Chapter 6 #2
I’d laughed when I saw it. I couldn’t help myself—the car was a convertible, for God’s sake, and we were in the mountains in December. The soft top was up, of course, but I could see frost crystallizing on the windshield, and the whole thing looked as out of place as a flamingo in a snowstorm.
The Miata sat next to a woodpile that was, I noted with something almost like fondness, still covered in wet tarp and completely useless.
I grabbed the grocery bags from my back seat—two of everything, because I was either being incredibly thoughtful or incredibly foolish, and I’d stopped trying to determine which—and headed toward the front door.
The cabin was smaller than mine, more rustic, with a wraparound porch that probably looked charming in summer but currently just looked cold. Smoke rose from the chimney, which meant he’d at least figured out the fire situation. Unless he was burning furniture.
I climbed the porch steps, shifted the bags to one arm, and took a deep breath.
This was what anyone would do, really, if they found out their neighbor was being hunted by overly enthusiastic fans and probably couldn’t return to the only grocery store within thirty miles without being accosted.
I was being helpful and not thinking about the way he’d looked at me in the canned goods aisle.
I knocked.
For a long moment, nothing happened. I heard movement inside—footsteps, the creak of floorboards—but the door stayed firmly closed. Maybe he was hoping I’d go away. Maybe he’d seen the Range Rover pull up and decided he’d rather starve than face the awkwardness of this conversation.
Fair enough. I’d probably do the same in his position.
I was about to leave the bags on the porch and retreat when the door finally opened.
Samuel looked... bad. Not physically—physically he still looked like someone had ordered a leading man from a catalog and selected all the most attractive options—but there was something haunted in his expression.
Something hollow. His eyes were red-rimmed, his hair disheveled, and he’d changed out of his earlier clothes into sweatpants and a hoodie that swallowed his frame.
“Farley.” He said my name like he wasn’t sure it was real. “What are you—”
A flash of white streaked past his legs, and suddenly Purrsephone was weaving between my ankles, purring like a motorboat and rubbing her face against my jeans.
“Oh, for—” Samuel stared at the cat. “How does she do that?”
“I have no idea.” I crouched down to scratch behind her ears, genuinely confused. “She was on my couch when I left for the store. How did she get into your cabin?”
“She was already here when I got back. Just... sitting on my bed like she owned the place.” He ran a hand through his already-destroyed hair. “I swear she knows how to pick locks.”
“Gladys said not to feed her.”
“I know. I didn’t.” He paused. “I might have given her some of my beef jerky, but that doesn’t count.”
I looked up at him, this famous, recognizable man standing in his doorway looking like he’d just lost a fight with his own emotions, and decided to address the elephant in the room.
“I bought you groceries,” I said. “Two of everything. So you don’t have to go back to Shifflett’s for a while.”
His expression crumpled, just for a second, before he rebuilt the walls. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“I know.” I stood, Purrsephone immediately transferring her affections to Samuel’s ankles instead.
“But your fan is apparently very active in the church choir, and I suspect the news of your presence is currently being disseminated to everyone within a fifty-mile radius. You might want to lie low for a few days.”
He laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Yeah. I figured.”
A silence stretched between us, different from the comfortable pauses at the store.
Something had shifted, and we both knew it.
The easy flirtation, the spark of connection—it all felt distant now, obscured by the reality of who Samuel actually was and the knowledge that I’d been talking to someone who existed in a world I didn’t understand.
“I googled you,” I said, because I was apparently determined to make this as uncomfortable as possible. “After you left.”
“I assumed you would.” He leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest. “So now you know.”
“Dr. Brock Blaze.” I tried to keep my voice neutral. “TV’s hottest doctor. Three-time Emmy nominee. The face that launched a thousand thirst tweets.”
“That last one’s technically about my abs, not my face.” He attempted a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Different photo shoot.”
“Samuel—”
“It’s fine.” He cut me off, his voice flat.
“This is how it always goes. Someone recognizes me, the illusion shatters, and suddenly I’m not a person anymore.
I’m a character. A commodity. Something to be photographed and gossiped about and—” He stopped abruptly, shaking his head. “Sorry. That’s not your problem.”
