Red Clover Inn

Okay, getting some specifics. This village? Another village in the Cotswolds? Was this mystery inn located in England? Was staying there Brody and Heather’s idea? Greg was stumped. He had no memory of discussing an inn, with or without bats, with anyone, ever.

“It has an open field on one side,” Eric added. “Makes sense given its name.”

The waiter set a coffee press on the table as Greg poured cold milk over his fruit and Weetabix. Maybe he should have waited and had some coffee before going to the cold-buffet table. “I don’t remember the name of the inn...”

“Red Clover Inn.”

“Cute name,” Greg said, desperate now. What had he done? He cleared his throat. “Homey sound to it.”

“Justin and Samantha want to keep the name. I don’t care one way or the other. It sounds more like it should be out in the country rather than a half mile from the village. We bought it on a whim. The owner died without a proper will and there was a family squabble. It took some time to get sorted out. They couldn’t wait to sell the place.”

The Sloans hadn’t struck Eric as people who did things on a whim, but Heather Sloan had married Brody after a short romance and now Justin Sloan was marrying Samantha Bennett after meeting her in a fire last fall when she’d slipped into Knights Bridge in search of pirate treasure.

People who knew their own minds, maybe.

But...wait...the Sloans owned this inn?

Greg poured his coffee and set the press down. He was an elite federal agent who protected ambassadors and other dignitaries in and outside the United States, and he damn well could figure out that Eric was talking about Knights Bridge, his hometown in rural New England, about two hours west of Boston. Greg hadn’t expected to return to Knights Bridge except maybe to visit Heather and Brody when they built their place on the lake where Brody had grown up. And that was a big maybe.

Greg tried the Weetabix. It was fine. Good, in fact. “Definitely waited too long to give this stuff a try.” He was buying time. Given Eric’s narrowed eyes, Greg suspected the guy’s cop instincts had clicked into gear. He ate more of his cereal. Hard to look suspicious eating cereal. “The fruit helps. The inn sounds like a great family project.”

“We’ll see. It’s a regular country inn. Or it was. It hasn’t been anything for a while.”

Glad his mouth was full and he didn’t have to respond, Greg waited for Eric to head to the cold-buffet table. He got out his phone and surreptitiously texted Brody.

I’m staying at an inn in KB?

Brody’s answer came right away. Yes.

Greg grimaced. Why?

You’re at a loose end. You’re looking after the place.

How long?

While Justin and Sam are on their honeymoon.

A week?

Maybe two.

When did I agree to this?

Text last night after I got back to my hotel.

I was asleep.

Ha.

Greg drank some of his coffee. His head was going to explode. He didn’t want to mess up anyone’s honeymoon, but he’d obviously been impaired when he’d agreed to this mission, or whatever it was. He typed again: Animals?

Bats, mice, spiders. No pets or farm animals.

That meant no cat or dog or pet gerbil to look after, just the place itself, which presumably had been uninhabited for a few years and would be fine without him playing caretaker. He could bow out. Two or three days, never mind longer, next to a field of clover—there had to be clover, right, considering the inn’s name?—would send him over the bend. He didn’t do well sitting still.

He had time to come up with a face-saving excuse and ease out of this thing.

Eric returned to the table with fresh fruit. Their hot breakfasts arrived. Greg dove in. Weetabix would do but even better was a plate of fried eggs, grilled mushrooms and tomatoes, sausages, bacon, fried bread and baked beans. Even with wedding food in his near future, he figured stoking up now was a good idea. He needed his full faculties. Fatigue and a slight hangover wouldn’t help him work out how to get out of this Red Clover Inn deal without pissing off a bunch of Sloans, not to mention his friend Brody.

Christopher Sloan joined them. He, too, seemed to Greg like a solid sort. He’d come to England alone for his older brother’s wedding. The Sloans had struck Greg as a tight-knit lot. That didn’t mean there weren’t occasional tensions between them.

He didn’t bring up Red Clover Inn and instead asked Christopher his plans while in England.

“I got here last weekend,” Christopher said. “I had a great time. Good break. I go home tomorrow. Have to be back at work on Monday.”

Eric was also headed back tomorrow. Greg relaxed. There’d be enough Sloans around to look after this old inn of theirs. They didn’t need him.

After breakfast, he went up to his room. He glanced down the hall but Charlotte’s door was shut tight. He knew she’d lied about staying down the hall. He’d heard her going into the room adjoining his. In her place, he probably would have lied, too, what with his behavior last night.

He’d been tired as hell, and in a mood.

Had she ever been to Knights Bridge now that her cousin was making her home there, marrying a local?

“None of your business, pal,” Greg muttered, going into his room.

He could bolt. No one would miss him at the wedding. He’d been invited only because he’d made a stop in England to see Brody and Heather on his roundabout way to Washington.

But as he debated grabbing a cab and fleeing the Sloans and Bennetts, he got dressed for an English country wedding.

* * *

The wedding hotel was charming, located a few miles from the village in the rolling Cotswold countryside. The informal ceremony was held outdoors in a garden brimming with roses, which Greg recognized, and climbing purple flowers he assumed were the wisteria. Samantha Bennett wore a gown designed by Alexandra Rankin Hunt, Ian Mabry’s fiancée. They were guests at the wedding. Alexandra, an elegant, attractive woman, had her own tangled ties to Knights Bridge through her great-grandfather, an RAF pilot who’d ventured to rural Massachusetts on the eve of World War II. He’d fallen in love with a young American woman, now in her nineties and living in little Knights Bridge. He’d meant to come back for her but had been killed over the English Channel early in the war. Greg didn’t have all the details. Brody had tried to explain a few of the connections of his hometown as he and Greg had found a place to stand for the short wedding service.

Greg might have felt out of place at the simple but elegant wedding, but he wasn’t the type. He appreciated rugged Justin Sloan’s love for Samantha and, likewise, his awkward pleasure at expressing that love in front of his family and friends. Greg thought back to his own wedding. He and Laura had been young, filled with hopes and dreams.

I’m seeing a great guy here in Minneapolis. I wanted you to know.

Laura, a couple of weeks ago. Their divorce had been finalized months ago and Greg was glad she was getting on with her life. No problem there. The problem was his own life. Getting wounded in an ambush on the job and its isolating nature hadn’t helped him with his personal life, but the biggest issue, he knew, was inertia. Laura had always been there. He’d taken their life together for granted. He didn’t want to make that same mistake again.

After the service, he noticed Charlotte Bennett laughing with the bride and groom. Her maid-of-honor dress was a deep coral, its cut perfect for her curves. She didn’t look as cool and judgmental as she had last night. The warm color of her dress and the lush late-spring garden setting probably softened her hard edges. According to Brody, her parents were in Australia on an underwater salvage project and couldn’t make it to the wedding.

Interesting family, the Bennetts.

Greg congratulated the happy couple and found his way to the bar.

A beer, a table in the shade, a breeze stirring in a trellis of peach-colored roses—despite not having a woman at his side, his life, he decided, was pretty good. At least right now, at this moment. He felt some of the weariness and rawness of the past months lift. He was able to focus on his surroundings without being poised for threats. Instead he could sit back and enjoy the beauty of the place. Warm-pink roses in addition to the peach-colored ones, bumblebees, pots of herbs and flowers. Nice. Damn nice, in fact.

He observed Charlotte as she greeted guests and relatives. She struck him as a woman who preferred to be here, at her cousin’s wedding, alone. Her body language said loud and clear she didn’t want or need a man on her arm. Was she getting over a relationship? Thinking about sunken U-boats? Greg knew better than to speculate but figured there was no real harm in it while he was drinking a beer and smelling the roses.