Chapter One #2
She studied the front door, unsure if she was supposed to knock or just walk in.
She was expected, and this was an inn, not a house.
You didn’t knock at a Marriott. But it had a knocker, made of brass and shaped like an owl…
. Calisa told herself to quit delaying. She had nothing to be nervous about.
She’d made the leap: backed out of her summer job, said goodbye to her friends and parents, and come here.
The hard part was done. Knock, then enter, she decided.
She took a step forward—
And the wood planks beneath her snapped. She plunged through the porch, and her breath whooshed out of her. Her backpack caught on the unbroken boards, hiking up above her shoulders. Her suitcase sat innocently beside the hole.
“Gah!” The sound came out of her like a chicken squawk.
She wasn’t hurt, was she? She took stock—knees, ankles, elbows. All fine.
She’d fallen up to her chest, and the hole was about as wide as she was, plus a portion of her backpack. Placing her hands up on the unbroken boards in front of her, Calisa tried to hoist herself out.
It didn’t work.
At all.
Maybe if she hadn’t been wearing her pack when she fell—but she had been, and now her backpack was wedged behind her. With it, she was a cork in a bottle.
Calisa tried again, jumping up while pushing with her arms and, after she was a few inches off the ground, bicycling with her feet. After huffing and puffing for a solid minute, she sank down again into the hole.
Okay, this is not good.
She was not going to panic, she told herself.
It wasn’t as if she’d fallen into a hole in the middle of the Vermont woods with bears and wolves and strange men with axes.
She was on (or, more accurately, in) the front porch of a respectable bed-and-breakfast. If she yelled for help, someone would hear her and come to her rescue.
Except this was not how she wanted to start her summer job.
How did she say to her aunt, whom she hadn’t seen in years, “Hey, Auntie Zee, I’m here to help, so I broke your porch”?
No, she’d figure out a way to get out of this herself.
If she squirmed out of the backpack first and then—
“Hello?” a voice said. Male. Youngish. “Are you hurt?”
Calisa felt herself blush, torn between relief that someone was here to help and embarrassment to be stuck in a hole in the first place. “I’m fine.”
She twisted as much of her upper body as she could to see the owner of the voice.
Standing on the porch above her, he looked to be her age (as far as she could tell) and handsome (that she could definitely tell), with tousled wet-from-the-rain hair.
In addition to looking absurdly fresh-off-a-movie-set pretty, he was strong, which was obvious not just from the bulk of his arm muscles but also because he was carrying a large stone gargoyle on one of his shoulders like it was a sack of potatoes.
“I’m Jack. Groundskeeper,” he said. “Or, technically, groundskeeper’s son, but I help out.” He was frowning at her as if she didn’t belong here, which she thought was a fair assessment. She did not belong mid-porch.
“Uh, hi, I’m Calisa, Auntie Zee’s niece.
Grandniece.” It wasn’t the most poetic of introductions, but at least she hadn’t stumbled over her name, which she had done the very first time she had set eyes on Ethan.
He’d told her it was charming. But she had not come here with the intention of having another awkward meet-cute like that.
In fact, she hadn’t even considered the fact that she might have to interact with anyone her age at all.
She’d thought the summer would be just her and Auntie Zee, with a few aloof adult guests who came and went.
She did not want or need any complications. Like falling through a porch.
He pointed to the gargoyle with his free hand. “This here is Zef. He’s supposed to be in room eight. I’m just bringing him out of the rain before I get the cheese.”
None of that made sense. “Cheese? For…Zef?”
Jack laughed, a nice, warm laugh that made her feel like she’d just successfully told a joke, even though she’d merely been confused. “The guest in room twelve likes cheese. And vegetables. But mostly cheese.”
“I like cheese.” She winced at herself. Why am I incapable of holding a normal conversation with a good-looking guy? Is it maybe because I’m trying to be friendly while stuck in a hole? “All except blue cheese.”
“Never understood blue cheese,” Jack agreed.
“The blue spots are supposed to be edible, but I can’t get past the fact that they’re mold.
” Why was she talking about mold? She did not want to be talking about mold.
