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  And then, less than a month ago, the rumors changed.

  He'd come back, people claimed. They'd seen Sanford around town, although his appearances were rare enough for these accounts to be viewed with suspicion. He'd moved in somewhere, holed up somewhere. No one knew why. Maybe he was back to spend his millions that he'd earned. Maybe he was hiding out from the authorities, who'd found his underworld connections and were building their federal case against him. Maybe he had some sort of terminal disease and wanted to live out his last years in the town where he'd grown up. Maybe he wanted to exact revenge on the townspeople for his unhappy childhood.

  There were lots of questions, with almost no answers or real facts. But of one thing, I was certain.

  Sanford Welles stood before me, in the flesh, and he wasn't happy at my presence in his backyard.

  "Uh, hi," I said, trying to collect my scattered thoughts (Sanford Welles! Oh, Della would practically wet herself with excitement when I told her about this!). I tried to look at the man closely, attempting to commit as many details of his appearance to memory as possible.

  He certainly didn't look sickly, or like he was dying of any sort of disease. On the contrary, he looked strong and tall, his dark eyes imperious with command. He'd be attractive, if he didn't give the impression that he was carved from stone.

  "Who are you?" he repeated, and he took a half step forward towards me, as if threatening to throw me bodily off of his property. I didn't think he'd actually try any violence against me, of course, but I remembered some of those rumors, and my body shrank back on its own.

  "I'm Elaine, Elaine Dean," I replied hastily, my arm rising up to point at the fence behind me, and presumably managing to also indicate my little house on the other side. "I live next door to you. I'm in that little cottage around the corner-"

  "The little pink gingerbread house?"

  I started. "Well, the color isn't called pink, and it's certainly not made of gingerbread," I said. "But yes, that house. Anyway, I just came over for-"

  "I know you," Sanford said, and I couldn't help but notice that he'd interrupted me mid-sentence. Again. Whatever the man had been doing for all of these years, it certainly hadn't taught him any manners. "Where do I know you from?"

  I shrugged, not sure what he wanted as an answer. "We went to high school at the same time, at least for a little bit? I was a freshman when you were a senior?"

  He nodded, and I saw a glint of recognition in those cold, dark eyes. "Yes, that's it. You were one of the scared little freshman girls who ran around in big packs, afraid to ever be off on your own."

  His description of me made me snort with anger. "And you were any better? You were always Mister Cool, skulking around like you didn't want to be there, but you still showed up, up until the day when you finally ran away. And I don't remember you having much success with any of the girls, either."

  "It's been a long time since high school," he said softly, and something about the tone of those words made me flush. If he wasn't so angry and dangerous looking, I might think that he meant those words to sound like... flirting?

  Whatever heat might have lurked in his eyes, however, vanished an instant later. "Anyway, you still haven't told me what you're doing here."

  Those dark eyes, locked on me, made it a little hard for me to put together entire sentences. Whatever Sanford had been doing during his years away, it certainly imbued him with presence. "Cat," I replied, my thoughts all scrambled.

  "What?"

  "Uh, my cat. Admiral Theo- Whiskers, that's his name." I pointed past Sanford, at where Whiskers continued to lay in motionless ecstasy in the sunbeam brilliantly lighting up the patio, drinking in the warmth. "He snuck over here - he got out through my open kitchen window, I think, and hopped up somehow onto the top of the fence - and I just came over to get him back."

  "A cat," Sanford repeated, and I watched as his opinion of me sank even lower. "You came over here to retrieve your cat."

  "Yes." I felt almost ashamed to admit it, but pulled together the last reserves of my self-respect. "And maybe if you weren't hiding away in this mansion, I'd feel better about coming up to the front door to ask for permission to get him back, instead of having to-"

  "Break in by climbing over my fence?"

  "-risk my neck," I finished, ignoring his interjection. "Now, will you let me get my cat and get out of here? Or are you going to take me prisoner?"

  For just a moment, my imagination conjured up the image of a basement somewhere, filled with chains and manacles, and Sanford standing over me with a whip. The thought scared me, but it also sent a strangely illicit thrill rushing down my spine.

