Page 1 of Haunted Ever After

One

That meeting could’ve been an email.

Cassie Rutherford clicked “LEAVE MEETING” and took out her earbuds. Once she’d confirmed that her camera was off, the bright smile slipped from her face and she let her forehead thunk to the table with a moan.

What a week. And it was only Monday. She’d made a lot of mistakes in her thirty-one years of life, and of them all, this one was…well, it wasn’t the worst one. But it sure as hell was the most recent.

Her life was chaos. Cassie didn’t like chaos. She liked checklists. She liked the satisfaction of a job well done. She didn’t like moving boxes filling every room of her new house, turning her morning routine into an obstacle course. She didn’t like having no idea where her saucepans were, since they weren’t in the box labeled Kitchen. And she really, really didn’t like waking up a half hour before an all-hands meeting with a dead laptop.

Most small Florida tourist trap towns had a schtick, and her new town had apparently been dubbed the Most Haunted Small Town in Florida. At least that’s what the sign outside of the Boneyard Key Chamber of Commerce said. How many towns had been competing for that title? That was Cassie’s question.

They certainly leaned in to it hard around here. Flagpoles lined the historic downtown sidewalks, each one featuring a banner with a classic-looking Halloween ghost: white, vaguely blob shaped, big black eyes. They fluttered in the early-morning breeze in the world’s laziest attempt to be spooky. T-shirts hung in the window of the I Scream Ice Cream Shop that she’d passed this morning. I had a spooky good time in Boneyard Key, Florida! proclaimed one of them. Boneyard Key, where the chills aren’t just from the ice cream! said another one. Both were illustrated with cartoonishly ghoulish graphics: a skeletal hand poking out of a grave, ice-cream cone in hand.

And this was all in April. This place probably went apeshit for Halloween.

Cassie’s newly purchased historic cottage had gingerbread trim, little balconies off the upstairs bedrooms, a backyard that ended in a seawall bordering the Gulf of Mexico, and unreliable electricity. She’d left her laptop plugged in on the kitchen table last night, but this morning it was drained of all juice, like an electricity vampire had stolen it during the night. Thank God for Hallowed Grounds (man, this town really leaned in to the ghost puns); she’d found this coffee shop down the street just in time.

Cassie’s ears were sore from her earbuds, and she rubbed at one while she reviewed her notes from the meeting. Doodles, mostly. She’d spoken all of two times. Once to chime in on the Farnsworth account, confirming that she was aware of the deadline and that she was on track to reach it. The second time toward the end of the meeting when her work bestie, Mandy, had asked about her move. Yes, the move had gone great. Yes, her house was right on the water, and she could hear the waves when she went to sleep at night. But then she’d seen Roz’s expression pucker, even through the laptop screen, and Cassie had cut the nonwork-related conversation short. She’d update everyone in the group chat later.

And say what, though? Everyone wanted to hear good things. No one wanted to know what was really on her mind: that maybe she’d made the most expensive mistake of her life. One that was practically impossible to unwind.

God, she needed coffee.

Cassie closed her laptop and leveled a glare at what appeared to be the coffee shop’s lone employee. Still on his goddamn phone, just like he had been when she’d walked in. He was tall and lean, slim hipped in faded jeans and a gray pocket tee. His hair was on the long side, falling in russet waves around his face and over his forehead, matching his close-trimmed beard. She couldn’t see his eyes, as his head was bent over the phone in his hands, thumbs flying across the screen.

He looked too old to be a Gen Z, TikTok-addicted kid, but his attention had been on his phone when she’d come in. He hadn’t even looked up as she’d come barreling through the door. Hadn’t said a word as she beelined to a table in the back with a blessed outlet nearby. As much as she’d wanted to fuel up before the meeting, she had just enough time to hook up, access the Wi-Fi listed on the card on the table, and get logged in. Caffeine had to wait.

A glance down at her laptop showed that it was charged up, so she should really get home. Get some work done. Find her saucepans. Figure out what was wrong with her house. Probably something wrong with the wiring that the inspector had missed, which was way beyond her scope.

Too bad houses weren’t like other retail purchases. No returning it for a refund, even though she had the receipt. She was locked into a mortgage now.

At this point, she could just go home and make coffee, but dammit, that was boring, and she’d promised herself a little treat after the shitty start to the day. She could get a coffee to go; she deserved it.

Coffee shop guy looked up with disdain as she approached the counter. “Oh. Are you actually gonna order something?” His voice was deeper than she’d expected, with an undertone of gravel. But all Cassie could see was blue. That clear crystal blue that made you think of Caribbean water. Of lab-created sapphires, because a blue that blue couldn’t exist in nature. Damn, but this slacker barista had pretty eyes.

Then his words registered and she frowned, pretty eyes forgotten. “What do you mean?”

“I mean…” He jerked his head in a nod toward the table she’d just vacated. “You’ve been sitting there for almost an hour, using my Wi-Fi, without even so much as ordering a cup of coffee. This isn’t a coworking space, you know. It’s a business.”

“Really? Damn.” Cassie looked pointedly around the place. Empty. “Sorry to occupy your fanciest table.”

His lips twitched, sending a thrill through her. She didn’t like this guy; why did she care if he thought she was funny? “You want to order something or what?” Despite the almost-smile, his voice didn’t sound much friendlier. Great.

“Iced latte, please. Hazelnut, if you have it.”

“We have it.” He sounded insulted that she implied otherwise. “Anything else?”

Her eyes strayed to the pastry case. It looked pretty picked over; this must be a popular breakfast spot. “Is that banana bread?”

“Yep.” His voice was clipped as he moved to the espresso machine.

“And I was going to order when I got here, you know.” She raised her voice over the hiss of the machine as he steamed the milk. “You had your face shoved in your phone. Maybe a little less time on Tinder and a little more time doing your job.” The machine cut off, and she was suddenly yelling in the very empty café. The slacker barista didn’t respond; he just shook his head, his back to her as he worked.

If Cassie didn’t like chaos, she really didn’t like being ignored. “I mean, what would your boss think…” There was a stack of business cards in a little plastic holder by the register, and she snatched one, reading from it. “What would Nick Royer think about your lack of service?”

“I dunno.” He plonked the finished drink onto the counter in front of her, ice sloshing against the lid. “Why don’t you ask him?”

His mouth did that almost-twitch thing again, and there was something in his eyes—those stunning blue eyes—that set off a warning bell in the back of Cassie’s brain. But screw that—she was too annoyed to listen.

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