Secrets of the Lost Summer Read online

  “That’d be great.” Jess gave a wry smile. “What if I run into your friend Marilyn?”

  “You won’t run into her.”

  “I know she did something to you—”

  “She looked after herself. That’s what Marilyn Bryson does. Maybe we should, too.”

  They walked up to the parking lot together, the mill’s handful of employees arriving for the day. Olivia noticed green shoots on the bank of the brook and remembered that her mother had planted a hundred daffodil bulbs there last fall, turning down help from anyone. She’d wanted to do the work herself.

  Jess stopped at her truck, one hand on the driver’s door as she squinted back at her older sister. “You love Boston, Liv. Are you sure you’ll be happy living in Knights Bridge full-time?”

  “So far, so good, Jess. Really. I’m fine.”

  “You have big plans for Carriage Hill. Between it and freelancing you’re already working long hours. Unless you’re very lucky or get some major backing, this first year’s going to be tight financially and grueling in terms of workload. I can help—I want to—”

  “You have your hands full with your work here.” There was also whatever was going on with Jess and her almost-fiancé, Olivia thought. The last thing Jess needed right now was to worry about her sister. Olivia gave her a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry about me, okay? I was ready to make a change or I wouldn’t be here.”

  “Dad says Dylan McCaffrey’s shown up. Your note about the mess in Grace’s yard must have gotten to him.”

  “It’s his yard now,” Olivia amended.

  “He reminded you of that, did he?”

  “That’s one old house that should be condemned,” Mark Flanagan said, emerging from behind an SUV. He was angular and long legged, his dark blond hair cut short. He wore pricey jeans and a black windbreaker over a flannel shirt, his usual outfit even through a good chunk of summer. “There’s no point in sinking money into trying to renovate it.” He stood next to Jess. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to eavesdrop.”

  “When did you get here?” Jess asked, regaining her composure.

  “A few minutes ago, but I’m not staying. I just need to check on an order. I saw you two talking and figured I’d say hi.”

  She yanked open the door. “What were you doing, sneaking up on us?”

  He gave Jess a mystified look. “You probably couldn’t hear me over the water.” He left it at that and turned to Olivia. “I ran into Dylan McCaffrey at breakfast this morning. I understand he’s the new owner of Grace Webster’s old house, but I can’t believe he’s staying there. That place is a dump. I’m not sure it’s even safe there.”

  For no reason that could possibly make sense to her, Olivia felt her cheeks flame. “He looked alive and well an hour ago. He was digging out a drain, and the house was still standing.”

  “What’s he doing here?” Mark asked.

  Jess either hadn’t noticed his mystified look or was pretending she hadn’t. “Olivia wrote to him.”

  Mark raised his eyebrows at Olivia. “You wrote to him? Why?”

  “I asked him to clean up the yard,” she said, trying not to sound defensive. “It’s an eyesore. It sends a bad message to people passing by—”

  “What people passing by?” Mark asked, amused.

  “No one now, but I am opening a business. My clientele will want a picturesque country setting. They won’t want to go by rusted appliances and cast-off mattresses.”

  “Relax, Liv,” Mark said. “People who want to eat chive soup won’t mind passing the Webster place. You can tell them it’s authentic country.”

  “Not funny, Mark,” Olivia said good-naturedly as he continued across the parking lot to the mill entrance. “Not funny at all. And it’s not chive soup. It’s potato-leek soup sprinkled with chives.”

  He laughed. “I feel so much better.”

  Jess watched him disappear inside the mill. “Don’t mind him, Liv. He’s getting to be as big a stick-in-the-mud as Dad. I can’t wait to try your soup.”

  “Thanks, but he was just teasing. Jess—”

  “I have to get going. I’ll see you later. Good luck with McCaffrey.”

  She climbed into her truck. Olivia shook her head with bemusement and returned to her car. She drove the short distance into the village, turning onto another of Knights Bridge’s narrow roads, this one dead-ending at a popular gate that fishermen and hikers used to access Quabbin. She pulled into Rivendell, a small assisted living facility situated on open land dotted with sugar maples and white pines, with views of the waters of the reservoir in the distance. Audrey Frost, Olivia’s grandmother, lived in a one-bedroom apartment down the hall from Grace Webster.

