Chapter One
Cassie Troiades wasn’t sure where she was going.
This was unusual. Usually Cassie made a point of knowing exactly what she was going to do next. But here she was, alone in the upstate countryside without a map, pulling over again to peer doubtfully at the directions she’d printed before she left the city.
What light remained to the winter evening was making the most out of the scenery; pristine blankets of snow lay over a series of small fields, occasionally bordered by picturesque wooden fences or thick hedges. At intervals, deep rutted dirt roads mysteriously disappeared behind the looping landscape of whitened hills or meandered through the trees of ancient apple orchards, the heavy branches bared for winter, but promising bounty come the next fall through the generosity of their outstretched boughs.
Cassie had lost her taste for Arcadian splendor about three wrong turns ago. Her new boss had warned her that cell reception was spotty in the area. She’d been relying on the printed directions since the maps application on her phone had sputtered itself into confusion. The problem was that while the directions were very clear about when she should turn from the main highway onto Anther Road, no one had bothered to signpost the actual roads. She’d passed a vineyard a few minutes ago, stubby little grape vines spread along long wires—maybe that had belonged to Tantalus Vineyard?
Cassie reminded herself that she wasn’t lost, as such. She just wasn’t exactly clear on where she was, or how to get to where she was supposed to be.
Her phone pinged, and she dived for it, scrolling rapidly through the list of belated notifications.
Two missed calls from her mom. Her younger sisters had texted. Her younger brother had shared an incomprehensible meme. Iulus was a sweet kid, so it was probably meant to be encouraging, but Cassie squinted at the blurry grid of lines against a starry background and resigned herself to being too old to understand the Youth.
She opened her maps app with more hope than expectation, but was relieved to find a little blue dot pulsing in a helpful reminder that You Are Here. She was on Calypso, which wasn’t listed in the printed directions, but if she kept going, she would hit Messina, which was. She could double back to Anther, which was…let’s see, two turns down…and then about halfway along that road was the winding driveway that led to the Tantalus Vineyard and her home for the next three months.
There.
She turned the key in the ignition.
Nothing happened.
“Okayyy,” Cassie said, and looked out at the encroaching darkness. She tried the key again. There was a grinding noise, which was possibly more alarming than silence. All right. Her gas tank was half full, so it wasn’t that. Her internal lights were still on, so the battery was working.
This was the extent of her ability to diagnose motor vehicle malfunction. Fortunately, she had access to an expert.
Her sister picked up on the second ring. “How’s wine country?”
“I’m in the middle of a horror movie,” Cassie said.
“Uh-huh,” Laodice said cautiously. “Can you expand on that?”
“I’m lost in the middle of the countryside, my car won’t start, and it’s getting dark.”
“Stay away from scarecrows with scythes. What’s wrong with the car?”
Cassie described the symptoms to the best of her abilities, and followed Laodice’s instructions to open the hood and send pictures, shivering in the chill.
“Your spark plugs look okay,” Laodice said. “Could be the solenoid, or the Bendix gear.”
“Mm,” Cassie said, stamping her feet to keep warm. She’d brought snow boots with her, but she didn’t want to have to rustle around in the trunk for them. Her bags were heavy. “And assuming I don’t know what those are…”
“It wouldn’t matter if you did,” Laodice told her, sounding both superior and inappropriately enthusiastic. “You’d need a workshop and a mechanic on hand. Call Triple A.”
“This is the advice I get from my gearhead sister?” Cassie asked, retreating back into the dubious warmth of the car. “Call Triple A?”
“Hey, if you’d taken that job in the Olympus Archives department, you’d be in the parking building down the street, and I could take a look in person,” Laodice said. “But you were the one who wanted to get out of the city to a rural paradise.”
“I will be working,” Cassie said primly, though if pressed, she could admit that the pictures of Tantalus’s vine-covered hills and lakeside views had been at least part of the appeal, even if the generous pay and the promise of room and board had been the tipping point in her decision to apply for the job. Her former roommates were pleasant, respectful, and had fallen deeply and desperately into an all-encompassing love on their first week of co-habitation. Cassie was happy for them, but she didn’t want to live there. When you were a noted cynic, all that stunned bliss threatened to make you outright crotchety.
