“It is,” I say, trying to fight a yawn. I lose and cover my mouth. “Sorry. I haven’t slept yet.”
“Oh.” She flicks a look at my hair, and her eyes lose their warmth. Her tone is polite as she says, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know, or I wouldn’t have made you take me all over the estate.”
I wonder what assumptions she’s making about why I’ve been up all night. This sudden chill from her has blown through a couple of times, and I’m trying to figure out what causes it. “Don’t apologize. I volunteered because I wanted to.”
“I’ll leave you here,” she says in a clipped tone. “You can catch up on that sleep so you can recharge for whatever it is you’re doing later.”
The “whatever” she’s imagining definitely doesn’t meet with her approval.
“Thanks. Sammy will appreciate it.” Sammy being Samuel Davis Brown, the current historical scoundrel I’m writing about.
“I’ll be turning the third floor into the administrative center eventually, but for now, I’ll be working out of the library if you need anything.”
I jerk my thumb at the cottage behind me. “Same but here.”
“Thank you for the tour.”
“Anytime.” I wish I had something flirty to say, but all my energy is going into fighting another yawn. I lose again.
I swear she stops herself halfway through an eyeroll before she gives me a polite smile and turns back toward the house.
I let myself into the cottage and turn to catch the eye of a slightly smirky Samuel Davis Brown in the portrait I set above the fireplace. “I know I could have told her I was up all night working,” I tell him. “But she didn’t ask. She assumed. And it’ll be that much funnier when she figures it out.”
Samuel still smirks. He always smirks. That smirk is my fuel to find and expose every last detail of his villainous life.With any luck, it will be another hit to follow up my first two books in myRogues of the Revolutionseries. Sometimes my research makes it hard to believe America ever gained independence with opportunists like this working against our interests behind the scenes.
I groan as my eyes land on the ring light and backdrop I keep set up in the living room. I need to batch create some content, but I do not have it in me to make myself presentable for social media. Ihaveto do it tomorrow or I’ll burn through the last of my saved drafts. Iwilldo it tomorrow. “I swear,” I mumble, maybe to convince myself.
I shut my laptop as I pass it on the way to tumble into bed. Old Sam Brown has kept his misdeeds largely secret for two hundred fifty years. They can wait another day. And if missing one day of posting removes me from the favor of the algorithm gods, then …
I sigh. No, I can’t avoid that tomorrow.
But right now atPrice Is Righto’clock in the morning, I’m finally getting some sleep. I’ll crash as soon as my head hits the pillow.
Except I don’t. I close my eyes, but behind them, I only see Phoebe’s amber ones. After a few minutes of attempting and failing to find the position that will let me conk out, I give up and reach for my phone and google some famous Jennifers.
That’s when I discover Phoebe is a liar. It’s not just the Jens. Justin Bieber and Lionel Ritchie’s daughter have amber eyes too.
Chapter Eight
Phoebe
I walkinto The Serendipity after a ten-hour work day. It’s my third in a row, but I’m not tired. That’s how it was most of the years I worked at the Sutton. That’s how it will be again when I get hired back.
After eighteen months in Serendipity Springs, I’ll have built an undeniable resume, and the last three uncomfortable months I spent at the Sutton before I resigned will be forgotten the minute I’m rehired to do my new job as senior curator.
But these eighteen months here will need the best effort I can give them, transforming the private Martin House into a jewel of a regional museum that shines so brightly, there’s no way the Sutton can deny me the curator promotion again.
It’s good to know that if the rest of my time at the Martin estate goes like my first three days, I can come home from work already looking forward to going back in the morning.
I pick up the scent of garlic and onions wafting from one of the apartments as I head toward the mailboxes. That sounds like a good thing to cook tonight. Maybe I’ll sauté some of my own. I’ll only dump a jar of sauce on it, but itadds a little something and I can pretend like I cooked a real meal.
I don’t expect anything to be in my mailbox. Even at my other place, I mostly got mailers for candle stores where I spent too much money, and it hardly seems worth the fight with the stubborn combination, but I stop by anyway. How can the quirks of a two-hundred-year-old house be easier to manage than these mailboxes? Granted, they’re older than my mom, but that makes them vintage, not ancient.
A petite woman with curly brown hair is closing her mailbox as I walk up to mine. She gives me a friendly smile. “You must be new. I’m Sophie.”
“Phoebe, and yes, new,” I confirm.
“Is this your first time picking up your mail?” She says it the way people talk who need to give you bad news but are trying to sound neutral.