  Grace had been entirely unhelpful in tracking down the new owner of her house, which Olivia had attributed to her advanced age. Grace was, after all, in her nineties. With Dylan’s arrival, Olivia was no longer as sure age had anything to do with it. The story of how he’d ended up with the house had too many unanswered questions.

  Maybe Grace was hiding something. Maybe whatever she was hiding had brought Duncan McCaffrey to Knights Bridge—and now his son.

  “Or maybe I didn’t get enough sleep last night,” Olivia muttered under her breath as she passed the sunroom. She spotted Grace in a chair, alone in front of a wall of windows, and went in. “I thought that was you. Good morning, Miss Webster.”

  Grace beamed, her eyes sparkling at her visitor. “So good to see you, Olivia. You know you can call me Grace now. I was always ‘Miss Webster’ to my students, but I’m no longer a teacher. We live in a more casual age than when I was younger.” She set a small but powerful pair of binoculars on her lap. She was a tiny woman with snow-white hair she kept neatly curled, and light blue eyes that added charm to what could be a stern demeanor. Her attention was on birds fluttering at feeders outside. “I just saw a male cardinal. We’ll have to take the feeders down soon, though. Now that the weather’s warming up, they’ll attract bears and mountain lions.”

  “Mountain lions, Grace?” Olivia asked with a skeptical smile.

  “Darn right,” she said, clutching the binoculars with her arthritis-gnarled fingers. “I heard that catamount scat was discovered in Quabbin. Mountain lions are shy animals. They stick to the wilderness and avoid human contact. Who would have thought bald eagles and moose would return to the area? But they have, so why not mountain lions?”

  Olivia wasn’t arguing about mountain lions in Quabbin. There had been periodic reports of their return to the back areas of the protected, limited-access wilderness surrounding the reservoir, but no confirmed sightings.

  “The bird feeders are a nice touch,” she said.

  Grace sank into the cushions of her high-backed chair. “We take care of them ourselves. How are you, Olivia? Your grandmother and I have yoga class together in a little while. She’s younger than I am, but I hold my own.”

  Of that, Olivia had no doubt. “I’ll stop by and say hi, but I also wanted to see you. I’m wondering if you’ve thought more about the man who bought your house.”

  She gazed out the windows as three chickadees darted at the feeders. “I haven’t, no.”

  Stonewalling, Olivia thought. “Apparently he died and left the house to his son in San Diego. He’s here.”

  That got Grace’s attention. She peered up at Olivia. “He’s in Knights Bridge?”

  “He arrived yesterday and spent the night at your old house.”

  “You asked him to clean up the yard?”

  Olivia nodded. “I told him it’s become an eyesore since you sold the house.”

  “Hoodlum teenagers. I left the washer and refrigerator on the back porch for the new owner to get rid of. That was part of our deal. I didn’t want to be bothered with taking them to the dump…” Grace sniffed, a touch of the old-fashioned, formidable teacher coming out in her. “I wish I’d been there to catch the little devils having their fun. I’d have had every one of them arrested for criminal mischief.”

>   “Just as well you weren’t there, Grace.”

  “That’s why kids run wild these days. There’s no one to take a firm hand. We don’t want to be bothered. Look at me here, holed up in an old folks’ home, watching birds....”

  “You did your bit for the youth of Knights Bridge.”

  Grace loosened her grip on her binoculars and raised a hand, pointing one finger at Olivia. “I don’t believe for one minute the brats who vandalized my house were from Knights Bridge.”

  By their own account, some of the adults in town who had been students of Grace Webster back in her days as an English and Latin teacher were still afraid of her. Olivia could understand why. Grace in her prime must have been something.

  She was something now, Olivia thought, and steered the conversation back to her reason for being there. “The son—the man who inherited your house—is named Dylan McCaffrey.”