“Hey, guess what?” Laodice said, with that familiar note of lilting anticipation.
Cassie grimaced, but managed to keep wariness out of her voice. “What?”
“I met someone!” Laodice said triumphantly.
“Oh, cool,” Cassie said. “I need to call Triple A, but I look forward to hearing about him later.”
Laodice was not cynical. Laodice was a born romantic who fell in love with an ease that was both enviable and deeply alarming, especially because her rose-tinted glasses were so thick that she couldn’t pick up red flags when they were waving right in front of her face. And she didn’t wait for any hint of reciprocation before she committed herself to the fantasy. A lot of startled men had found themselves in conversations about long-term commitment on the first date.
Laodice was living proof that Cassie could dole out all the accurate predictions and practical advice she liked, but if someone didn’t want to hear it, they wouldn’t.
“He’s so handsome,” Laodice said, on a sigh. “And he spelled my name right on the coffee cup, which has to be a sign, don’t you think?”
“I have to go,” Cassie said, and hung up before she could advise Laodice against imagining her wedding to a handsome barista, no matter how good his spelling was.
Okay. The Triple A card was in her wallet. Even if they couldn’t get to her right away, she had her car emergency kit with food and water and a blanket—come to that, she had two suitcases of clothes in the trunk. She wasn’t going to freeze, or starve, or be hacked into tiny pieces by a hook-handed ghost revenging himself on sexually active teenagers.
Cassie rummaged through her purse for her wallet, and let out a noise that absolutely wasn’t a scream when the headlights appeared behind her.
The vehicle was moving fast, and after a startled moment to gather her scattered wits, Cassie hastily turned on her own hazard lights. Getting hit by a car that couldn’t see her would not improve her situation, and the driver might be able to help her out.
Assuming they weren’t a murderer.
“Stop it,” she said out loud, and tried to feel relieved instead of apprehensive when the car pulled to a stop behind her. She did lock her doors, though. That was only sensible.
There was a brief pause while the two people in the other car discussed something—probably her—and then the driver got out. Her rearview lights revealed him to be a pleasant-faced older man. He was wearing casual slacks and a sweater, but tugging on a puffy jacket as he walked towards her, which at least argued for his practicality. She couldn’t make out his passenger very well, but something in the profile made her think it was a woman.
Cassie relaxed a little. Her Ask Cassandra inbox was full of evidence that women could be very bad people, but they weren’t usually spontaneous murderers. This applied to almost everyone, of course. It was just that when your sister loved statistics and shared them with you constantly, it was hard to avoid the fact that while most men definitely weren’t murderers, 98% of murders were men.
“Hello there!” the man approaching her door called, his voice a shade too hearty.
Cassie turned her inside light on, and watched his face lose some tension as he took her in—a round-faced, curly-haired woman in her late twenties, alone in her car, with suitcases and boxes in her back seat. He hadn’t known who he was approaching either, she realized, and repaid his courage by rolling down her window.
“It won’t start,” she said apologetically. “I was just about to call Triple A, but—”
“Would you be Cassie Troiades?” he interrupted.
“Oh! Yes!” Cassie said, on rising hope. “Are you Manny Pelopson?”
The man grinned. “His uncle, Theo. We were wondering where you’d got to.”
“I’m so sorry. I think I missed a couple of turn-offs.”
“Happens all the time,” Theo said, waving her apology away. “We have to send the van out for the workers at vintage time, or they wander around for hours trying to find us. You got closer than most.”
He gave her an approving nod, as if getting closer than most people was something she should be proud of. Theo had silvery highlights in his thick, sandy hair and his eyes crinkled in a friendly way, and Cassie realized that he was handsome. Also at least thirty years older than her, and her employer’s uncle, so definitely off-limits, but there was nothing to stop her appreciating a silver fox when she met one. Especially if he could fix her car.
