Chapter 22 Elsie
ELSIE
I thought the calm was meant to come before the storm, but like everything else in life, I got the order wrong. The house is impossibly quiet now.
I sit at the kitchen table, wrapped in a quilt, legs tucked beneath me, cradling a mug of tea that’s gone tepid.
The fire’s long since died. The power must’ve come back on sometime around three or four—there’s a faint hum under the floorboards again, and the stove clock is blinking, confused but alive.
I don’t think Wells has woken up yet.
When I slipped out of the den, his nose was pressed to the side of my neck. I had to peel myself away slowly, careful not to wake him. One arm was banded around my waist, palm heavy and warm at my hip. The other was tucked under his head, muscles loose in sleep but still hard as carved oak.
His back rose and fell in easy breaths. A piece of hair curled damp across his brow. He looked unfairly good for someone who’d spent the night on the floor. Wrecked, warm, peaceful in a way that made my chest twist.
And his body—long and lean and solid. Shoulders like sculpture, that sharp cut of muscle at his hips framing the thick line of his cock, resting heavy against his thigh beneath the quilt.
Even in sleep, he’s indecently graceful.
Sex, for me, has always been . . . distant. Something I did because I thought I should. Not cold, exactly, but never like this. Never heat. Never hunger. Never that pull that starts behind your ribs and drops you to your knees.
Last night, there were no thoughts. No checklist. No pretending.
Just yes. Just more. Just him.
But now it’s morning, and the storm has passed.
It’s been maybe twenty minutes since I slipped out of the parlor, so maybe he has woken up and didn’t follow me in here. Maybe he’s quietly walking the perimeter, making sure the storm didn’t rip off half the roof while we were too distracted to notice.
Too distracted.
I stare into my mug and try not to think about it anymore. The way he looked at me, touched me, kissed me, moved inside me. I try not to think about what I said, what I promised even before that. That I’d agree to the trust. That it would make everyone happy. That I could live with it.
I still don’t know if I can.
It would make things easier—for Wells, for the town. It would mean the inn stays in the family, that the legacy is preserved, that no one has to worry it’ll be acquired for profit alone. A neat solution. A good choice, on paper.
But what does it give me?
A portion of the proceeds, sure, but not a lump sum. Not steady or secure. Just enough, maybe, filtered through signatures and oversight. A future I didn’t choose, wrapped in obligation and someone else’s hope.
Isn’t that just as stressful as the life I left behind? The same pressure dressed in patchwork and pine. What if saying yes wasn’t brave at all, but another way of folding, of giving in before I’ve even figured out what I really want?
It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve mistaken relief for clarity.
Outside, it’s nothing but indigo. The storm blew through fast and hard, but left the sky scrubbed clean. Bright sun over wet eaves, a shine to every slick surface. Somewhere out there, a crow cackles loud enough to make me flinch. Smug little bastard.
I reach for my phone. The signal’s weak, but a few texts slide in at once—Bobby asking about the inn, Isla checking on the trees, even Juneberry, who somehow managed to blast out a marketing update about their peppermint mocha special.
I tap Bobby’s name and call.
He answers on the second ring, chipper as ever. “It’s Bobby Brindle, what can I do for ya?”
I laugh, startled. “Hi. Sorry, did I wake you?”
“Elsie? It’s ten fifteen.”
“Oh.” Right. Time doesn’t work the same in a blackout.
“Storm scramble, huh?”
“Sort of. I was calling to ask—did the power go out in town last night?”
“Nope. Kept flickering, but never actually dropped.”
I wrinkle my nose, unsettled. “We lost it here. Full blackout for hours.”
He whistles. “Ridge must’ve taken a direct hit, but I didn’t see any outages on the grid map this morning. You got power back?”
The house, I think. Not the ridge.
She wanted to prove a point, and she did. Whether it was to punish me for wanting to sell, to shove Wells and me closer together, or to remind me she meant business—I don’t know.
Maybe all three. Maybe none. I wouldn’t put it past her to cut the lights again just to make me sweat. Scared of the dark? I’ll show you how inconvenient I can be.