  Grace lowered her hand, her brow furrowed as she waited a moment before speaking. “McCaffrey. Yes, I remember now. His father was also a Dylan?” She shook her head, stopping Olivia from responding. “No, it was something else.”

  “Duncan,” Olivia said.

  “That’s right. Exactly so.” Grace kept her eyes on the bird feeders. “This Dylan McCaffrey—he’s a scoundrel, isn’t he?”

  Scoundrel? Olivia bit back her surprise, as well as a smile. “Why would you think he’s a scoundrel?”

  “His father was a treasure hunter.”

  “A what? Grace—”

  She raised her binoculars again. “Spring’s here despite last night’s storm. I’ve seen robins. I’m sure I saw a bluebird, too, but your grandmother isn’t so sure.”

  “Grace,” Olivia said, “if you know of any reason I should be wary of Dylan McCaffrey, you need to tell me.”

  “I would think you would be wise to be wary of any man who mysteriously inherited a house on the other side of the continent from a dead father.” She set her binoculars back in her lap and fixed her gaze on Olivia. “Is this Dylan McCaffrey single?”

  Her blunt question didn’t surprise Olivia. Grace Webster was famous in town for being probing, straightforward and, if herself a private woman, interested in her friends and neighbors in Knights Bridge.

  Noticing the cardinal had returned, Olivia said, her voice even, “I don’t know anything about him. I didn’t get the impression he was married, but I don’t really know.”

  “Why would a single man bother with my old house? Why doesn’t he just sell it?”

  “I don’t think he’s planning to move in. He’s just checking it out after I wrote to him and he discovered he’d inherited it from his father. I only met him for a few minutes in the freezing rain. Did you meet his father?”

  “Yes, I met him. I didn’t want to.”

  “Why didn’t you want to?”

  “Because I didn’t want a picture of the man who was buying my house stuck in my head.” She again raised her light blue eyes to Olivia. “Then I discovered that he was a treasure hunter. All treasure hunters are scoundrels.”

  “I don’t know much about treasure hunters. What ‘treasure’ could anyone hope to find at your house?”

  “None,” the old woman answered without hesitation.

  Olivia’s head was spinning. “Then what difference does it make that he was a treasure hunter? If it wasn’t the reason he bought your house—”

  “I don’t know why he bought my house.”

  “What was he like? Do you remember?”

  “Of course I remember. Just because I didn’t tell you doesn’t mean I don’t remember. He was charming.” Grace watched the bright red cardinal flutter at the feeders. “I’ve written a book.”

  A book?

  “Did your father tell you?” Grace asked, matter-of-fact.

  “No, Grace, he didn’t.”

  “I told your grandmother, and I gave her permission to tell him.”

  “I haven’t heard about your book. What’s it about?”

  “My life. I wrote it by hand before I moved out of my house and then I typed it onto a computer here in the computer lab. It took forever. I had ten copies printed, but I don’t want anyone to read it until I’ve passed. I’ve set aside one for Audrey, should she outlive me, and one for the library. I’m not sure what to do with the rest of them.” She smiled. “You could always sell them at Carriage Hill. Your grandmother tells me that’s what you’re calling it. People love local color, and I’m one of the last residents left from the lost valley towns.”

  “That’s a little morbid, don’t you think?”

  She gave Olivia a cool look. “If I were getting married, would you think it morbid to plan my wedding?”

  “Of course not, but—”

  “Then it’s not morbid to plan my passing. I didn’t say I was going to drink hemlock or sprinkle monkshood on my oatmeal. You know monkshood is poisonous, don’t you?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “You’ll want to be careful about planting any near children.”

  “I will,” Olivia said. “Does your book have anything to do with the McCaffreys?”

  “No. Nothing at all to do with them.”

  “Treasure?”

  “It’s about a long-ago summer,” she said. “A lost summer of my lost youth.”

  “Grace…”

  Olivia didn’t go on. The older woman’s eyelids were drooping, and the binoculars fell out of her hand into her lap as she nodded off. She woke up almost immediately, but Olivia said goodbye and headed down the hall to see her grandmother.