  Good god, it had been far too long since I'd been on a date with - or even interacted with - a man, if I was thinking this way. I hastily wiped away that image and returned my thoughts back to the present.

  Sanford risked another glance over at Whiskers, who had flopped all the way onto his back, all four paws up in the air. He looked absolutely ridiculous, I thought, and for just a fraction of a second, I thought that I spotted a tiny little hint of a smile on Sanford's thin lips. Any sign of amusement was gone an instant later, however, when he turned back to me.

  "Winston!" he shouted.

  I jumped at the raised voice. Who in the world was Winston?

  A moment later, however, I heard the creak of the back door to the Winterhearst mansion opening, and a wrinkled face stuck itself out through the opening. "Yes, sir?" it called in a quavering voice that sounded like it came from the edge of a grave.

  "Over here," Sanford replied, his eyes still on me, still as cold as ever.

  After a minute, the door opened all the way, and an elderly, white-haired gentleman dressed in, I kid you not, a full tuxedo stepped out into the sunlight. He headed over to stand just behind Sanford's right shoulder, his eyes moving fretfully between Sanford's and my own face. "Yes, sir?" he repeated.

  Sanford's eyes were still on me, not even flickering towards the man standing at his elbow. "This is Winston. He'll show you out."

  The elderly man gave a slight nod of his head at the sound of his name. I looked at him for a moment, and then back at Sanford in disbelief.

  "You have a butler?" I burst out, scarcely able to believe this new development. Forget wetting herself in excitement - Della wouldn't even believe me!

  "Personal assistant," Sanford corrected me. He gave me another one of those fractional little mouth twitches, as if he was fighting very hard to not reveal any hint of a smile. "He helps me keep this mansion in order."

  "Although I'm afraid it feels like a Herculean task, one for which I am not skilled enough, sir," the elderly butler - and I couldn't think of him as anything but a butler, now that I'd spotted it - sighed. "Just dusting alone, much less attempting to categorize anything-"

  "Winston," Sanford cut in. Apparently his proclivity towards interrupting other people when they were speaking wasn't just reserved for me. "Please show Miss Dean - and her cat - out of my house."

  "Very well, sir," Winston sighed, as Sanford turned on his heel.

  Without giving me even another glance, Sanford Welles, the most mysterious and talked-about man in Truckee, Illinois, stalked back into his gloomy and mouldering old mansion.

  Chapter Three

  *

  Both Winston and I watched as Sanford Welles, Mister Dark and Mysterious himself, stalked back into his mansion. Even Admiral Theodore Whiskers, still enjoying the warm sunlight from his spot on the patio, lifted his head and watched through slitted eyes as the master of the house retreated back into his lair.

  After the door slammed shut behind the man, Winston coughed and turned back towards me. "It's very good to meet you, Miss Dean," he said, giving me a little half-bow and blinking up at me through rheumy eyes. "I'm sorry that I didn't hear you come in."

  "Well, that's okay - I snuck in over the back fence," I replied, feeling a rush of sympathy towards this elderly gentleman. If he had to deal with the arrogance
of Sanford Welles every single day, he deserved every bit of sympathy I gave him. "But I'd prefer to go out through the front, if that's alright with you."

  "Yes, yes, of course," Winston replied. "And I understand that there's a cat here, too?"

  I moved over towards Whiskers, hoping that he wouldn't get into one of his moods and go bolting off. He stayed in his warm spot, however, just watching as I approached. I reached out and snagged onto him, scooping him up into my arms in a warm, surprisingly heavy ball of fluff and limbs. He let out a soft miaow, but made no other attempt at protesting or wiggling his way free.

  "Ah, your cat," Winston commented, following after me. He reached out with a gnarled finger, gently stroking Whiskers under the chin, and then moving around to gently scratch the side of his head. In my arms, Whiskers purred like a steam engine, squeezing his eyes shut and tilting his head to put Winston's fingers up against the right spots to scratch.

  That earned the elderly butler a few points in my book, I decided. If Whiskers tolerated him, he couldn't be all bad. "Yeah. So, how do we get out of here?"

