“Did you celebrate selling your company?”
“I took off to New Zealand for a vacation.”
“By yourself?” She held up a hand. “Don’t answer—I didn’t mean—”
“Yes,” he said. “By myself. Alone. Just me, myself and I for a week seeing the sights and decompressing.”
“It must have been intense, selling the company. Look, I’m going to wait and grab coffee and a bite to eat at the barn.”
“Not going to drive over there with me?”
Felicity shook her head. “I need to get there early.”
“Okay.” He grabbed the carafe and poured coffee. “Do you have a to-go mug? I can send you off with coffee.”
“In the cabinet,” she said, pointing. “Top shelf. I still have it from when I went into an office. I hardly use it now.”
He filled the mug, splashed in half-and-half from a bottle he already had on the counter. “I figure you must still take your coffee with half-and-half since it’s in the fridge. I’ll drink it if I jumped the gun.”
“You didn’t.”
He screwed on the top and handed her the to-go mug. “Need help carrying anything out to your Rover?”
“No, all set, thanks.” She held up the mug. “And thanks for the coffee.”
“Anytime.”
“Help yourself to whatever you want here. I’ll see you later at the barn.”
He nodded. “Looking forward to it.”
“Good,” she said absently, heading outside.
As she got in her old Land Rover, she saw she had a text message: Good luck tomorrow!
Nadia Ainsworth. It’d come late last night, but Felicity hadn’t noticed it until now. Answer? Don’t answer?
She deleted it without answering. Something was off about Nadia. Best not to encourage any level of friendship or intimacy. She was Gabe’s problem.
Felicity took a few sips of coffee and backed out of her driveway, past Gabe’s BMW. She dismissed a few knots in her stomach. It’d been a while since she’d felt such pressure to make an event perfect. She always had perfection as a goal but seldom felt a small glitch here or there would sink an event—or her. Today wasn’t different on that score. She knew it, even if her stomach didn’t.
By the time she reached Carriage Hill Road, she was focused on what she had to do for the day. Maggie Sloan’s good cheer and utterly relaxed attitude when she greeted Felicity in the kitchen didn’t hurt. “Do you ever get pre-event jitters?” Felicity asked as she downed the last of Gabe’s coffee.
Maggie, red hair pulled back, apron on over a simple knee-length dress, shook her head. “Not since the food-poisoning incident in Boston.”
“Food-poisoning? No way.”
“Not buying it, are you?” Maggie grinned. “You’re right. There was no food-poisoning. It’s what I tell myself before an event. If I don’t poison anyone, anything else can be managed.”
Not a bad way to manage any jitters, Felicity thought, and it fit Maggie’s personality.
Her older sister, Phoebe, came into the kitchen, her fiancé, Noah Kendrick, a few steps behind her. They’d arrived last night from Noah’s winery on California’s Central Coast and had stayed at Phoebe’s former home in the village, a cottage around the corner from the library. She’d been the library director for several years and had always expected to stay on until she retired.
Felicity had known Phoebe forever, but it was her first time meeting Noah, a lean, quiet man, a tech genius and a billionaire. “I’m not much on public speaking,” he said, as if he, too, had a few butterflies.
“I imagine the attendees today will be interested in anything you have to say, even if you stumble here and there,” Maggie said.
“Just don’t make any jokes,” Dylan said, joining them. “You’re the worst.”
Noah grinned. “Now you tell me. All these years and you’ve never hinted I’m not funny.”
“I hinted. You just didn’t take the hint.”
The two longtime friends laughed, and Phoebe shook her head, smiling at her sister and Felicity. “I’m imagining bad jokes at board meetings.”
“Many bad jokes,” Dylan said. He sipped coffee from a mug he’d brought with him.
Noah winced, good-humored. “You’re not kidding.”
“Best to stick to relevant anecdotes—like how you found me sleeping in my car and asked me to join you at NAK because you needed my instincts about people to offset your cluelessness.”
“Utter cluelessness,” Noah added. “Except about Phoebe here.”
Felicity left them to their friendly banter and went into the main room to check on the setup for the day. Maggie joined her, but everything for the coffee and muffins that would get the day started was laid out. Whatever she might say, Maggie was an experienced professional. She wanted everything to be perfect today, too.
Satisfied things were in order, Felicity slipped out the kitchen door and to a pebbled path behind the barn. She followed it along the field and an old stone wall down to Olivia’s inn. She slipped through a gap in the stone wall and took her time walking up a mulched path among the lavender and mint.
Russ Colton waved to her from the terrace, as if he’d been waiting impatiently for her to get there. “I heard you were on your way.” He pointed at a padded envelope on the wood table. “That arrived for you.”
“Here?”
“Yes. Here. It’s not something you’re expecting?”
Felicity shook her head. “No, it’s not. How did it get here? Did someone drop it off?”
“It was on the steps at the front door when I got here. I haven’t asked if anyone saw who delivered it. I wanted to talk to you first. If it’s nothing, great.” He fastened his gaze on her, a reminder that he was an experienced security consultant. “Who’s Nadia?”
Felicity peered at the handwritten label:
For Felicity MacGregor.
From Nadia.
“Gad, Russ,” she said. “I’m sorry. I should have told you.”
“Told me what? Is she helping you today? What’s going on, Felicity? This woman’s name isn’t on any of my lists. Am I overreacting? I’d rather overreact than underreact.”
“Her name is Nadia Ainsworth. She