Theo got her to open the hood and try the ignition again, produced a penlight from his pocket, and stared thoughtfully into the engine for a while, muttering to himself. Cassie’s hopes were dashed when he put the hood down and shook his head. “Damned if I can work it out,” he said. “I think we’d best just transfer you to the BMW and take you on to Tantalus. I’ll get Steph from the garage to take a look in the morning.”
“If you and your wife won’t mind,” Cassie said, although she was already envisioning a hot shower and a mug of something warm.
“My wife?” Theo said, and followed her look to his car. As far as Cassie could tell, his passenger had barely moved, much less bothered to find out what was going on. “Oh, no, that’s Aerope, my sister-in-law. Manny’s mother. No, she won’t mind.” He hesitated a moment, as if hearing the words coming out of his mouth made him doubt them, and then added, with more certainty: “It’s not as if we can leave you out here to freeze, is it?”
Cassie decided against apologizing for yet another mistake, and instead nodded assent and reached for her purse. Theo hoisted her heaviest suitcase with barely a grunt, and Cassie followed with her laptop bag and smaller case. Theo put everything in the trunk, which had a few grocery bags, but was otherwise unoccupied.
“Do you need those boxes?” he asked.
Cassie was supposed to start work in the morning. She’d need some supplies. “Just the red one,” she said, compromising, but when she stepped back towards her car, Theo held his hand out for her keys.
“I’ll grab it. You jump in and get warm.”
Well, he’d proved himself competent and practical so far. She could probably rely on him to lock up.
Cassie climbed into the back seat grateful for the thrum of the heated air.
“Hello,” she said, pitching her voice forward. “I’m Cassie Troiades.” When she glanced up at the rearview mirror, she found herself pinned to the smooth leather by a pair of ice-blue eyes.
“Aerope Pelopson,” the woman said. Her voice was rich, smooth, and totally devoid of warmth. “You’re the archivist.”
“That’s right,” Cassie said. That voice seemed to expect her to add a “ma’am,” but she was damned if she’d cower on her first meeting with anyone.
“My late husband had always planned to organize the family archives himself,” Aerope said, after a pause that had definitely noted the lack of a “ma’am.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Cassie said politely.
Aerope’s gaze didn’t flicker. “Are you any good?”
“Yes,” Cassie said, and consciously dropped her shoulders. “And I have a lot of experience with private collections.”
“Hm,” Aerope said, and her eyes flicked away from the mirror, releasing Cassie from their grip. After a moment she added, “You should have brought printed directions.”
Cassie held her tongue. When somebody had already made up their mind not to like you, there wasn’t a lot you could say to change their mind. Protesting that she had printed the directions and it wasn’t her fault that local government apparently neglected road signage wouldn’t do her any good. She’d rather stay silent than beg for approval.
When it became obvious that she wasn’t going to respond, Aerope’s eyes flicked back to her, showing a very tiny modicum of interest.
Cassie had met the famed Hera Rheczack, CEO of Olympus Publishing, who had a fearsome reputation as an ice queen. Hera had prevented Cassie from being fired from her advice column side gig, so Cassie could admit she was personally biased, but as far as she’d been able to take in from their one brief encounter, Hera was reserved and a bit chilly, but not actually unfriendly.
Aerope Pelopson made Hera look like a bouncing beam of sunshine.
Fortunately, Theo came back at that point, stamping snow off his shoes and blowing on his hands as he climbed into the driver’s seat. It was nearly full evening now, the last bit of daylight disappearing into the gloom.
Cassie thought about being alone in the dark, trying to tell Triple A where she was, and decided to be grateful. Aerope wasn’t friendly, but she wasn’t kicking Cassie out into the winter either, and Theo kept up a patter of conversation as he drove, genially pointing out things Cassie would be able to see in the morning and assuring her that the guesthouse was snug, fully-contained and ready for her.