“Yeah,” I say, glancing again at the blinking stove clock. “Still need a little time to set everything right.”
“Anything busted?”
“A branch came down out back, but it missed the house. No other damage we could see in the dark.” I don’t mention the fact that I still haven’t looked for myself or that I’m too chickenshit to go investigating if Wells is already out there walking the perimeter without me.
“I can send a guy up to check the pole near the fence line. I know Wells could do it, but if there’s damage on the transformer, you’ll need a crew.”
“That’d be great. Thank you.”
“Already on it. And hey, the store’s open if you need anything.”
“I think we might.” I glance toward the back door. Still no sign of him. “We’ll stop by later.”
After I hang up, I don’t move right away. I let the silence fold over me like a too-heavy coat. My tea’s still lukewarm, going bitter in the fox mug. I don’t bother reheating it.
I’m practically pacing the grooves into the floorboards by the time Wells drifts in.
His dark blond hair is damp, curling faintly at the ends. He’s wearing an old sweatshirt unzipped over a well-worn T-shirt. There’s something about the shape of his shoulders in it, the way the collar’s gone soft at the edges, that makes my chest feel like a bruise.
He moves through the kitchen without a word. Rinses a mug at the sink. Fills it with coffee. Leans against the counter. We’re strangers boarding the same train, I guess, and that’s somehow worse than if we’d never crossed paths at all.
I’m not sure how we can pretend last night didn’t happen. Pretend we didn’t touch every bare inch of each other until there was nothing left to hide. We’ve dismantled something, and I can’t put any of it back where it was before.
I want to ask what he’s thinking. Want to rewind and replay it all with the lights on. But he’s making it clear that we’re meant to brush things under the rug, so I let the silence thicken instead. Let it settle in the space between us like dust we’re both too proud to sweep.
“Would you want to go into town with me?” I ask instead. It’s better to move than sit in it. Keeps us both distracted. Keeps us both from slipping back into something we’re not ready to name.
His gaze lifts.
“We need a few things,” I add quickly. “Flashlight batteries. Maybe a charger. I think we should expand our disaster kit. And . . .” I clear my throat. “I could really use a cinnamon roll.”
His mouth twitches. A fraction. “Juneberry?”
“Yeah,” I say. “There’s a peppermint special.”
“I got the text.”
He holds my gaze, and I forget how to swallow. His eyes are that impossible, changeable gray—never quite the same. Sometimes hard steel. Sometimes clear lake. This morning, they’re soft and storm spent. Like the sky after everything breaks.
There it is again. Not ache. Not even longing. Gravity. A quiet pull I can’t name without unraveling.
Then he nods. “Let me get my boots.”
We take the old path back into town. The storm’s left everything spongy, and tree limbs litter the road. We don’t talk the whole way through.
At Brindle & Sons, I let Wells handle the small talk while I make my list: flashlight batteries, shelf-stable snacks, a weather radio with a crank. I add a second pack of triple-As in case Hemingway decides the remote is a personal enemy again.
The clerk bags everything without lifting his eyes. We’re nearly out the door when Bobby appears from a side aisle, one hand on his lower back, the other holding an old tin of wood polish.
“Well now,” he says, grinning wide. “Glad to see you two didn’t freeze to death up there on the ridge. Least you had each other to keep warm, eh?”
I choke so hard on absolutely nothing that I make an actual sound.
Wells doesn’t blink.
“We managed just fine,” he answers evenly.
“I bet you did,” Bobby says casually, like we shared candlelight instead of body heat. “Any structural damage? Roof shift? Chimney lean?”
“Branch down out back,” Wells replies. “I’ll check it out later this afternoon. Thanks for sending out that tech.”
“You’ll want to mention it at Friday’s meeting,” Bobby says, thunking the wood polish onto the counter. “County likes to see a ‘post-event mitigation plan.’ Storm prep, cleanup protocol, that kind of thing. Shows stewardship. Especially for historical designations. Weather’s a liability, you know.”
“We’ll add it,” Wells says.
