Autumn Dreams Read Online Free PDF

was she? Maybe twenty? She had the wonderful glow of youth about her, but true maturity hadn’t yet arrived.
    For some reason he thought of Cassandra Marie. True maturity. A woman in her prime. Many might think this pretty girl with her dark ponytail and brown eyes outshone Cassandra Marie, but for Dan’s money, the tall, leggy blonde won hands down. Undoubtedly, fashion mavens would say Cassandra wore a few too many pounds, but he disagreed. Cassandra was a real woman.
    The girl behind the counter blinked once, twice, and suddenly she smiled too brilliantly at him through her tears. “Hello! Welcome to SeaSong. Let me get Cass to help you.” She turnedand fled—there was no other word for it—through a swinging door at the back of the lobby.
    Dan shrugged and stepped into the common room on his right to wait. The room was filled with several pieces of furniture so old and so well cared for that he knew they must be valuable antiques. He eyed a rose velvet sofa that looked very uncomfortable. What was it with people and antiques? He’d never understood the pull. It was the one modern piece, a navy recliner that screamed, “Sit in me and lean back!” that made him feel comfortable.
    He was about to sit when the small library just off the common room caught his eye. Someone had spent hours on the woodwork, the exceptional detailing and clean lines, but what impressed Dan the most was the uncanny imagination that had made such a small space so beautiful. He ran a hand over the satiny finish of the wood as he flashed a quick look at the eclectic collection of titles that lined the shelves. He was reaching for a book on sailing when a warm voice said, “Hello. Welcome to SeaSong. I see you’ve already found our library.”
    He turned and blinked as he found himself facing Cassandra Marie for the second time today. She held out her hand and smiled broadly. “I’m Cass Merton, the innkeeper.”
    When Dan realized she did not recognize him, he was amazed at how disappointed he felt.

Three
    C ASS UNLOCKED THE third-floor room in the turret and stepped back to let Mr. and Mrs. Harvey enter ahead of her. She followed them in, enjoying their looks of pleasure as they studied the attractive room. The walls were a soft apricot wash, the rug a deep pile cinnamon, and the quilt a floral in apricot, soft yellow, cinnamon, and several shades of green. The antique dresser held a pot of deep cinnamon mums, and the watercolors over the bed were shore birds standing in a marsh turned an autumnal gold, umber, and apricot.
    After showing them their fully renovated private bath with its one-piece shower stall and fluffy apricot towels, she excused herself and went back to the registration desk. Only two more couples to come. They wouldn’t arrive until close to nine, so she went through the swinging door behind the desk into the private part of SeaSong, the part that was home.
    She still had to pinch herself frequently when she thought of the miracle of owning SeaSong. All during her growing-up years she had watched the building slowly fall into disrepair as the Eshelmans, the elderly couple who owned it, could no longer maintain it. Somehow, though, they continued to rent rooms in the summer in spite of the neglected appearance of the place.
    “They must charge awfully low rates,” she told her parents.
    While she was in college, Cass worked two blocks over as a waitress at the Ocean House. She biked past the old place twice daily. Then as a new teacher at Seaside High, Cass parked across the street from the old Victorian. Often at the end of a trying day filled with recalcitrant students, she’d stop and stare at the house, always seeing it as it could be, not as it was. Renovated, painted, refurbished, it could rival any house in the state. She was sure of it.
    Slowly the idea of creating a bed-and-breakfast from the old derelict grew, and with it grew the tantalizing idea of trading her teaching career for one in hospitality. How