“I suppose it is,” Gabe said.
“Dylan wasn’t thrilled I delayed telling him, but I have to be—I can’t explain it. I guess I just want to maintain my independence. I’m pregnant and I’ve had a few minor incidents, but I’m not an invalid. You know?”
He smiled. “Never been pregnant.”
Olivia rolled her eyes, laughing. “Mark would say the same thing. I can tell you two are brothers. I had Felicity and Maggie here, but I’d have been fine without them. I keep my phone handy.” She held up a water bottle. “And now I keep water handy, too.”
“Glad you’re figuring out what works for you.”
“Thank you. Me, too.” She patted him on the shoulder. “I’ll see you later. Let us know if you need anything.”
Gabe watched her head down the stone walk to the driveway and then onto Carriage Hill Road, turning left toward her early-nineteenth-century inn. She looked steady on her feet. She and Dylan had invited him to join them for lunch at their new house, but he wasn’t hungry. He’d had a big breakfast—chives and all.
He went back inside and helped himself to iced tea from a pitcher in the refrigerator in the barn’s kitchen. He looked out across the fields to Carriage Hill itself. A century ago, the region’s plentiful lakes, ponds, rivers and streams had drawn engineers and politicians from Boston in search of drinking water for the growing metropolitan area to the east. The massive Quabbin Reservoir had been the result, requiring the building of Winsor Dam and Goodnough Dike, the emptying and razing of four small towns and the relocation of their population, and then the flooding of the picturesque Swift River Valley—all long before Gabe had been born.
It’d been a long time since he and Mark had set off into the protected woods with nothing but a jackknife and a compass. He’d been good with the knife. Mark had been good with the compass. No surprise, maybe, given where they’d ended up in life.
“As if you’re a hundred years old,” Gabe said aloud, turning from the view.
Usually when he got this restless and reflective it meant he was about to do something new—start a company, sell a company, go on a trip. Take action. But he was doing something new. He was getting ready to speak at an entrepreneurial boot camp for the first time, and he was sleeping under Felicity’s roof for the first time. That both were in Knights Bridge was part of the problem, maybe. Visits to his hometown had a tendency to stir him up. Even just breezing in and out would drag him into his past. He wasn’t trying to forget his childhood so much as, simply put, accept that he’d moved on. He wasn’t that Gabe anymore. He didn’t have to worry he’d be like his father, dreaming without taking any steps to accomplish anything beyond getting through the day, and then brooding on the inevitable disappointments that resulted from his inaction.
He needed to be wary of giving in to impulse when he was in this mood. He didn’t want to do something stupid and then leave town, get back to normal and ask himself what the hell he’d been thinking. Easier to resist the urge in the first place than to have to clean up a mess afterward.
He took his iced tea out front and sat on the shaded stone steps, taking in the quiet and the welcome breeze. Dylan and Olivia’s setup out here on their dead-end road was great for what they had in mind—the occasional boot camp, adventure travel, meetings, parties, weddings, girlfriend weekends and such—but most important, it was the perfect spot for starting a family. They were unquestionably happy here, and with each other.
Gabe was pleased to be in on the inaugural boot camp. He figured he had time on the family part.
“Loads of time,” he said under his breath, before he could get carried away.
He heard a vehicle on the road and then the driveway, until it finally came to a stop in the parking area off to the side of the barn. He recognized Felicity’s old Land Rover from when her brother had driven it. It was dented and rusted in spots, but it looked to be in good shape. Even if she could afford one, Gabe doubted Felicity would ever go for a BMW or Mercedes-Benz. She was into function these days, and the Land Rover was well-suited to trekking on the area’s back roads in any weather as well as to hauling her party supplies.
He got to his feet slowly as Felicity came up the stone walk. “Hello, again,” she said. “Enjoying the shade and breeze, I see.”
“Feels good.” He studied her as she approached the steps. She had a tight look about her. “What’s up?”
She waited until she was standing in front of him before she replied. “Who is Nadia Ainsworth?”
Not what Gabe was expecting. “Nadia? Did she contact you?”
“We just had lunch together.”
“Where?”
“Smith’s. Where else? I don’t know her. I wasn’t about to invite her to my house, and I gather she’s not the type for a picnic on the town common.”
Gabe took a couple of steps deeper into the shade, not quite onto the grass. Nadia. Hell. How had she managed to follow him to Knights Bridge? Why? He’d seen Nadia last week in Los Angeles. She’d mentioned she needed to close out her grandmother’s estate in New England, but she hadn’t indicated she had plans to head East anytime soon. She was a top-notch customer service specialist, but her life was complicated these days. Her husband, David Ainsworth, had bought Gabe’s company and then walked out on Nadia a few weeks later.
That was a few months ago. David had assured Gabe the two events weren’t connected, but
