“Just let me know if she contacts you,” Russ said. “If she does, ignore her. Don’t answer the phone, don’t respond to texts, emails or voice mails. Tell me. Let me handle her.”
“If she shows up on my doorstep again or leaves me a bottle of wine?”
“Call me. I’m right here down the road. Or call the police. Don’t take chances.”
“I often leave my doors unlocked—”
“Don’t.” He smiled then, as if deliberately toning down some of his intensity. “You shouldn’t be doing that, anyway. I know it’s a small town, but still.”
“An ounce of prevention and all that.”
“Exactly.”
That off Russ’s chest, Kylie rejoined them, and they shared lunch with Felicity on the balcony. She’d brought a few leftovers from the Jane Austen tea that were a huge hit. “We’ll take a walk along the river after lunch,” Kylie said as she finished the last of the Victorian sponge cake. “We can burn off the extra calories.”
Felicity laughed. “No calories in Maggie Sloan’s cooking.”
Russ and Kylie refused to let her help with cleanup. She had badgers to deal with, after all. Felicity thanked them and headed home along the river, content with her life—but wishing she’d find Gabe sitting on her deck or down at their swimming hole. Even without Russ’s take on Nadia, Felicity felt she and Gabe had unfinished business. Plus, she thought, she just wanted to see him, talk to him, laugh with him.
She groaned, blaming the hot, hazy early summer afternoon for her emotions.
There was no Gabe, of course, when she arrived back at her house, just tiny black ants that had discovered a gooey crumb on her kitchen floor.
She threw her hands on her hips. “How’d you guys get here so fast?”
She dealt with the ant mess, welcoming the sense of normalcy that came with it. Ants weren’t unusual this time of year.
Dealing with a potential stalker was unusual.
Felicity took her laptop out to a shaded spot on the deck and checked her messages. No texts, emails or voice mails from anyone, never mind Nadia Ainsworth.
As she worked, Felicity noticed dark clouds gathering to the west, adding a gray cast to the river. The air was still, oppressively hot and humid. She welcomed the cold front that the dark clouds signaled was moving in, but she’d happily skinny-dip in an isolated spot in the river right now. Probably not a good idea to be swimming when lightning struck.
She went inside and sat in front of a fan in the living room. It was one of those rare days when she wished Mark had installed air-conditioning.
A text came through. She glanced at her screen. “Gabe,” she whispered as she read it.
Made it to Boston. Thanks again for everything. What are you up to?
She typed her answer: Resisting our swimming hole.
Not good to swim alone.
Who says I’m alone?
But you are.
She smiled, surprised she wasn’t annoyed. I am. Storm’s coming. No swimming for me. Working. You?
Always working. TTYL
Should she bring up Nadia? Felicity shook her head, but she’d known she wouldn’t before she’d posed the question to herself. She typed a quick response: Talk soon.
Two minutes later, Gabe sent her a short video of bulldog puppies, a throwback to their pre-fight friendship. She watched the video twice, smiling even as she warned herself not to get sucked in by Gabriel Flanagan. He liked to have things his way, and she wasn’t going to twist herself into knots to please him. That didn’t mean she knew what they were to each other after the past few days, but if she wanted a man in her life, Gabe was a distraction if not an outright impediment—not because she couldn’t have male friends but because of their history, because they’d kissed at the swimming hole.
Because they weren’t just friends and maybe never had been.
If he were here, what would they be doing now, with a storm moving in on a hot, sweaty day?
Not a question that needed an answer, Felicity decided as she got back to work on Kylie’s badgers. It wasn’t long before she heard thunder rumbling in the distance. The storm hit soon after, bringing high winds, heavy rain, thunder and lightning and flickering power but no damage on Felicity’s stretch of the river. She took advantage of the weather to put away her laptop and add a few finishing touches to her badger couple. She’d never been particularly crafty, but she wanted a decent prototype for whomever she found to sew them.
A needle prick that drew blood convinced her to start making calls.
She grabbed a bandage out of her first-aid kit in the kitchen, managing not to drip blood on her badgers. She flashed back to her life before returning to Knights Bridge and moving into her house on the river. She loved Boston. She’d never tired of it—it was close enough she could slip into the city for the day. She had friends she could stay with overnight now that she was no longer living and working there. Like Mark Flanagan, Olivia McCaffrey and Maggie and Brandon Sloan, Felicity had done her bit in the city. She didn’t know about the others, but she’d moved back to Knights Bridge because she’d wanted to.
Gabe, she knew, would never want to move back to his hometown.
She dug out a name for a local seamstress, but she held off on making the call. Instead she called Olivia and Jess, and by dinnertime, Felicity, with Kylie’s permission, had a plan. Audrey Frost, Olivia and Jess’s grandmother, would get together a group