Cassie, relieved that she wouldn’t have to share a kitchen or bathroom, did her best to keep up her side of the dialogue. She told Theo a little bit about her family, about her studies, and some suitably anonymized anecdotes about other private archives she’d worked on. The story about the surprise box of preserved lizards was too good to pass up.
“You won’t find any lizards in our archives,” Aerope said, her first contribution to the conversation.
“I don’t know, Arry, there could be anything in there,” Theo said. “Arthur was a bit of a hoarder,” he told Cassie, his voice confiding.
Aerope bristled. “He certainly was not,” she said. “He had an eye towards history.”
“And now we have an attic full of it,” Theo said. He half-turned to Cassie, and she wished he’d keep his eyes on the road. “My vote was that we take everything outside and build a bonfire.”
Cassie didn’t have to pretend her shock. Torching the historical records of one of the earliest vineyards in the state? Every single one of her professors would have rather gone up in flames themselves. “I’m glad you hired me instead,” she said, striving for diplomacy.
“Manny did that, not me,” Theo said cheerfully. “No offense intended, but I’d much rather have spent your salary on a new crusher/destemmer.”
Aerope had turned her head to glare at her brother-in-law, and if she’d been chilly with Cassie, her voice was positively arctic when she said, “Fortunately, Arthur knew better than to leave the archives to you, Theodore.”
Cassie caught the glinting edge of Theo’s smile. “Yeah, so isn’t it good that Cassie’s been hired to take care of it instead?”
“I would prefer Manfred to have taken on the task himself,” Aerope said.
“Well, that’s Manny for you,” Theo said amiably. “Still, Cassie, I hope you won’t find lizards. Rats, now. Rats are very possible.”
And on that encouraging note, they turned down a private driveway, and found themselves passing a house that Cassie could tell, even in the dark, was both historic and enormous.
“Drop me off here,” Aerope commanded, and Theo obediently pulled the BMW over. Aerope went to the trunk and retrieved two shopping bags with gold embossed labels. In the golden light streaming from the house, Cassie saw that Aerope was a woman-of-a-certain-age with sharp cheek and collarbones, every blonde hair set in place. She was wearing a wool skirt suit and knee-high boots, which appeared to be her sole concession to the weather.
“It was nice to meet you,” she told Cassie through the car window, a social lie she didn’t even attempt to disguise.
“You too,” Cassie said, lying with a little more effort. “I’ll do my best with the archives. No bonfires.”
Aerope clearly had her doubts that Cassie’s best would be anywhere close to sufficient, but she gave her a wintry smile in appreciation of the attempt at a joke, shot Theo a parting glare, and walked into the big house.
“She took Arthur’s death pretty hard,” Theo said after a minute.
“It was unexpected?”
“Heart attack. Very sudden. She was away on a weekend trip to the city, and when she came back she found him in their bed. He was already cold. There was nothing she could do, but I think she blames herself for not being there.”
“Oh no,” Cassie said, feeling a pang of unexpected sympathy for Aerope. Perhaps, having been unable to save her husband, she wanted to save what she saw as his legacy? There was nothing Cassie could do about that, except her job.
Silent for once, Theo drove them away from the main house, down a tidy gravel side-road that went past a small orchard and fetched up outside a—well, not a guest house, exactly. A guest cottage, maybe. Yes, cottage was definitely the word. “Charming” would be another. “Quaint,” at a stretch.
Cassie hoped that “good plumbing” and “decent water pressure” were also on the list. The wooden walls looked well-cared for, with no peeling paint, and if the flower boxes on the porch were empty for winter, they also didn’t reveal any telltale weedy clumps. The scant snow had been cleared from the path, and as she and Theo walked up the porch steps, suitcases in hand, they were bathed in the light of the glass lantern standing over the cherry-red door. To Cassie’s relief, the lantern held a prosaic lightbulb instead of an actual candle, but nevertheless, Cassie could already hear her sister Polyxena insisting she take plenty of pictures of this excellent cottagecore content.