“It’s not,” I agreed. “But I’m sorry, anyway.”
He looked at me then, really looked, and I saw something flicker in his expression. Surprise, maybe. Or gratitude.
“Why did you bring me groceries?” he asked.
I considered the question. Considered lying, or deflecting, or making a joke about mountain hospitality. But he’d just had his privacy invaded by a stranger, and I knew enough about being handled and managed to recognize when someone needed honesty instead.
“Because I work with famous people,” I said.
“Authors mostly. People whose faces are on their books and whose lives get picked apart by readers who feel entitled to know everything about them. I’ve seen what recognition does to a person.
How exhausting it is to never just be yourself.
” I held out the grocery bags. “You came to these mountains for a reason, and I’m guessing it wasn’t so you could be chased out of the only store in town by someone who wants to know if you’re dating your co-star. ”
He took the bags, his fingers brushing mine in the transfer. Neither of us acknowledged it.
“Farley Davenport,” he breathed. “Book editor. Not a fan of wet wood.”
“Samuel Bennett.” I kept my voice even. “Apparently famous. Terrible at mountain survival. Currently in possession of my cat.”
“She’s not your cat.”
“She’s not anyone’s cat. That’s sort of the point.”
He almost smiled. Almost.
“Thank you,” he said. “For the groceries. And for not—” He gestured vaguely. “You know.”
I knew. For not treating him differently.
“You’re welcome.” I stepped back, suddenly aware of how close we’d been standing, how intimate this conversation had become despite everything. “I should get back. My cabin has significantly fewer beef-jerky-eating cats, and I have a lot of doing nothing to accomplish.”
“Right.” He nodded, but he didn’t close the door. “Farley?”
I paused at the top step, turning back.
“I wasn’t lying to you,” he said. “In the store. Before. I wasn’t—I mean, I didn’t tell you about the show, but I wasn’t pretending to be someone else. Samuel is my real name. Everything I said was true.”
I believed him. That was the problem. I believed him, and I wanted to know more, and I wanted to go back to five minutes ago when everything had been simple and flirtatious and full of possibility.
But it wasn’t simple anymore. It couldn’t be.
“I know,” I said. “Get some rest. Eat something. Feed the cat even though we’re both supposed to be ignoring her.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
I walked back to my Range Rover, feeling his eyes on me the whole way. When I pulled out of the driveway, I glanced in my rearview mirror and saw him still standing in the doorway, Purrsephone sitting at his feet, both of them watching me leave.
The drive back to my cabin took approximately ninety seconds, but it felt longer.
I parked, gathered my own groceries from the back seat, and let myself into a space that suddenly felt too quiet, too empty, too devoid of ridiculously attractive neighbors and mysteriously appearing cats.
I put the groceries away mechanically. Made myself another cup of coffee I didn’t really want. Stood at my kitchen window and stared through the trees toward the cabin next door.
I missed it.
I missed the flirting, the charged glances, the way Samuel’s voice had dropped when he asked if my wood had caught fire. I missed the version of today where a woman named Hope had never walked into Shifflett’s General Store and everything had stayed simple, fun, and full of delicious potential.
But that wasn’t how life worked. Life was messy, complicated, and full of famous neighbors with three Emmy nominations and my cat—not my cat—who apparently couldn’t pick a cabin and stick with it.
I took my coffee to the living room, settled onto the couch, and pulled out my phone.
The search results for Samuel Bennett were still open.
I scrolled through them slowly this time, reading more carefully.
Articles about his career, and the speculation about his love life.
The think pieces about representation and visibility and what it meant for a daytime soap opera to have an openly gay leading man.
He’d been out since he was twenty. Before he was famous and it could have been calculated or strategic or designed to appeal to a particular demographic. He’d just been honest about who he was, and the world had decided to make that complicated.
I understood complicated.
I closed the browser and stared at the ceiling.
Tomorrow I’d figure out how to be neighbors with a celebrity without making it weird. And I’d rebuild the appropriate walls and remember that I was here to heal, not to get tangled up in someone else’s chaos.
Tonight, I would watch the fire and try very hard not to think about Samuel Bennett standing in his doorway looking at me like I was the first real thing he’d seen in years.