  Giving the cat one last scratch under the chin before pulling his fingers away, Winston led me across the overgrown backyard of the Winterhearst mansion. "There's a gate over here," he called over his shoulder. "Unfortunately, Miss Dean, the latch only opens from the inside, so it would not have helped you avoid your tumble over the fence."

  "Elaine, please," I corrected him. "Miss Dean sounds way too formal."

  Winston smiled back at me. "As Mister Welles' personal assistant, I'm afraid that I will insist on the formality, Miss Dean - but I appreciate the kind intentions."

  We reached the gate, and Winston reached out and flicked a latch to open the section of fence. He held the swinging section of wood open for me as if holding a door for a lady, and I had to resist the urge to curtsey at him as I exited. Fearing that Whiskers would take advantage of the motion to mount an escape attempt, I instead smiled at him as I exited.

  "Sorry about your boss being such an uptight jerk," I couldn't resist saying, as I sailed past the butler.

  Winston, of course, was far too professional to acknowledge that he thought exactly the same thing of Sanford, but I caught the brief little smile around the corners of his eyes before he cleared his face. "The man is actually quite kind and noble, if you got to know him," he replied. "In fact, I believe that he's simply quite depressed, although I have, as of yet, been unable to find anything that will sufficiently cheer him back up."

  I tried to see Sanford as depressed, but my mental picture of the man, and my idea of depression, didn't overlap at all. "Well, thank you, at least," I told Winston, stepping through the gate and finding a small cobbled path leading back to the sidewalk. I knew my way back to my house from here.

  "Consider it nothing, Miss Dean," he called after me, just before the gate shut with a soft click of the latch engaging on the other side.

  For a moment, I stood outside the fenced-off backyard of the Winterhearst mansion, replaying the events of the last few minutes. Sanford Welles was really back, just as rude as I remembered him, and living next door to me! Oh man, this was the juiciest gossip I'd ever had to myself.

  In my arms, Whiskers squirmed, yearning for freedom, and I quickly headed back over to my cottage to deposit him back inside. Even with a squirming cat in my arms, however, I couldn't help slowing for a moment as I headed up the little path to my own home, taking in the sight of the little house I'd agreed to purchase nearly a decade ago.

  Sanford might have called it pink, but I thought that the color of the house looked more like softly poached salmon, a warm tone that seemed to brighten up the entire property. Two stories, it was definitely designed for a single person, or maybe a couple who were okay with a lot of close quarters time together. I couldn't even begin to imagine trying to raise an entire family in the two small bedrooms, waiting in line for the single bathroom, or all crammed into the tight little kitchen around the central counter that some long-dead interior designer decided was the season's must-have kitchen feature. I didn't do nearly enough yard work, mainly because of the aforementioned lack of a green thumb, but the house itself was neat and fairly well kept up, not showing its age.

  And despite the brown grass spots and the flimsy, struggling bushes in front of the house, despite the tiny interior and the old appliances, despite the creaking wooden floor and the outdated light fixtures, I loved my little house. I wouldn't trade it for any other place, not even for the massive, gloomy mansion that sat on the property next door to me.

  Tightening my grip on a now-loudly protesting Whiskers, I carried him back inside. I didn't let him down out of my arms until I heard the door latch shut behind me, and I picked up a couple of light scratches on my forearms as a sign of his gratitude as he struggled for freedom, sensing that he was back on familiar territory.

  "Way to be a jerk, cat," I muttered to myself once I finally released him, throwing the deadbolt on my front door shut and rubbing at one of the scrapes he'd left on my arms. "Come on, I'm bringing you back to the one place that you know as home, and you attack me for it? Who says that cats are smart, again?"

  Whiskers, of course, didn't have a response to this. Instead, he'd already sniffed out the open can of wet cat food that I'd pulled out in the previous attempt to locate him. He currently had most of his furry face buried inside the shallow little can, and he filled the small kitchen with the sounds of his slurping.

  "Gross," I told him, and set about finding something to eat for breakfast.

  Two eggs (scrambled, because I messed up flipping them) and a piece of toast later, I pulled out my computer and began searching for work. To an observer peeping in through my window, I might have looked like I was just browsing the pictures on estate sales, but this was hard work for me, and I even fetched another cup of coffee to help my concentration.

