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purple lettering. Dylan had missed it. He did a quick search but nothing came up anywhere in Massachusetts, never mind Knights Bridge.
“I guess a farm would explain the chives on the front of the card,” Noah said.
“I thought it was clover.”
“Chives are more romantic than clover, don’t you think?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever thought about chives or clover.”
Noah grinned. “Good luck. Let me know if you need my help.”
“With moving the refrigerator or figuring out why Olivia Frost thinks I own this house?”
“Either one,” Noah said.
He withdrew from Dylan’s office. His own was just down the hall, at least for the moment. NAK had gone public late last year. He and Noah had both made a fortune in the process, but NAK as a public company was different from it as a private company. The tight team of the early years was transforming into something else, and Dylan wasn’t sure what his new role would be, or if he’d have one. He’d always been willing to walk away when Noah no longer needed him.
He looked out at the view of his adopted city and dialed Loretta Wrentham, his lawyer and financial manager.
He worked for another two hours, then drove out to his house on Coronado Island, a two-story tan stucco built in the 1950s. Kidney-shaped pool out back, the Pacific in front. Loretta arrived thirty minutes later, glanced at the note card and photographs from Olivia Frost that he’d arranged on his coffee table, then walked straight across the living room to the beveled glass door that led onto his front porch. At five-nine, Loretta was almost as tall as he was, slender and impeccably dressed. Her silver curls were cut short, emphasizing her wide brown eyes, high cheekbones and strong chin.
“You inherited the house from your father,” she said, cracking open the door. She wore expensive jeans, a silky top and heels that didn’t seem to bother her but would kill most other women half her age. She glanced back at him. “I assumed you knew.”
“How would I know?”
“He was your father, Dylan. Didn’t you two talk about these things?”
“No. What about a mortgage?”
“There isn’t one. He paid cash. It wasn’t an expensive property.”
“What about property taxes? What about upkeep?”
“I’ve paid property taxes on your behalf. They’re not high. Upkeep…” Loretta grimaced. “No one’s lived in the house for a while. It was unoccupied when your father bought it shortly before his untimely death. Upkeep is minimal, just enough to prevent the pipes from freezing.”
“Who was the original owner?”
“A woman by the name of Grace Webster. I should say she’s the most recent owner. The house was built in 1842. The original owner would be dead by now for sure.”
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
Loretta grinned as she pushed the door open wide. “Oh, yes.”
Dylan leaned against the back of the couch. His house, a few blocks from the famed Hotel del Coronado, was professionally decorated in shades of cream and brown. Restful and sophisticated, supposedly. The yard, too, was professionally landscaped. No junk.
“What do you know about this Grace Webster?” he asked.
“Not much. She’s in her nineties.” Loretta stepped onto the porch, her back to him as she took in the view of the Pacific. Finally she turned to him. “Her father bought the house in 1938, after the state forced everyone out of their hometown to make way for the Quabbin Reservoir.”
That had to be the lake Dylan had seen on the map.
“Quabbin,” Loretta continued, still clearly amused, “is a Native American word that means ‘place of many waters,’ or ‘meeting of the waters.’ It refers to the Swift River Valley, which was laced with three branches of the Swift River and multiple streams—the perfect location for a reservoir.”
“Loretta,” Dylan said.
She waved a perfectly manicured hand at him. “Miss Webster’s ancestors settled in the valley in the mid-1700s. Two hundred years later,