridge’s little ones safely back with their families, Phoebe locked up the library and walked across South Main Street and through the common to Main Street and the Swift River Country Store, a town fixture for the past hundred years. It sold everything from galoshes to canned goods and fresh vegetables to a decent selection of wine. The afternoon heat had eased but it was still warm when she headed back to the library with two bottles of pinot grigio, already chilled. Olivia would bring a bottle of some kind of red from a California winery owned by Noah Kendrick, Dylan’s best friend and founder of NAK, Inc., the high-tech entertainment business that had made them both fortunes. The only thing Phoebe knew for sure was that her choice of white wine wouldn’t be nearly as pricey as whatever red Olivia brought.

      Having a friend fall for a wealthy Californian had its unexpected advantages.

      Normally she’d have walked home but her visit with Maggie and Olivia meant she had her car. She got in, set her wine on the front seat next to her and shut her eyes a moment, listening to the rustle of leaves as a gentle breeze floated through the shade trees on the wide library lawn.

      Finally she started her Subaru and turned off South Main onto Thistle Lane. The library stood on the corner. Thistle Lane led away from the common, connecting to a back road with views of the reservoir in the distance. On her trips to the library as a girl, Phoebe had dreamed of living on the quiet, tree-lined street, away from the chaotic life she had out in the country with her parents and younger sisters. Thistle Lane represented order, independence and, at least to a degree, prosperity.

      In less than five minutes, she turned into her short paved driveway. An old American elm graced the corner of the yard next to hers, holding on against the ravages of Dutch elm disease, in part due to intervention by the town. It was a beautiful tree, a symbol of the past and yet very much part of her everyday world. When she bought her house eighteen months ago, she’d thought she was being practical, never mind that she was the only one to make an offer. The house was built in 1912 by one of the early directors of the library, then sold to a series of owners, until, finally, the town was forced to take possession when the heir to the last owner couldn’t be located and property taxes went into arrears.

      Phoebe rolled up her car windows, shut off the engine and collected her wine bottles as she stepped out into the shade. With its new roof, furnace, windows, wiring and plumbing, the house was no longer a notch above a tear-down. It still needed a new kitchen and bathroom, but she had to save up before she tackled any more big projects. Right now, she was concentrating on some of the fun cosmetic work—paint, wallpaper, gardens and restoring flea-market and yard-sale finds.

      With her painting skills and eye for color, Olivia had been a huge help, but The Farm at Carriage Hill and her new life with Dylan were creating uncertainties for her. Phoebe had welcomed having Maggie and then Olivia move back to Knights Bridge, but that didn’t mean more changes weren’t coming. Change was inevitable, Phoebe thought. Her own life was more settled than the lives of her sisters and most of her friends. Her job at the library was secure. She had no plans to move, go into business for herself or get involved with a man.

      Five years from now, her life would likely look more or less as it did now.

      “Just without an avocado-green refrigerator in my kitchen,” she muttered happily as she headed down the curving stone walk with her wine.

      The narrow clapboards of her small house were painted classic white. At Olivia’s suggestion, Phoebe had chosen a warm, welcoming green for the front door. It was framed by pink roses that she’d pruned and trained to climb up the white-painted trellis by the porch steps. When she’d moved in, the yard was an overgrown mess. She didn’t have Olivia’s green thumb, but she’d nonetheless managed to save many of the shrubs and perennials that had come with the property.

      As she started up the steps to the small, covered porch, she saw that her twin sisters had arrived ahead of her. They were seated on wicker chairs that Phoebe had reclaimed and painted white, adding cushions in a mix of pink, blue and white flowers. Ava and Ruby, at twenty-three the youngest of the O’Dunn sisters, were fraternal twins, but they were so much alike that people often assumed they were identical. In both appearance and temperament, they took after their late father, Patrick O’Dunn, an auburn-haired, green-eyed, gorgeous-looking dreamer, as hopelessly impractical as the widow he’d left behind almost ten years ago.

      “Thanks for coming,” Phoebe said as she unlocked the front door. “Olivia and Maggie will be here any minute.”

      “This is going to be so much fun,” Ruby said, tucking a pink rose blossom behind her ear. She had on a long black skirt and a white tank top, her short, wavy hair dyed a purple-black that made her skin seem even paler, more translucent. “We brought all our goodies. Makeup, wigs, hairpieces, curling iron, needles and thread. We’ve already done up a half-dozen masks. Three are simple. You’d be able to recognize whoever’s wearing them. СКАЧАТЬ