Page 25 of The Man in the Cottage

"No twins."

"Huh." She shakes her head. "It's going to drive me crazy. I'm usually so good with faces."

The back door opens again, and another woman steps out. Taller than Brit, natural hair pulled up, an energy that fills the whole porch the second she arrives.

"Brit, what are you doing out here? Kelly's about to open the—" She stops when she sees me. "Oh. Hello."

"This is Travis," Brit says. "The cottage guy."

"The cottage guy." The new woman—this must be Nicole, the best friend Kelly talks about—looks me up and down with absolutely no subtlety. "Well. Kelly undersold you."

"Nicole," Brit says, laughing.

"What? I'm just saying." Nicole is still looking at me, and there's something sharper in her gaze than Brit's idle curiosity. "So you're the one who's been keeping our girl company out here in the wilderness."

"I don't know about keeping her company. I mostly just fix things."

"Mm-hmm." She doesn't sound convinced. "You should come inside. Have a drink with us."

"I don't want to intrude—"

"It's not intruding if you're invited." She opens the back door wider, gesturing. "Come on. Kelly will be happy to see you."

I should say no. Every instinct is screaming at me to grab my drill and go back to the cottage and stay there until these women leave. But Nicole is looking at me like she's already made up her mind about something, and Brit is still frowning at me with that I-know-you-from-somewhere expression, and if I run now it's going to look like I have something to hide.

Which I do. But they don't need to know that.

"One drink," I say.

The kitchen is warm and loud and smells like something good cooking on the stove. Kelly is at the counter, her back to me, pouring wine into glasses while a third woman sits at the table scrolling through her phone. The string lights I hung this morning cast everything in a soft glow.

"Look who I found lurking on the porch," Nicole announces.

Kelly turns around, and her face does something complicated when she sees me. Surprise, then pleasure, then something more guarded. "Travis. Hey."

"I left my drill outside. Didn't mean to crash the party."

"You're not crashing." She sets down the wine bottle and crosses toward me, and for a second I think she might hug me, but she stops a few feet away, like she's remembering we have an audience. "Everyone, this is Travis. Travis, this is Nicole, Brit, and Mona."

Mona looks up from her phone and waves. "Hey."

"Hi."

"Travis has been helping me out around the house," Kelly says. "He fixed the sink. And the heater. And about fifteen other things I would've screwed up."

"A handyman," Nicole says. "Useful."

"Do you want some wine?" Kelly asks me. "Or a beer? I think there's beer in the fridge."

"Beer's good."

She gets me a bottle and our fingers brush when she hands it to me. I see Nicole notice. I see Brit notice her noticing.

This was a mistake.

"So Travis," Nicole says, settling into a chair at the kitchen table like she's about to conduct an interview. "What do you do when you're not fixing Kelly's sink?"

"Nicole," Kelly says, a warning in her voice.