There was light coming from behind the drapes, too, and the shuffle of feet inside.
“Manny must have come over,” Theo said. He dropped his keys in his pocket and picked up her suitcase again.
Cassie suppressed an urge to ask how many people had access to the place she was supposed to be living in for the next three months, and turned the handle. Her duffel bag hung uncomfortably off her inner arm as she negotiated herself and it through the door, but the weight disappeared from her awareness as she took in the space.
Polyxena was going to flip out. The cottage screamed “aesthetic,” from the adorably wonky bookshelves to the white-painted walls and delicate floral print on the pale blue drapes. The little pot-bellied stove held an already-lit fire, which was cheerily shedding heat over the two cozy, mismatched armchairs facing it. From the door, Cassie could see the small kitchen, with its deep, white stone sink, and the kitchen island topped with a thick wooden butcher’s block— pretty and rustic, part of her noted absently, but hard to keep clean.
The floor was stained wooden boards, with rag rugs laid out for warmth. She couldn’t see the bathroom and bedroom, tucked away up the stairs, but if there wasn’t a claw-footed tub, she would eat one of the innumerable decorations in this place. This room alone might contain more lace doilies than the sum total she’d previously encountered in her entire life.
It also contained a man, busily vacuuming the main rug. He had his back to them, big headphones clamped over his ears, and he was busy shaking one of the finest asses Cassie had ever seen.
Cassie had not previously considered grey sweatpants an attractive piece of clothing, but the firm rump grinding beneath the thin fabric was providing a compelling argument in their favor. Without knowing what he was listening to, it was impossible to judge the man’s sense of rhythm, but there was nothing wrong with his moves.
Theo coughed behind her.
Whether it was the noise, or the blast of frigid air that alerted him to their presence, the man, presumably Manny Pelopson, spun around. He was wearing a worn sweatshirt with the logo of Eleusis U’s most exclusive fraternity. He had thick, sandy hair, like his uncle, and his beard faultlessly walked the perilous tightrope between hipster parody and full lumberjack. Broad shoulders, a muscular frame, a tempting hint of rounding belly, and—well, those sweatpants really didn’t leave much to the imagination, did they? Cassie forced herself to stop ogling her new employer, and yanked her eyes back to his face.
He was staring at her, his entire face beet red. When she made eye contact, he jerked, and dropped his gaze to the floor, then over her shoulder to Theo. He looked humiliated and a little betrayed, and Cassie felt bad for him.
So she gave him her best smile, understanding and a little rueful, and said, “What’s the song?”
Manny Pelopson had not had the best day.
That morning, the vineyard foreman had said something about pesticides that he was clearly supposed to understand. When Manny had asked for clarification, he’d gotten a bemused look before Jim unbent enough to explain that the organic pesticides Manny wanted to investigate wouldn’t work on the most common grape blights in their territory. Manny had pressed for more detail, and the man had promptly buried him in technical jargon and the diplomatically phrased suggestion that Manny should maybe learn a little more about the farming side of the business before he opened his mouth.
When he’d asked Uncle Theo what he thought, Theo had once more suggested that Manny invite Augie upstate for “a few weeks” to “give you more background.” Manny was pretty sure that Augie knew even less about grapevine moths and powdery mildew than he did. Augie had been very clear that he wasn’t going to leave the career he’d spent so much effort building. He’d also shied away from dumping sole care of his four kids on his wife, mostly because Ness would immediately instigate dramatic revenge. So Theo’s “suggestion” was less an idea he thought would realistically help, and more yet another indication of his complete lack of faith in Manny’s abilities to contribute to Tantalus.
Lunch had been awkward, because his mother was still freezing him out about hiring an Outsider for Family Things. She’d all but ordered him to direct his attention to more serious matters—probate, Tantalus, the refurbishment he had planned for the carriage house—and now she was upset he’d hired an expert to handle the archives. It didn’t make a lot of sense. The history of Tantalus was going to be a huge draw to potential clients, but they needed someone to bring order to the chaos in the attic before they could realize the full potential of that history. Aerope had made it clear she didn’t think Manny should focus on the archives yet. That didn’t leave her much ground for objecting to someone else charting that history, but she was objecting anyway.
