That Night on Thistle Lane. Carla Neggers

had no idea what he was doing beyond taking a hot shower when he was back in civilization.

      More mosquitoes descended on him when he rounded the next bend in the trail, but by then he didn’t care. He could hear cars. After three nights sleeping in a tent, he was ready to check into a five-star Boston hotel, even if a B-movie swashbuckler costume was waiting for him.

      * * *

      Dylan had booked a room at the sprawling Mount Washington Hotel, a National Historic Landmark that opened in Bretton Woods in 1902. Noah would have happily stayed there for several days and enjoyed the resort amenities and the spectacular views of the surrounding mountains, but he and Dylan had to get to Boston.

      They took turns in the shower and changed into fresh clothes.

      Noah didn’t shave. Dylan grinned at him. “Four days’ beard growth is essential for a swashbuckler, I take it.”

      Noah shrugged. “I’m just hoping it will help keep anyone from recognizing me.”

      He slipped into a black sport coat, which he wore over a silky black T-shirt and black trousers—the uniform he’d adopted after graduating from MIT. He didn’t remember why, except it had seemed like a good idea at the time. Dylan insisted it was because he wanted to appear older. Maybe it had been. Whatever the reason, now people expected him to show up head-to-toe in black.

      He cupped his iPhone in one hand and started out into the hall.

      “How many messages did you have?” Dylan asked as they left the room.

      “What makes you think I looked?” At his friend’s roll of the eyes, Noah answered with an exaggeration. “Ten thousand.”

      “You mean ten, and one you answered.”

      It was close. That was Dylan. He could read people.

      They headed down wide, elegant stairs to the main lobby, then outside onto a sweeping porch overlooking expansive lawns and the stunning mountains where they’d spent the past four days and three nights.

      As they walked to Dylan’s car, he frowned at Noah. “Everything okay?”

      “I got bit by mosquitoes. Do you worry about West Nile virus?”

      “No, and you don’t, either. What’s up?”

      Noah shook his head as he climbed into the passenger seat of Dylan’s Audi. He’d bought the car for his Knights Bridge residence now that he was spending most of his time on the East Coast. Noah didn’t offer to drive.

      He needed to think.

      In fact, he’d had one call from San Diego that made him uneasy. He 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 signed up for his first fencing lesson that week. Duncan had already gone off on some expedition.

      Noah had known Loretta since she’d started working with Dylan during his early years with the NHL and considered her a friend.

      She answered on the first ring. She must have pounced on the phone. “I haven’t found out a thing,” she said. “Not. A. Thing.”

      That wasn’t good. Loretta was a hound. One sniff, and she pinned her nose to the trail straight to the end. This one had her stumped.

      A few days before Noah flew to Boston for his hike in the White Mountains, he’d spotted a mystery man on his tail in San Diego. Or what he thought was a mystery man on his tail. He’d first noticed the man outside a waterfront restaurant, then at his fencing studio and finally outside the NAK offices in downtown San Diego.

      On that third sighting, Noah had raced outside but got there too late. The man was gone. Loretta was on her way into the lobby of NAK’s stylish high-rise. Noah asked her if she’d seen anyone. She said she hadn’t, but offered to find out what she could. As a friend.

      “It could