Secrets of the Lost Summer (23 page)

“Maybe, but I know you, Dylan. You won’t stop until you figure out what happened with your father and this place—why he bought it, these missing jewels, Grace Webster, the Frosts, Quabbin Reservoir. You’re relentless.”

“Maybe Olivia wants answers as much as I do.”

“Your presence threatens this little town. Hers doesn’t.”

“She lived in Boston for several years.”

“And she’s here now. So is her family. It’s her home. She has roots here. Now she has a business here. You’re a nomad like your father, and…” Noah frowned. “And there are blackflies.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying falling for her could be a big mistake.”

Dylan nodded. “I know.”

Noah waved a hand, swiping at the tiny flies. “I’m also saying there really are blackflies. Damn.” He slapped at a gnat on his cheek. “Olivia won’t hurt you. You’re tough as nails, Dylan McCaffrey. You could hurt her, and you could hurt the people she cares about, even if you don’t mean to.”

“Trying to get me back to my desk?”

“As if you ever worked at a desk for more than twenty minutes at a time. I’m speaking as a friend, Dylan, not as a business partner.”

“I thought you were the one who didn’t notice things.”

“Well, out here in the woods, a beautiful brown-haired woman is bound to get my attention.”

“She’s too good for me?”

Noah grinned. “Damn straight. You’re caught, my friend. You can’t have Olivia Frost if you pursue the Ashworth jewels, and you can’t have peace of mind if you don’t.”

“What if the jewels have nothing to do with her or Knights Bridge?”

“That’s why you found that file on your treasure-hunter father’s laptop and why he bought the house of an old woman who was in turmoil in the 1930s. That’s why your father’s card was in the Knights Bridge town library.”

“There’s a reason you’re a billionaire.”

“Yeah. Luck, and at least one person on this planet I trust. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m heading back to the land of concrete and five-star hotels.”

Dylan was silent a moment, taking in the quiet, the lush green of the landscape. “Think I could settle down here?”

“And what, grow beans?”

“I could coach youth hockey. My father and I used to talk about getting into adventure travel. Knights Bridge would be a good base.”

“You’re out of your mind,” Noah said, “but if anyone can figure this out, you can.”

Dylan grinned at him. “I’ll take that as encouragement.”

A black Lincoln pulled into the driveway—Noah’s hired car. He wasn’t staying. He’d never planned to stay. He had meetings in New York. As the driver got out and opened the back door for him, Noah hesitated and looked at Dylan. “I’m used to having you at these meetings, Dylan.”

“You’ll be fine. You’ve built a team you can trust.”

“No, you built a team I can trust. You played hockey. You’re the team type. I’m not.” Noah glanced down through the trees toward Olivia’s house. “Neither is Olivia Frost. We’re solo operators. Teamwork doesn’t come naturally to us. It takes some effort for us to learn how to build a team, trust a team—trust ourselves. I don’t have good instincts about people, but I can recognize someone else who gets burned because they can’t see a son of a bitch coming down the road.”

It was probably the most Noah had said at once since eighth grade. Dylan frowned at his friend. “Think she’s here licking her wounds?”

“Count on it,” Noah said. “I’m sorry I’ll miss her soup and bread.”

He climbed into the car and was gone. Dylan went inside and set the bag in his little refrigerator. He wasn’t hungry yet. He was restless, not quite sure what he was supposed to do next, which wasn’t like him. He changed into running clothes and took off in the opposite direction of The Farm at Carriage Hill. Blackflies found him, which he figured served him right for the thoughts he was having about his neighbor down the road.

When he returned, he tackled the claw-foot tub again and put on clean, dry clothes, as if somehow that would help him make a fresh start. He went back downstairs and, restless and out of sorts, searched through a cupboard in the living room and found a stack of old maps. He took them into the dining room and spread them on the table. One was a copy of a 1903 map of the Swift River Valley. It showed the towns that were disincorporated with the building of the Quabbin Reservoir thirty years later. He noted the three branches of the Swift River, roads, a railroad, tiny black dots marking where houses had been. It was a topographical map, and he could see the shape of the valley that ultimately had filled with water and the surrounding hills and ridges.

There was no way to know if the Ashworth jewels had ended up somewhere in the eighty-thousand acres of limited-access wilderness, or under water altogether.

What if Lord Ashworth had made them up?

Noah was right, Dylan thought. Either he had to leave Knights Bridge now and give up on getting answers, or he had to stay and try to dig into the reasons his father had bought this place and let the chips fall where they may.

If he left, would Olivia forget what she knew, or would she look for answers herself?

She would look. She wouldn’t forget.

Dylan smiled and got out the soup and bread. At least he and his hazel-eyed neighbor had something in common.

