Page 5 of Philippa Flynn’s Year of Panic and Piracy

“I know the area, and I have family a couple of hours away.” I pull out my phone and check the signal. “Looks like cell service is shockingly decent out here. Help is a call away.”

My phone rings in my hand. It’s my mom, right on cue, likely tracking my flight info.

“I’m good.” I waggle my phone at the cabbie. “My family knows I’m here.”

He nods and drives off as I take the call, barely managing a hello before my parents—apparently my dad felt the need to check in, too—ask if I’ve arrived, if the house is still standing, how the job hunt’s going, and if I would please reconsider not living in a death trap with a squatter. I’ve never personally considered Mr. Sterling a squatter, though I suspect even my grandmother would be surprised he’s still here six years after she wrote him into her will.

“You can stay at our house if you need to,” my mom says, and it’s not the first time my parents have offered, but they never say I can stay if I want to. It’s always if I need to. Also, they have various guests using Haley and Eleanor’s old room, and they turned Louisa’s and my room into a crafting studio, leaving only Riley’s room, where they store their growing collection of seldom-used exercise equipment. They offered to clear some of it out for me, but I politely declined. At thirty-four, I don’t want to sleep among my little brother’s Trek and Tolkien collectibles while he cohabitates with his hot doctor fiancé and my sisters enjoy their own homes and families. Over breakfast, I’d defend my choice to pursue a low-paying teaching career in a dying field because anyone could’ve told me I was only making things hard for myself. My parents’ guests would cycle through, and dinner conversations would include tacitly derisive questions about marriage, kids, and the biological clock people still talk about like it’s a real thing. Or they’d interrogate me about why I’d rented instead of bought when I was basically throwing away my money. I’d smile and offer quippy replies to make everyone comfortable, but inside I’d be screaming.

“I’ll be okay here,” I say, trying to sound firm while glancing uneasily at the house.

“You’re sure?” my dad asks. “And you’ve met Sterling?”

“Not yet,” I say, now wondering how I should address him.

“Hmm,” my parents say in unison, and it’s a very complicated hmm.

“Something I should know?” I ask.

“No, no,” my mom says a little too quickly. “You’ll sort things out, and you won’t be there long, though I still can’t believe you gave up tenure. Seems like an awfully big risk.”

“Yes, but worth it if I find a position where I feel valued,” I tell her.

“It’s a job, Philippa. Not a daily group hug. No workplace is perfect.”

“I’m not looking for perfect. Just . . . better. It’s not an impossible ask.”

“Maybe not impossible,” my dad says, and I can’t help wishing he didn’t.

“Well, you know best,” my mom says in a way that implies I know nothing of the sort. “We’ll let you settle in, but call us if you need anything, and I’ll send you Louisa’s registration, so you don’t show up to her engagement party empty-handed.”

“You mean her gift registration?” I ask. “Aren’t gifts for the actual wedding?”

“Oh, sweetie.” My mom laughs softly. “Buy her a ladle or a dish towel. Something you can slap a bow on that won’t break your budget. You know we’re all just glad you’ll be there.”

I exhale slowly, releasing tension. I do know my family wants me around. I just wish they wanted me around without making me feel like they want a different version of me instead.

We say goodbye and hang up. I take another look at the house, bracing myself to step inside. Then I clumsily drag my heavy suitcases over bumpy, overgrown paving stones and up two dozen uneven steps toward the front porch, pep-talking myself as I go.

“This will be fine. It’ll be great. A little yard work. Some intense clean—”

“Philippa Flynn?” The voice that reaches me from the house is deep, gravelly, but not in a grumpy-old-man way. In a resonant, please-say-my-name-again way. Then I have one of those camera-pauses-world-goes-still kind of moments, because I look up to see a man standing by the open front door, but he’s not the man I showed Amelia a month ago on my laptop screen. He’s Zane Scarlett, the swashbuckling pirate king from my grandmother’s novels.

Literally. The goddamned pirate king. On my doorstep. Saying my name.

Admittedly, he’s not in his usual attire: impossibly tight breeches, thigh-high cavalier boots, a glinting sword buckled by his side, and his shirt conveniently off so he can display his chiseled pecs and ravish a fiery heroine with greater haste. He’s in an illegible print T-shirt and rumpled jeans that sit low on his hips. His ponytail is gone, leaving his black hair curling lazily over his forehead and short on the back and sides, with a light scruff where a tidy beard usually covers his chin. He’s older, around forty, maybe, with hints of gray in his hair and faint lines bracketing his eyes and lips, and he’s softer, as though the sculptor set aside the chisel and let time erode the sharpest angles. But even without the sword, the ponytail, and the razor-edge jawline, he’s definitely the guy I’ve seen on thirty-four romance novel covers. Dark, heavily lashed eyes. A hawkish nose and prominent Adam’s apple. Full lips I’ve seen pressed against many a heaving bosom. Also, the man can seriously fill up a doorway. His shoulders must be—

“You are Philippa Flynn?” he presses. His accent’s American, even though Zane Scarlett is British. And fictional. And clearly, I should’ve eaten more than airplane pretzels today.

“I am,” I say. “And you’re . . . ?”

“Dylan Sterling.”

“No, you’re not.”

He chokes out half a laugh. “And you know this because . . . ?”

“Because I googled you. Or, I mean, I googled Dylan Sterling. Old guy. White hair. Horn-rimmed glasses. Fond of cardigans. Unlikely to win the Smile of the Year Award.”