The Spring at Moss Hill by Carla Neggers Read Free Book Online

master class with Daphne Stewart. Moss Hill’s sole meeting room was located on the other side of glass doors and a glass partition. More glass doors opened onto a balcony that jutted out over the river, a perfect spot for a romantic photo. The space was ideal for weddings and parties of all kinds. It was empty now, its gleaming wood floor obviously original to the building given the unevenness and glossed-over nicks and discolorations.
    Kylie peered into a glass case in the entry. It had been empty on her last visit here but was now filled with a display of antique straw hats that had been made at the mill in the nineteenth century, a nod to the building’s origins. Moss Hill had character, one of its chief draws for her. She noticed the display also held museum-mounted, blown-up photos that depicted the mill’s history, from when it had been a thriving business employing scores of workers to a century later, when it had been abandoned, left to decay and a wrecking ball, and, finally, to the present, with its comfortable blend of old and new setting it up for another century of use.
    She heard footsteps echoing behind her and turned just as a man she didn’t recognize appeared behind the glass doors in the meeting room. He was tall, broad-shouldered and frowning right at her.
    She decided not to take any chances.
    Pretending she hadn’t seen him, she retraced her steps, running down the stairs to the lower level and out the back door. She didn’t breathe until she was outside. She shivered in the cool morning air. She’d encountered all sorts as construction on Moss Hill had wound down—engineers, carpenters, electricians, plumbers, landscapers—as well as Mark Flanagan’s employees and clients now that he had moved his offices here. She hadn’t gotten a good look at the man who’d interrupted her snooping, but he wasn’t anyone she’d met before. She’d remember. He hadn’t been wearing a coat and tie. A denim jacket, khakis. That didn’t tell her much.
    If he decided to come after her, she needed to get moving, because he’d be fast.
    She pulled off her running jacket and crossed the grassy strip to the driveway that led to the garage under her building. When she reached the pedestrian entrance, she stopped, keys in hand, and groaned.
    She had the wrong man. Russ Colton wasn’t the investigator she’d seen last summer. He was the man up in the meeting room.
    Had to be.
    â€œHow to draw attention to yourself when you don’t want attention,” Kylie muttered to herself. “Run like a lunatic.”
    What now? Go up to her apartment, lock herself in and hope for the best? Buck up and introduce herself to her new neighbor, act as if she hadn’t seen him and bolted?
    Take a long bike ride?
    Fly to Paris?
    The bike ride won.
    She went inside and took the stairs up to the main level and headed out to the breezeway and the bike rack. She wore a thigh-length dark purple sweater, black leggings and sneakers with highly visible bright orange laces.
    The man from the meeting room was standing by a blue sedan in the parking lot.
    No avoiding him now.
    â€œYou must be Russ Colton,” Kylie said, leaning against her bike. “Ruby O’Dunn mentioned you’d be arriving today from California. Kylie Shaw. I live here.”
    â€œYou’re my new neighbor, then. Sorry if I startled you.”
    He walked toward her. He’d put on sunglasses, which had a way of making him look even more humorless.
    She decided not to deny he’d startled her. He probably wouldn’t believe her, anyway. “No problem.” She grabbed her bike helmet off the handlebars where she’d left it yesterday. “Did you just get here?”
    â€œHere to Moss Hill. I arrived in Boston a few hours ago.”
    â€œAh. You took the red-eye. It has an appropriate name, doesn’t it”
    He smiled. “It does, but it’s not the