The Spring At Moss Hill. Carla Neggers

Russ off at the airport. “This is an awful little place,” she said, hopping onto a bar stool. “But that’s part of its charm.”

      “That’s what we all think. French martini?”

      “As only you can make one, my dear Marty. Did Russ bitch and moan about heading east?”

      “You know us Coltons. We’re stoic.” Marty reached for a glass. “His flight hasn’t taken off yet. You still have time to call him and cancel this trip to this little town.”

      “Then you’d lose your chance to drive his Rover.”

      “The sacrifices we make for our siblings.”

      “I don’t have any siblings. I’m an only child. Thank heavens. I’d hate for anyone else to have had to endure my SOB of a father. What was your father like, Marty?”

      “Solid.”

      She frowned at him. She’d heard something in his voice. A certain raggedness, or unease. Maybe it was just driving to and from LAX. Her idea of hell. She was relieved Russ hadn’t taken her up on her offer to drive him, not that she’d ever doubted he would. “Is he still with us? Your father, I mean?”

      “Nah. Died ten years ago. You didn’t drive over here, did you?” Marty held up the martini glass. “I don’t have to worry about you getting behind a wheel after having one or two of these babies?”

      “I did not drive, no, and you never have to worry about me. I’m a responsible drinker.”

      “Does that mean you want me to go heavy on the pineapple juice?”

      “It does not.”

      Daphne noted how he’d changed the subject from talk of his father, deliberately. Fathers could be a tricky topic. It had occurred to her, more than once, that the Colton brothers knew far more about her than she did them. Russ, because he worked with Sawyer & Sawyer and she was a client. Marty, because he made a hell of a French martini and she was a customer. She considered them friends, and she thought they considered her a friend, if along the lines of an eccentric aunt.

      An aunt would know more about her nephews than Daphne did about Marty and Russ Colton.

      She leaned forward. “Marty, darling, are you dawdling?”

      “No, ma’am. I have your drink right here.”

      “You’re such a brat. You know I hate being called ma’am.”

      He set her drink in front of her. “That will take the sting off the insult.”

      Chambord liqueur, vodka and pineapple juice, with a twist of lemon. It was Daphne’s favorite drink these days. She took a sip. “Ah. Perfect, as always. Have you ever sampled one, Marty?”

      “No. Never will, either.”

      “Russ tried mine a few weeks ago. I think you were busy and missed it. I could tell he wanted to spit it out, but he’s a tough guy. He resisted. He said it tastes like spiked punch.”

      “To each his own.”

      “That’s what I told him.”

      Marty grabbed a white cloth and mopped up where he’d prepared her drink. “Are you seriously worried you’ll run into problems next week in this little town?”

      “They’re expecting fifty people at my master class.”

      “You can handle it. That’s nothing in your world.”

      “What if one of them is fixated on me in an unhealthy way?”

      “You’d have forty-nine people there to help you.”

      Daphne didn’t want to explain her mix of emotions about returning to Knights Bridge. Paranoia, excitement, dread, dedication. Affection. She’d come to adore Ruby and Ava O’Dunn. She’d known their father when she’d lived in Knights Bridge, briefly, as a young woman. He’d died tragically ten years ago in a tree-trimming accident. Ruby, in particular, reminded Daphne of handsome, poetic Patrick O’Dunn.

      “You okay?” Marty asked as he poured a beer for another customer.

      She made herself smile and adopt her practiced air of not having a care in the world. “Did Russ tell you he caught a stalker targeting a young actor? He didn’t tell me. The actor did. No charges were filed. Our stalker volunteered to return home to Portland and go back into therapy. All it took was seeing Russ on his doorstep. Russ didn’t have to say a word.” Daphne drank more of her martini. “He says it was his sunglasses.”

      “He does look like a badass in those sunglasses.”

      “But it wasn’t just the sunglasses,” Daphne said.

      Marty shrugged. “Russ is very good at what he does. He’s a natural at his job, but he’s also worked hard at it. He had a lot of experience in the navy.”

      Marty delivered the beer down the bar. He had the ability to carry on multiple conversations. He was a dabbler, bartending, acting, screenwriting, grabbing whatever work he could to live his Hollywood dreams. Daphne understood and tried to help, to get him to focus on the work and not just the dream. But he was focused, Daphne thought. It was easy to underestimate Marty Colton.

      She nursed her martini. She didn’t want to have two drinks, but she also didn’t want to gulp down this one and end up going home too early. She supposed she could switch to sparkling water, but she knew she wouldn’t. When Marty returned, he tilted his head back, studying her. She wasn’t fooled by his good looks and easygoing ways. He could be as incisive and critical as Russ. Worse, even, since he didn’t have a client relationship with her. She was just a customer who liked the occasional French martini at the hole-in-the-wall bar where he worked.

      “Do you wish you felt guilty for sending Russ to your hometown?” Marty asked.

      “Knights Bridge isn’t my hometown. I moved there when I was eighteen to get away from my father. I found solace and hope there, and I honed my sewing and design skills. I left at twenty to come out here.”

      “That took guts.”

      “I think we say that when things work out. When they don’t, we say it was reckless, stupid, irresponsible.”

      “This class isn’t a prison sentence, Daphne. You can bow out at the last minute.”

      “Imagine how that would look.”

      “Imagine how it would look to drive yourself crazy or drink yourself into oblivion because you keep trying to talk yourself into believing you want to do this thing.”

      “I do want to do it.”

      He raised his palms in front of him. “I rest my case.”

      Daphne finished her martini. She was being ridiculous, second-guessing herself. She’d made her decision. She’d made a commitment to Ruby and Ava. Of course she had to go to Knights Bridge next week. With the day drawing closer, jitters were normal.

      She thanked Marty and let him put her drink on her tab. It was a late night for her. Usually she was in bed by ten o’clock.

      * * *

      When she arrived at her bungalow in Hollywood Hills, Daphne was glad she’d opted to take a cab. Her one martini had gone to her head. She was careful not to stagger, because who knew if the cab driver was taking a video, texting his friends—anything was possible these days. Once she was inside, with the door locked, she felt tears on her cheeks. Oh, good heavens, she thought, was she crying? It had to be the martini.

      “You need food.”

      She went into her kitchen, hoping she could find something to eat. Her house was only fifteen-hundred square feet, but she loved it. She’d bought it after her last divorce and had it painted a warm sunshine yellow in celebration of her new freedom. She’d decorated the interior in creamy neutrals, with the idea that a man would never live here again. So far, so good on that