In the afternoon, Aerope and Theo had gone to Weeping Rock and Manny had wrestled with his father’s bookkeeping for hours, missing him and resenting him through every second of it, and then he’d gone for a long twilight run through the quiet vines, trying to shake the tension out. He’d just finished climbing into his softest loungewear after a hot shower when a text message from Theo had told him the archivist was on her way.
At which point, he realized he hadn’t checked the guest house, nor lit the fire. He was happy to throw money at an expert to have her take at least one task off his horrific to-do list. He’d taken the time to check Ms. Troiades’s references, and every single one had said she was capable and efficient. But welcoming her to a cold, dark cottage wouldn’t give her any strong impression of his own capabilities, so he’d tossed on his overcoat and hurried over.
The place wasn’t dirty, though it was more cluttered than he would have personally liked, and dusting the various knick-knacks and collectibles took a long time. By then the fire had warmed the place up, and he was getting into the groove, so that by the time he pulled the little stick vacuum out of the cupboard under the stairs, he’d relaxed into the beat pounding from his headphones and the satisfaction of restoring a place to good order.
He hadn’t meant to start dancing. He’d just been happy, for the first time in a long time, and his hips had moved along.
And now he was red-faced and staring at his uncle, who wasn’t even bothering to hide his grin.
It was better than looking at his new employee. Cassie Troiades wasn’t the skinny, elderly librarian he’d been vaguely picturing, all bones and stern frowns. She was a pretty, lusciously round woman a few years younger than himself with keen eyes and a ripe, red mouth.
She smiled at him, and he saw kindness in her eyes. He didn’t want pity, but he’d take kindness over laughing in his face. “What’s the song?” she asked, as if she were really interested.
“Um,” he said, but he didn’t have time to think of a good lie, and he didn’t think this woman would believe anything but the truth. “Shake Your Pom Pom.”
Theo’s laugh was a thunderclap, but Ms. Troiades just nodded. “Missy Elliott,” she said, with a note of firm approval. “Classic.”
Manny dared to smile back. “Can’t mess with Miss Demeanor. I’m Manny Pelopson.”
“Cassie Troiades.”
Theo was now looking confused and a bit irritated, which was much better than smugly amused. “Take the lady’s bags, Manny,” he grunted. “Where’ve your manners gone?”
Manny reached out in automatic obedience, but Cassie said brightly, “Oh, I’ve got it,” and brushed by him. “Bedroom upstairs?” she asked.
“Yep,” Manny said, and took the suitcase Theo held out for him instead. He followed his new archivist up the stairs, guiltily noticing the sway of her hips, snugly tucked into jeans. He didn’t know if she liked to shake her own pom pom, but if she did, she had an impressive amount to shake. “Bedroom’s the door on the left,” he called, and heard a murmur of assent.
“Huh,” she said a moment later, and he came into to find her staring at the bed. Which was built into the wall, with drawers underneath and cupboards to the side. He’d left the wooden doors open, to air out after he’d put the new sheets on the bed, but if you crawled in there and pulled the doors closed, you were essentially sleeping in a big closet.
“Ah, yeah,” Manny said, and put the suitcase down with some gratitude. She didn’t pack light. “It’s pretty…”
“Cozy?” Cassie asked, still staring.
“I was going to say, comfortable,” Manny said. “It’s a good mattress.” He blinked. “Oh, damn, are you claustrophobic? Because if so, we can work something else out. There’s plenty of room in the big house, but I thought you’d want your own space.”
“No, no, it’s fine,” Cassie said, and that full mouth quirked in a smile. “I was just wondering how I was going to get up there.”
Manny stepped forward and pulled the handle directly beneath the bed. A set of steps slid out.
