Keeper's Reach. Carla Neggers
ever imagined one of her sons marrying a woman like Emma Sharpe. An FBI agent, maybe. But an FBI agent who was also a member of a family of renowned art detectives? An ex-nun? Mike, the eldest, had put aside his own doubts about Emma in the months since Colin, the second-born Donovan, had met her, fallen for her and asked her to marry him.
“Mike...” His mother hesitated. “This Reed Cooper...”
“It’ll be fine. Don’t worry. Have a good time with Emma.”
When she disconnected, Mike could tell she wasn’t satisfied. She might not be able to put her finger on exactly why, but she had well-honed instincts after all this time. Her four sons had been in plenty of jams—and she was well aware she didn’t know about all of them and there were likely more to come. Mike was ex-army living out on the Bold Coast as a wilderness guide and outfitter. Colin was an FBI agent based in Boston. Andy was a lobsterman. Kevin was a Maine state marine patrol officer.
Frank Donovan, their father, would just tell his wife, “The boys know what they’re doing.”
Sometimes it was true. Not always.
Mike stepped outside onto the porch. He had his grandfather’s old wooden canoe turned over on a rack. It needed work. Winter was a good time to fix things that the busy warm-weather months didn’t allow time for. He had the occasional backcountry skier or snowshoe group request his skills as a wilderness guide and outfitter, but not many people were interested in a trek along the icebound cliffs of the Bold Coast in the dead of winter.
Even in summer, he seldom had company. On a cold February night, he might see a white-tailed deer or a moose, but otherwise he had his spot in paradise to himself. His clients never came to his place, winter or summer. He would meet them at the general store in the village a few miles down the road. Some of them would ask, “Hey, Mike, where do you live?” He would say, “On the coast,” as if it could be anywhere on Maine’s more than three thousand miles of coastline.
The sun first hit the Continental United States on the Bold Coast, and he liked to be up for it, no matter what time. It was noticeably earlier now that it was late February. That morning the ocean had glowed with shades of deep orange, red and purple. Now it reflected the night sky of sparkling stars and a quarter moon.
He breathed in the salt-tinged air and listened to the tide wash over ice, rocks and sand. He liked to tell himself this place wasn’t an escape, as it had been for his grandfather. He lived here.
His mother wanted him to get a dog. Dogs are good company, she would tell him.
His father had been more direct: There must be women up there.
If his parents guessed there had been a woman during their firstborn’s time in the army, they didn’t say.
Mike had no photos of Naomi MacBride.
He didn’t need any. Every inch of her was etched in his mind forever. He could see her wide smile and dark, wild, curly hair. He could hear her laughter—she had an indomitable sense of humor—and he could feel her skin, hot and smooth, under his hands.
He turned away from the water and walked back to his cabin.
* * *
An ancient Vermont Castings woodstove served as the cabin’s sole source of heat. It had to be tended, but Mike had people who could do that for him when he was away. He might like his solitude but that didn’t mean he was without friends.
He checked his phone. No texts or emails.
He put another log on the fire and went back to cooking his dinner. He sautéed garlic, ginger, green beans, ground beef, soy sauce and rice vinegar and made brown rice. The kind of meal he could eat for a couple of days.
He dumped his dinner on a plate and sat by the fire.
Should he tell his FBI brother about another FBI agent coming to Maine this weekend for a get-together with private security contractors?
Probably, but Mike didn’t see any big rush. He’d call Colin in the morning.
He felt the heat of the fire and tried to remember the last time he had allowed himself to think about Naomi. Months, anyway. A year? Longer?
Not longer.
He didn’t know what he would do about Reed Cooper and the gathering at the Plum Tree. He did know that nothing good ever happened when Naomi MacBride was anywhere near his life.
It was something he couldn’t let himself forget.
Near Stow-on-the-Wold, the Cotswolds, England Thursday, 8:00 a.m., BST
The insistent crow of a rooster and the smell of rain roused Naomi MacBride from a not-so-dead sleep. She rolled onto her back and opened her eyes, trying to shake off dreams of a life and a man she had left behind years ago. She was in England, in a quiet Cotswolds village two hours west of London. It was February, and from the crowing rooster, she would guess it was morning, although it was still quite dark. She was in a double four-poster bed in a cute room in a small building located across the courtyard of a classic English pub complete with low, beamed ceilings and a huge open fireplace. She’d had a pint there last night before venturing into her room and falling into bed. It had been a long week.
Her room also had a low ceiling. She could feel its looming presence. She had never been one for squirrely places. Hence, the cracked window and her natural wake-up call.
The rooster crowed again.
He didn’t sound as if he planned to give up anytime soon.
With a groan, Naomi sat up, keeping the duvet tucked around her. She could hear more chickens now, warbling outside her window. Probably hens. If she were one of them, she would organize a revolt against the rooster.
Chickens.
She sighed. “Of course the place has chickens.”
She threw off the duvet and stood on a soft hooked rug that, she recalled, depicted a sheep. It was too dark to see it now. She shivered, rubbing her bare arms, wishing she had resisted the impulse to take this side trip and instead had spent her last night in England in London, where she’d had a room in a proper hotel with five-star service, a bustling lobby, a great location and no chickens. But here she was in the English countryside after a week of intense meetings.
She fumbled with the lamp on the nightstand, found the switch and turned it on. The worst part of her constant travel, Naomi decided, was locating light switches.
Nightmares about an ex-lover weren’t that great, either.
It wasn’t her fault she had dreamed about Mike Donovan. As much as she wanted to find someone to blame and could pick a name or two, she knew it wasn’t anyone’s fault. Not really.
She seldom had nightmares anymore about the dangers she’d faced in the past decade, maybe because she’d found healthy ways to process them. Post-trauma therapy had helped—or debriefing, or whatever one wanted to call it. Naomi, you’ve been through hell, her mother, blunt as ever, had told her. You need to talk to someone.
Naomi hadn’t mentioned Mike in her sessions—or to her mother. What was the point? By then, he was just another Special Forces soldier she would never see again.
She felt the cool air from the cracked window. Her room really was adorable with its English-country-chic decor. When she’d arrived last night, the woman at the reception desk in the pub had handed her a real key and reminded her that this was a pub that let rooms—meaning she could expect noise from the patrons late into the evening.
No mention of early-morning roosters.
Not that early, Naomi thought as she noted the time on her phone, faceup on the nightstand. Eight twenty. She had been in England long enough to adjust to the time change but not so