  I work as a furniture and art appraiser, which is much less exciting than it sounds. Most of my days are spent looking at dusty old pieces of carved wood, or other ancient and corroded bits of furniture, and then telling their owners the bad news - that antique lamp isn't a genuine Tiffany, but just a cheap knockoff. No, the "Amish-made" furniture that you bought from the flea market isn't actually worth thousands. Just because someone decided to use a spare bit of canvas to catch all the drips of paint from whatever they were doing, that doesn't make the result a Jackson Pollock, and it certainly won't fetch anything at an auction.

  Most of my customers don't walk away happy, unfortunately, which isn't amazing for repeat business. Thus, when I don't have anyone paying me to appraise their belongings, I'm often forced to spend my ample amounts of free time searching estate sales and other online auction sites for items that actually have some value, hoping to pick them up for cheap and flip them for enough profit to pay my rent, bills, and keep Admiral Whiskers stocked with wet cat food and kitty litter.

  Business had been especially slow, as of late, and I'd been spending more time on the auction sites than usual. After an hour of scrolling through page after page of blurry, out-of-focus pictures of old bits of someone else's life, I groaned and pushed my laptop away. I reached up to rub my eyes, although I still saw old roll-top desks and bits of tarnished silverware when I pressed my palms against my face.

  I needed a job, a real one, something bigger than just driving out to some farmer's barn to look at the old chairs he'd found underneath the stacked bales of hay. I needed something that had a contract, that could pay me for multiple full days of work.

  Also, despite the clock barely having rolled over from AM to PM, I needed a drink, something with more than caffeine in it.

  Fortunately, although I didn't know where to find a decently paying job in my field, I did have a line on that drink situation. And best of all, I knew that my drink would also come with a comforting shoulder to lean on, and free advice thrown in, courtesy of Della.

  Besides, I told myself as I packed up my laptop, sliding it into its fuzzy carry
ing case and then sliding that into my shoulder bag, Della's wine bar had wifi, so I could do work there at the same time as I enjoyed my drink. I could probably even write off the alcohol as a business expense, assuming that I ever sat down and figured out exactly how to track all of these itemized deduction things on my taxes.

  In my driveway, my little two-door Mazda started up on the second try, and I breathed out a little sigh of relief. "Good job," I told the car, reaching forward and patting the dashboard, trying not to feel at all silly about talking to the vehicle.

  I took my time in weaving my way out of the little residential development, into downtown. Of course, given how it was only slightly after noon, I didn't have any trouble finding a parking spot outside my destination. I climbed out of my car and looked up at Della's storefront.

  VINI WINE BAR, the top line of text read, in big, reassuringly clear letters. Just below this, in curving cursive script, was the second line: DOLORES RUTHERS, PROPRIETOR.

  I smiled, checked the handle of my car to make sure that the doors were locked (I'd somehow managed to break the automatic locks almost two years ago, and three different mechanics hadn't been able to figure out the root cause of the issue. Resulting to practicality over paying more men to frown at my car's innards, I just got in the habit of making sure that I locked the doors whenever I got out, and using my key to get in.), and then headed up to the wine bar's front door, tugging it open and slipping inside.

  The little bell over the door jangled at my arrival, and I saw my best friend glance up from her spot behind the counter on the far side, her big, expressive features spreading into a genuine smile. "Elaine!" she called out, like she was announcing my arrival to the empty room.

  I smiled back. "Hi, Della. Glass, please?"

  Chapter Four

  *

  Della's wine bar was, as I'd told her many times, a technological marvel.

  All along two of the sides of the interior, large machines were set into the walls, rows of thin spigots extending out from the wall over narrow drip trays. Just below these spigots, a glass panel revealed rows of wine bottles tucked inside these machines, a straw sliding into the neck of each bottle and down to its base. Little placards above each spigot revealed details about the wine flavors, origins, and types, and at the push of a single button above each spigot, that spigot would dispense a perfect three-ounce pour from the wine bottle behind the glass panel.