“Ah!” she said, and climbed up to bounce experimentally on the edge of the bed. “Oh, it is a good mattress,” she said, and beamed at him. “Not a lot of headroom, though.”
Manny, still disconcerted by the bouncing, tried very hard not to think about the activities that might require headroom. “There’s a light,” he said. “And a bookshelf, if you like reading in bed.”
“Love it,” she said promptly. “One of my favorite things to do in bed.”
A moment later, she appeared to replay what she’d just said, and her cheeks flushed pink, but her smile stayed determinedly on as she climbed down. “So, I should probably unpack if I’m starting work tomorrow.”
“Yes,” Manny said. “You’re welcome to join us for dinner, but I put some groceries in the pantry and fridge, too. If there are items not to your taste, you can just bring them over to the big house tomorrow.”
“Thank you,” she said, sounding surprised. “This is… I mean, not to be accidentally insulting, but I really wasn’t expecting you to set me up this well. I really appreciate it.”
“I used to be in hospitality,” Manny said, and pretended not to see her interested look. She couldn’t actually want to know about his previous career, and he didn’t really want to tell her. And he didn’t have to. Ask Cassandra’s advice was over a year old now, and as challenging as he’d found it to keep his mouth shut about Helen, he couldn’t deny the effects. The moment he’d stopped telling women his entire backstory, the easier it had been to go on second, and even third dates.
He’d even thought about taking things further with one of those third dates, a lovely speech therapist named Rose, who’d hinted at wanting to explore commitment. That would have been the time to talk about Helen, and how the happiest day of his life had become the worst in the few minutes it had taken him to read her scribbled note. But six months ago, on the morning of their scheduled fourth date, his mother had called, sobbing incoherently, only managing to force out the words, “Manfred, come home.”
And after that, he’d had a new worst day.
His new employee was looking at him uncertainly, because his face, his stupid honest face, was obviously revealing the knot of obligation and resentment and helpless love that pulled tight around his heart every time he thought about that moment.
“I might just settle in here tonight, and get a good start tomorrow,” she said.
Manny nodded. “Then I’ll come over tomorrow morning and take you over, show you around,” he said. “Is nine o’clock okay?”
“Perfect.”
“The archive is a mess,” he warned her. “I’m not sure what you’re used to, but it’s not really organized at all.”
“That’s why you hired a professional,” she said. She wasn’t bragging, just confident in her experience and skill, and Manny felt both relieved and incredibly envious. He’d been that confident, before. When he’d been where he belonged.
Cassie looked around the room, obviously figuring out where to begin putting her stuff, and he backed towards the door. Something niggled at the back of his brain. “Is Cassie short for Cassandra?” he asked.
“That’s what it says on my birth certificate,” she said, her tone distracted. “But I don’t use it. Just Cassie is fine.”
“Cool,” he said. “Well, there’s a folder on the kitchen table that has some details about the cottage, including the Wi-Fi password.”
“Wi-Fi! Great.”
Manny grinned at her. “It’s a guest cottage, not a yoga retreat.”
Cassie looked pointedly at the bed nook, then raised her eyebrows at him.
“Rustic vibes, not actually rustic,” he assured her. “Plumbing, heating, and all the necessary comforts.”
“Does the bathtub have claw feet?” she asked intently.
“Of course.”
She looked skeptical. “Will it fit me?”
“Definitely,” Manny said. “It’s sized for two.” His brain helpfully presented an image of a naked Cassie in the tub, smiling at him in amused anticipation. The image was necessarily fuzzy—all he could see of her right now was her face and hands—but he was aware of an inconvenient desire to fill in the details.
“My phone number’s also in the folder,” he said hastily. “Text me if you need anything. Good night, Cassie.”
“Good night,” she said, and he went down to cadge a ride off Theo back to the house. The price for the ride was a series of questions about Manny’s goals and priorities, all of his answers clearly unsatisfactory, but for once Manny didn’t really mind. He was thinking of Cassie Troiades, kind and confident, bouncing on that ridiculous bed.