She wanted to be out of this hole. “I like cheddar. And goat cheese, the soft kind that you can spread. It’s really good with fig jam. ”
“I especially like cheesecake.”
“Everyone likes cheesecake.”
“Except the lactose intolerant,” Jack said.
“Mm-hmm, it’s probably a cruel joke to them,” Calisa said. “Cake but not.”
Jack frowned. “You’re right. In that case, we shouldn’t serve it.”
“Unless you use cream cheese with lactase.”
“You can do that?”
She knew it existed, but she’d never baked with it before.
“I made a regular cheesecake last year. Trick is you have to cool it gradually, or it cracks. Probably same process.” Oh God, why was she still having this conversation?
If the universe expects me to swoon into his arms after he rescues me as some kind of cosmic apology for last month…
Nope, not going to happen. She did not want to have to be grateful to him.
“I had a slice of white chocolate raspberry cheesecake once,” he said dreamily. “Fresh raspberries are the best.”
“Blueberries are better,” Calisa said.
“You clearly have never eaten a raspberry straight off the bush.”
She hadn’t, but that wasn’t exactly her greatest concern right now. Calisa squirmed, trying to angle her arms better to lever herself out of the hole. “I’m sure it’s delicious.” She failed again and heaved a sigh.
With the careful tone of someone who isn’t sure whether he’s being rude or not, Jack asked, “Are you an invited guest? I mean, you said you’re Auntie Zee’s grandniece, but…she didn’t mention you. Are you supposed to be here? Did she know you were coming?”
“She should,” Calisa said. “My moms talked to her.”
“Ah…” He looked relieved. Tentatively, he asked, “Are you okay?”
No. “Yes. But I think I’m stuck.” Wait, did he think she was dangling halfway through the porch on purpose? Did he not see she very obviously needed help?
“Hmm,” he said, examining the break in the porch as if it were a feature of the architecture, not an unintentional disaster. “Let me just return Zef to room eight, and I’ll be back to rescue you. And then you should talk to Auntie Zee. She’s the boss of everything that happens here.”
Before she could ask for help now, not after he finished his chores, Jack—the polite and handsome but ultimately unhelpful groundskeeper’s son—had already disappeared inside.
Calisa muttered to herself, “Okay, so definitely not a meet-cute.” That was just awkward.
What was with the are-you-supposed-to-be-here questions?
It was an inn. Even if she wasn’t invited, shouldn’t they get people popping up unexpectedly all the time?
“Whatever.” She had zero desire to be rescued anyway.
And even less desire to wait around to be rescued.
Climbing out wasn’t going to work, though. She looked across the porch and out at the yard, but all she saw was the statue of the lady, with one hand outstretched, in between the weeds. “Thanks, but I don’t think you can help,” Calisa said.
She tried one more time to propel herself out. It failed again.
What about if she went down instead of up?
Could she crawl out from beneath the porch?
That wasn’t a bad idea. Calisa ducked down easily, her backpack coming with her a second later and then thumping onto her back.
It was dark beneath the porch, as well as damp, but she could see light to her left. Squatting, she waddled toward it.
Up ahead, she heard murmuring.
Shivers danced up her spine, and she stopped. “Hello?”
The murmuring ceased.
Could it be the voices of guests within the inn? Peering into the shadows beneath the porch, she didn’t see any movement. She continued on with her awkward waddle, not wanting to crawl on the muddy ground.
Another cascade of whispers, this time behind her.
She turned fast. Again, no one was there. Her heart beat faster. It had to be the acoustics under the porch warping the sound from inside somehow, but there was an edge to the whispers that made every inch of her skin prickle.
Moving more quickly, Calisa hurried toward the light and emerged from beneath the porch.
She stood up straight, facing the overgrown gardens and the mountains in the distance.
The rain had lessened, and she could see streaks of blue breaking through the clouds by the peaks. The whispers were silent.
Returning to the front of the inn, she skirted the hole and approached the door carefully. She opened it without incident and stepped inside, bringing her suitcase and backpack with her.
She exhaled, feeling as if she’d achieved a minor miracle by simply entering the B&B.