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now, or had even thought to, considering the condition of the property he owned in Knights Bridge.
He glanced at her Facebook picture again. It was more of a close-up than the one at the awards ceremony. Her eyes weren’t green, he decided. They were hazel, a fetching mix of green and blue flecked with gold.
He shut off his laptop and called his assistant to book a morning flight east to Boston.

Three
     
O livia raked the last of the fallen leaves from the raised herb bed by her back door. The overcast sky and chilly temperature didn’t bother her. The snow had melted out of her backyard, if not in the woods, and signs of spring were everywhere. She loved finding shoots of green under their cover of sodden leaves. The physical work gave her a burst of energy. She was ready to head up the road to Grace Webster’s old house and start hauling junk. Naturally its owner, Dylan McCaffrey, hadn’t responded to her note.
What had she expected? After two years of ignoring his property in Knights Bridge, why would he care?
Elly O’Dunn, who’d provided McCaffrey’s name and address, remembered meeting him when he’d stopped at the town offices. She told Maggie, who’d then told Olivia, that he was a good-looking man in his seventies, with thick white hair and intense blue eyes. She hadn’t spoken to him, and she couldn’t fathom why he’d wanted to buy Grace Webster’s house.
Olivia couldn’t, either. She took her rake with her to the front yard, just as her father pulled up in his truck. She’d almost forgotten she’d invited her parents to lunch. As he stepped onto the dirt driveway, she noticed he was alone. Randy Frost was a big, burly man who had transformed his father’s struggling sawmill into a profitable enterprise, all while serving on the Knights Bridge volunteer fire department since his teens.
“Place is shaping up,” he said, walking around to the front of his truck. He wasn’t wearing a hat or gloves, and his fleece jacket was open over a dark blue sweater.
Olivia held onto her rake. “It is, isn’t it?”
He glanced past her at the woods beyond the strip of yard on the garage side of the house. The area had been farmland before World War II, but hardwoods and evergreens had reclaimed much of the land, old stone walls that had marked fields now lacing a forest that stretched to the shores of the reservoir. Any open land was behind her house and up the road toward Grace’s—Dylan McCaffrey’s—house.
“Snow’s almost gone,” her father said, then sighed, turning back to his elder daughter. “This place is in the middle of nowhere, Liv, even by Knights Bridge standards. Do you really think people will come out here?”
“I do, Dad. No question in my mind.”
“Maybe your sister can be your guinea pig.”
Olivia almost dropped her rake. “She and Mark have set a wedding date?”
“No. She’s waiting for him to come up with a ring. She’s a romantic, but Mark…” Randy Frost ran a callused palm over his salt-and-pepper hair. “None of my business.”
Olivia had graduated high school with Mark. She remembered him sleeping in the back of algebra class, but he’d gone on to become an architect. After ten years going to school and working in Boston and New York, he moved back to Knights Bridge a year ago and had no interest in living anywhere else ever again.
“If Jess had wanted a Byron-esque soul,” Olivia said, “she and Mark Flanagan wouldn’t be together. He’s a great guy, though.”
“Yeah. I guess. What have you been raking?”
“The herb beds. The lavender survived the winter. It’s in a warm spot by the back door. I’ve decided to host a mother-daughter tea as a way to kick things off and get out the word that The Farm at Carriage Hill is up and running.”
“Your mother told me. She says she and Jess are coming. You’re not asking for money?”
“Right. It’ll be like an open house.”
“Makes sense. Then your guests can go home and decide to book their own