  “Oh, she worked on that book for months,” Audrey Frost said as she rolled up her yoga mat in the living area of her little apartment. Her hair was snow-white and cut short, and she had on a dark pink tunic over black ankle tights and Nikes. “She locked the copies in her safe-deposit box at the bank.”

  Olivia noticed a slender vase of forsythia on the small dining table. Her grandmother almost never cooked. She liked to tell people she’d have moved into assisted living sooner if she’d realized she didn’t have to cook unless she wanted to.

  “Grace said she won’t let anyone read it until she’s gone.”

  “She means it, too. She wouldn’t let me near it when she was writing it. I’d stop by, and she’d shut her notebook the minute she saw me. Then when she was typing it up after she moved here, she would only use one of the computers near the door, so no one could sneak up on her or peek over her shoulder.” Audrey Frost looked just like her son, Olivia’s father, when she rolled her eyes. “You would think she was writing the secret biography of the Queen of England.”

  “Do you think she told secrets? About herself? About other people in town?”

  “I don’t think anything.”

  Olivia considered the news of Grace Webster’s book as her grandmother, eighty-six, clasped her hands behind her and did a quick stretch.

  She raised her arms above her head for another stretch. “Some secrets are best taken to the grave. Not that I have secrets,” she added quickly. “How could I in this town? And your father. You know him, Liv. He doesn’t believe in secrets. He doesn’t go around telling people intimate details about his life or putting his bank account numbers up on Facebook—but those aren’t secrets.”

  Olivia smiled. “Surprisingly enough, I know what you mean. Do you think Grace has secrets?”

  “She’s lived alone all these years, and the people she grew up with were scattered when the valley towns were depopulated to make way for Quabbin. She could just have bottled-up memories, and now they’ve become secrets.”

  “How long have you known her?”

  “She moved to Knights Bridge before the war. I was thirteen or fourteen, but I didn’t get to know her until I started to work at the school. I was the bookkeeper there for forty-two years. Some days I can hardly believe I’ve been retired for twenty years.”

  “But you and Grace Webster were friends—”

  “All these years, yes, but I couldn’t tell you if she has anything to hide or n
ot.”

  Olivia pictured the old woman looking at birds in the sunroom. “If Grace does have secrets, I don’t know if I can see her revealing them in a book for people to read after she’s gone.”

  “Good point.” Her grandmother glanced at the clock on her spotless stove. “I have a few minutes before yoga class. Come. Sit. Tell me about this man who’s moved into her house.”

  “It’s temporary, and how did you know?”

  “People talk and I listen. He’s very good-looking, I hear.”

  Word about Dylan’s appearance at breakfast must have spread to the assisted living center a mile away. “Grandma, I didn’t come to bug Grace because Dylan McCaffrey is good-looking—”

  “So he is?”

  “He’s strongly built and…I don’t know. Yes, I guess you could say he’s good-looking in a rough-and-tumble sort of way.”

  “You’re blushing. Whatever happened to that man of yours in Boston?”

  “Peter moved to Seattle.” Olivia wasn’t going further than that. “I should go. I have a million things to do. It’s good seeing you, Grandma. Enjoy your yoga class.”

  By the time Olivia drove back through the village and onto the road to her house, the temperature had risen into the fifties. Dylan’s car was still in his driveway, but he wasn’t outside. He—or someone else—had gathered some of the smaller pieces of junk from the yard and stacked them at the end of the driveway. Slowing to a crawl, Olivia saw that the washer and refrigerator were still in the blackberries. Even as strong as he looked to be, Dylan would need help moving them.

  She picked up speed and continued down to her house. As she got out of her car, she noticed that a cluster of a dozen purple crocuses had opened up by her kitchen steps.

  Buster greeted her at the door, eager for a walk. Luckily, he hadn’t torn up the place. She snapped on his leash and headed out, deliberately turning down the road toward Quabbin, away from Grace’s old house. She didn’t want to run into Dylan. Not right now. She needed to think. She wanted to know more about him and his treasure-hunting father, but without doing anything that would upset Grace, who clearly remembered more about the man who’d bought her house than she’d initially let on.