She breathed in the fresh morning air and sat at the table, the shade allowing her to leave the umbrella down while she worked. She opened the file on the boot camp party. Normally she liked more time to plan such an event, but she’d worked on enough similar parties that she wasn’t worried about missing key elements. The boot camp itself wasn’t an event with lots of bells and whistles. Dylan and Olivia wanted to keep it simple, allowing guests to enjoy their surroundings and network with each other without distractions—balloons, fireworks, games, speeches. Good food, good conversation, good surroundings. That, Dylan had told her, was enough. Her challenge, as always, was to keep her own role as the planner invisible, under the radar, allowing the festivities to feel natural and unplanned to hosts and guests.
She gave Olivia a quick call to make sure she was feeling okay.
“Back to normal, thanks,” she said. “As normal as one can feel in the second trimester of a pregnancy, anyway. I always heard it’s the easiest trimester. I don’t know about that, but I’m fine. How are you?”
“Working away on my deck.”
“Tough commute,” Olivia said with a laugh.
After they disconnected, Felicity got to her work. She could hear Gabe in the kitchen—loading the dishwasher, running the water—and then his footsteps in the hall. Just as well she was reviewing RSVPs and the budget and nothing that required deep concentration.
Ten minutes later, her guest stepped out onto the deck. “I’m off,” he said, motioning in the general direction of his car. “I’ll head over to Moss Hill to see Mark.”
“Great, tell him hi for me.”
“Feel free to join me.”
“Thanks, but I have work to do—and I wouldn’t want to intrude on your visit with your brother. Was the party actually his idea?”
“Felicity...”
“It was, wasn’t it? Why? He has a great reputation in town. Was he trying to make sure you looked good?”
“It’s my party,” Gabe said. “Let’s leave it there, okay?”
She shrugged and wished him a good morning. She watched him trot down the deck stairs. Just her luck he looked even better than he had three years ago. No matter, she told herself. In forty-eight hours, Gabe would be on his way out of Knights Bridge—back to his home in Boston, wherever it was, whatever it looked like.
She stood at the deck rail and looked down through the trees to the sunlit river. This was her home. This was what it looked like. She smiled. She loved it, especially when she didn’t think about being here with Gabe.
When she returned to the table, she was relieved to see she had an unread email. One glance, though, and she had to read it again to make sure she wasn’t mistaken:
Hi Felicity,
Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Nadia Ainsworth. I work with Gabe Flanagan. I’m coordinating with you on plans for tomorrow’s boot camp. I’m including my contact information, but I’d like to call you today. I only have your email address. Can you let me know your phone number and a good time? That’ll get us started.
Thanks much!
Nadia
Felicity stared at the message. Get us started? It was a straightforward party. It wasn’t Cinderella’s ball. But if Gabe wanted this Nadia involved, so be it. The email signature didn’t provide a job title, but she was in Malibu. A long way from Knights Bridge. Given Gabe’s casual attitude about tomorrow, Felicity had no reason to doubt Nadia Ainsworth.
She typed her response:
Thanks, Nadia. My contact info is below. Everything’s under control for tomorrow but I can chat at noon if you have any questions.
All the best,
Felicity MacGregor
“That ought to do it,” Felicity said as she hit Send. Surely a busy executive assistant would seize the opportunity to check this one off her to-do list. Whatever her job description, Nadia Ainsworth had to have better things to do with her time than get involved with an event in a small town on the other side of the continent.
Five minutes later, Felicity saw she had a new message from Nadia:
Great! I’ll give you a ring at noon.
Felicity didn’t respond. She’d let Nadia assume she’d seen the message and be ready to chat at noon.
* * *
Gabe surveyed his brother’s comfortable office at the Mill at Moss Hill. On his last visit to Knights Bridge, the mill had still been under renovation, opening day months away. Transforming the building from a nineteenth-century factory to twenty-first century contemporary offices, meeting space and apartments had been a feat of imagination, skill, financial and professional risk and not inconsiderable hope. Gabe was no architect, but he and Mark did share a capacity for risk and optimism.
He moved to the window and looked out at the river with its old dam and millpond. He and Mark had managed never to get too close to the dam in their boyhood adventures.
He and Felicity, either.
“Hey, Gabe,” Mark said, coming through the open door from his assistant’s office. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”
“No problem. It’s a workday for you. Good to see you.”
“Yeah, you, too.”
Gabe turned his back to the view and nodded to the spacious, gleaming office. “Damn, Mark, this place is great. Makes sense for an architect who specializes in old buildings to have his offices in an old building, but it feels brand-new.”
“It’s all about HVAC, water pressure and good windows.”
“The fun stuff,” Gabe said with a grin. “You kept a sense of the past without being nostalgic or hokey. How’s the location working for you?”
“We’re using it to our advantage.”
“Gives clients confidence you can handle a major project wherever it is. Remember when we’d sneak out here
