That Night on Thistle Lane Read Online Free PDF Page B

would have to return it once they arrived in Boston. He had no choice.
    He could see that Dylan was on alert. He would help in a heartbeat if Noah was in trouble. NAK trouble, personal trouble. It didn’t matter.
    This time, Noah didn’t want Dylan to get involved.
    The San Diego call was his problem.
    Dylan seemed to guess that asking more questions would get him nowhere. His years on the ice, practicing, playing with a team, had honed his natural instincts about when to make a move, when to hold back. Noah had always been more of a solo operator.
    As he started the car, Dylan took a breath, obviously reining in an urge to interrogate Noah. Finally he said, “Olivia’s done a lot of work on her house since you were there in April.”
    “That’s good,” Noah said neutrally. Olivia’s house had needed a lot of work.
    “We’re tearing down my place,” Dylan added.
    “Ah.”
    As far as Noah was concerned, it was the only sensible option. He’d been to Knights Bridge just that one time, in early spring, not long after Dylan had received a handwritten note from Olivia Frost demanding he clean up his property, an eyesore for potential visitors to the getaway she was opening down the road from him.
    Except her note was the first Dylan had heard of her, Knights Bridge or his ownership of a house there. He’d had no idea his treasure-hunter father had bought the house and left it to him upon his death two years ago. It was built in the 1840s but wasn’t the architectural gem that Olivia’s home was. In fact, it was a rundown wreck.
    Dylan hadn’t expected to discover that he had roots of his own in the out-of-the-way Swift River Valley, and he certainly hadn’t expected to fall in love with Olivia Frost.
    Despite the miles he had hiked over the past few days, Noah felt restless, frustrated with his situation, even trapped, but at least he didn’t have to keep the players straight in Knights Bridge, Massachusetts. He stuck out enough in Southern California but he enjoyed relative anonymity there compared to what he would endure in a small town straight out of Norman Rockwell. Dylan had tried to explain to him that, despite appearances to the contrary, time hadn’t stopped in Knights Bridge.
    Maybe it hadn’t, but it was still small.
    Really small.
    Noah stared out the window as the mountains and woodlands of northern New England gave way to the suburbs of metropolitan Boston. Dylan drove with occasional suspicious glances at him, but Noah didn’t budge. He wasn’t talking.
    When the Boston skyline came into view and traffic picked up, he sat up straight, wide-awake.
    This was familiar territory.
    Dylan valet-parked at the same five-star hotel in Copley Square where the charity event was being held and they each had booked a suite for the night. Their costumes for the evening would be delivered to their rooms.
    “Noah,” Dylan said as he climbed out of the car.
    Noah knew there was no point denying there was a problem. He shook his head. “Later.”
    “Anytime. You know that.”
    “I do. Thanks.”
    When he reached his suite, Noah dug out his iPhone and stood in the window overlooking the familiar city streets as he dialed Loretta Wrentham’s number in San Diego. Loretta was Dylan’s personal lawyer and friend, a striking woman in her early fifties who recently admitted she’d been his father’s lover, at least briefly. According to Loretta, Duncan McCaffrey had never told her why he’d bought a house in Knights Bridge, either, but it had changed his son’s life.
    That was Duncan, Noah thought. He’d been a restless soul, divorcing Dylan’s mother, traveling the world, having adventures. Fifteen years ago, he’d turned up in Boston when Noah was a freshman at MIT. Noah had been homesick, feeling like a misfit even among people just as dedicated to math and science as he was. Duncan McCaffrey had suggested Noah take up a martial art. “Karate, tae kwon do, tai chi, fencing. Something.” Noah had