Sloane Merritt is twenty-five, a cultural geography student, and the one Eastmoor sent to guide a visiting historian through New England peak week.

Professor Rhys Calder is forty-seven, distinguished, and already taking notes before he looks at her.

The inn is full. The rooms adjoin. The walls were not built for secrets.

Copper maples. A dirt cut after a red barn. A legal pull-off with a view the county sold as pretty.

He will not dress this up as mentorship. She knows how a bolt works, and she does not use it.

What happens on the loop stays on the loop: the inn, the car, the ridge.