Sixteen

O
n a hot afternoon in early September, toward the end of that long, lost summer of 1938, our last summer in the Swift River Valley, I read about a jewelry robbery in Boston in my hideaway cabin. My spot by Carriage Hill Pond hadn’t changed, not yet, but work on the reservoir continued everywhere for miles and miles around me. Cutting, chopping, ripping, digging, burning. It went on all the time. The land was being scraped clean, creating a pristine bottom for when Beaver Brook and the three branches of the Swift River finally had nowhere else to go.

The story of a British aristocrat robbed of valuable jewels at his expensive hotel was a welcome diversion. I read about it in a newspaper already several days old. Lord Charles Ashworth and his fortune in missing jewels captured my imagination. I wondered if the thief had been caught already. Was he British? I couldn’t imagine he would come all the way to our valley. Daddy had finally taken the state’s offer and bought a house in Knights Bridge but he didn’t want to start over there or anywhere else. He wanted to pretend the politicians would change their minds and the valley could go back to the way it had been.

He must have known that was impossible. The valley towns no longer officially existed. They’d been “disincorporated” in April. Most of the residents had moved out. We were still living in Gran’s house, but Gran had started packing for our move to Knights Bridge. I was like Daddy. I didn’t want to pack until the last minute.

Safe in my little cabin, I reread the article on the jewelry robbery. I had to force myself to breathe calmly. I’d had drowning nightmares for months and would wake up gasping for air, but lately I often had trouble breathing during the day, too, just thinking of water inundating everything I knew. I didn’t tell anyone. We had to bear what we had to bear for the sake of progress, and millions of people would benefit from our sacrifice. Boston would have pure, unfiltered drinking water for the foreseeable future.

As I pictured the missing Ashworth jewels, I could smell the clean water of the pond and tried to pretend the rest of the valley was unchanged, still filled with people, homes and businesses. It was getting harder and harder to pretend. People said that in ten or twenty years, we would all come to love Quabbin. I hoped so. I wanted the destruction to end and the scars to heal.

That evening I slipped out of the house at dark. In the distance I could see the glow of the fires from the burning of brush and trees. When I got home, I cried until I couldn’t cry anymore. Daddy and Gran didn’t like me to cry. We were to carry on. I expected one of them to come to my bedroom door and tell me to hush, but neither did. I thought they didn’t hear me, didn’t realize I’d sneaked out. Now, with the benefit of time, I think they knew. I think they heard me and said nothing, did nothing, because they, too, were grieving for all we were losing. I don’t know if things would have been different if we’d talked. I pulled the curtains that night and crawled into bed, still seeing the glow of the fires.

The next day, I returned to the cabin. It was a sad walk from Gran’s house. So few houses were left. Trees I’d walked under for as long as I could remember were gone. I held back tears and by the time I reached the pond, I wanted to keep going, running until I came to a place where no one would ever tell me I had to leave my own home. I sat on my boulder and put my feet in the water, and when I was sure I wouldn’t cry, I went inside the cabin. I never cried in there. It was my one rule.

The cabin would go soon, too. It was in the watershed that had to be protected so the natural filtration process could occur. A drop of water entering Quabbin, they said, would take four years before it came out of a tap in Boston.

There was no running water at the cabin. I would get water from the pond or from a shallow, hand-dug well, probably from one of the valley’s original settlers, that was in the woods not ten yards behind the cabin.

I had grabbed my bucket to fetch water from the pond for dishes when I heard a noise in the woods. It sounded like a deer stepping on fallen branches. Instead, a man staggered out of the trees. He was bloody and filthy and hadn’t shaved in several days. “I need help,” he said in a hoarse whisper.

I gasped at his English accent. “Who are you?”

“My name’s Philip. I’m not…” He went very pale and almost sank to his knees, but he managed to stay upright and even give me a faltering smile. “I won’t hurt you. You’re—”

“Grace.” I believed he wouldn’t hurt me; it hadn’t occurred to me that he would. “We need to clean those wounds. Are you hungry?”

He attempted another smile. “Starved.”

I got him inside and onto my cot. He didn’t moan or complain but I could see he was in pain. I found a pan and soap, and I heated water from the well on the wood-fired kitchen stove. Philip was shivering under the quilts, and I realized he must have a fever. I touched his forehead. His skin was fiery hot.

“I can run and fetch my grandmother,” I said.

“No. Don’t tell anyone about me. Please, Grace. I promise I won’t hurt you.”

“I know you won’t.”

I cleaned his wounds. He had superficial cuts and scrapes on his hands and arms and a small gash on the left side of his face. He was lean and muscular, but I knew he wasn’t one of the reservoir workers.

“No one will bother you here for now,” I said.

“Thank you, Grace.”

I saw then how handsome he was. He had a strong jaw and clear, deep blue eyes. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

He touched a book I’d left on the cot. “I see you like your swashbucklers. I’m more of a scoundrel.” He sank into the thin mattress. “Will you read to me, Grace?”

I know I blushed. “Latin verses or
The Scarlet Pimpernel
?”

He smiled. “Not Latin.”

His eyes were shut but I could tell he wasn’t asleep. I opened
The Scarlet Pimpernel
and read to him.