“Good man.” Bobby grabs a candle box from under the counter and stuffs it on top of our pile. “On the house. My apologies for not realizing y’all were holed up together all night without power.”
I’m actively dying. I don’t speak. I don’t even move.
Wells nods. “Appreciate it.”
I offer a dazed “Thank you,” even though I can’t feel my mouth, and follow Wells out into the cold, arms crammed with wax and batteries, boots squelching through the last of the slush.
By the time we make it to Juneberry, my fingers are numb and my shoulders ache. The café is warm—fogged windows, cinnamon in the vents, clatter of plates. A few regulars are hunched over morning papers and bottomless mugs.
We take the back corner table.
Our knees bump when we sit. He doesn’t move his. I don’t move mine.
Wells takes his coffee black today. For reasons I can’t explain, I drown mine in extra cream and still burn my tongue. The cinnamon roll I order is bigger than my palm, molten in the middle. I tear it apart in quiet, sticky handfuls.
Wells eyes me over the rim of his mug. “Are you sure you don’t have a cinnamon addiction?”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“Not at all. Only wondering if I should alert the proper authorities.”
“I should have known you were a narc.”
He half smiles. Not wide, but enough to feel like I’ve passed some sort of test.
I brush the crumbs from my fingers and fold my napkin into my palm. “I really think we need to talk.”
His smile fades. He sets his mug down. “Els, last night—”
“Not about that.” I shake my head. “I mean . . . yes, last night, but not what you’re thinking.” He waits. “After the power went out, I panicked. I thought it was retaliation. For lying to you. For wanting to sell. And if that sounds ridiculous, I don’t care. But I said I’d do the trust.”
“I won’t hold that against you,” he says softly. “The promises we make in the dark are—”
“—desperate ones,” I finish for him. “Yeah. I thought maybe that’s all it was, a panic response. But I walked it over this morning. And maybe . . . maybe it really would be the best decision for everyone.”
Not just a compromise, but the most viable second option aside from selling. I could stay on for a while, draw a modest stipend, help the transition. Keep the inn in the family without having to shoulder it alone. And in the end, I can still leave.
He blinks once, slowly. “You think so?”
I nod. “It’s what you want, isn’t it?”
“What I want,” he says, “is for you to keep it. To run the inn. To reopen it someday. To keep your grandmother’s work alive.”
I sip my coffee, which now tastes too sweet. “And what I want is . . . to sell it to someone who could run it better than I ever could. Someone who wouldn’t be so afraid of touching it wrong. Someone who wouldn’t worry about ruining everything.”
He’s silent. Maybe he wants to fight me on it, though I don’t understand why. The trust is a valiant second choice if I’m not staying. It’s something between abandoning it and trying to be something I’m not. But it’s obvious the thought doesn’t make him happy.
I see it in the shift of his jaw, the small tap of his boot on the tile. Lately, I think, he’s started seeing something in me I can’t see myself. Arguing with me now would only make him cruel, and for whatever reason, he refuses to be.
“And I think the trust is us meeting in the middle,” I say. “It separates me as much as it can without selling it off to someone else. It honors the family. It stops me from completely abandoning it.”
He watches me. Doesn’t interrupt once.
“Could you . . . tell me a little more about how it would work? Before I make a decision.”
“I could.” He nods. “Or I can have someone else walk you through it. A lawyer in Camden, if you want it clean.”
“No. Thank you, but no. I’d rather hear it from you first.” I take a breath. “I just want to explore my options. And I know we still have a few weeks left in the holding period, so you don’t have to worry about me calling a buyer.” My voice softens. “I’m trying not to make another rash decision.”
“I don’t want you to, either.”
We sit there, quiet. Me trying not to pick at the napkin. Him looking like he’s holding back half a dozen things he could say but won’t.
Finally, I clear my throat. “I think I’m going to get another roll. The first one barely counted as breakfast.”
“Addiction confirmed.”
I stand and take my plate to the counter. Behind me, I can feel the weight of his gaze. Something inside me quiets for the first time in days. Not because anything’s been solved, but because I’m beginning to believe it could be.
Tied up tight and pretty with a ribbon, my gift to Blue Willow.