The papers stacked on her desk and the insulated tumbler of water she’d brought from work blurred while her mind scrambled for snippets from yesterday. “I don’t remember doing paperwork.”

“Yep, got it right here. I’ll see you there in an hour.”

With that, the line went dead.

Cassie pulled the phone away from her ear and studied the screen.

“Weird,” she said to no one. Though, as far as weird calls went, that one had to have been one of the best of all time.

She shut down her computer, packed up her stuff and started the cumbersome trip home via public transportation. On the bright side, bus rides made for great rumination time. By the time she’d made it to her house, she’d at least narrowed down to four or five attire options for Sunday dinner with Kir. The whole bodyguard interview, on the other hand, was still needling her from the inside out.

She started to unlock the front door, but got sidetracked when Rodney pulled her car into an open slot right behind her. A ragged blue truck with a magnetic Farley’s Mechanics sign on the side pulled in right behind him.

Cassie waved to them both and jogged down to the sidewalk. “Hey, guys. You almost beat me here.”

With the door to her car already open and one leg out on the pavement, Rodney rolled up the driver’s side window and killed the engine. “Traffic was better than I thought. Plus, Amos has a truck that he’s got to have done tonight, so we had to hustle.” He handed off the keys. “Here you go.”

“Thanks very much.” She took the keys and dropped them in her purse. “You two want to come in while I write the check?”

“No need,” Rodney said, high-stepping it to the passenger side of the truck. “We’ll send you a bill.”

A bill? Who sent bills these days? Especially when you had a client willing to write a check on the spot?

Rodney lumbered into his seat, slammed the door and waved from behind the windshield.

The man she assumed was Amos had his window down and his left elbow hanging over the edge. He saluted Cassie. “Nice working with you, miss.”

“Right,” Cassie said. “Nice working with you, too.”

And with that, they were gone, the only reminder they’d been there being her now-functioning car parked perfectly in a spot right in front of her house.

Hold up.

Was her car clean?

She padded closer and peeked in the window.

Holy crap.

She opened the door, threw her purse to the passenger’s seat and slid behind the wheel. Her car wasn’t just clean. It was spotless. As in cleaner than it’d been the day she’d bought it.

“I am so going to them for every tune-up for the rest of my life.” She smoothed her hands over the faded leather steering wheel, the lightness whispering beneath her skin the first time in days if not weeks. Maybe this was the turn of luck she’d been hoping for. A shift that would trigger her thoughts and ideas back into motion.