by Sarah Hogle
I’m standing where the trail diverges in two. If I listen really hard, I think I can hear the universe laughing. Along with more twigs snapping.
This is when I remember the dense black bear population in this neck of Tennessee.
My kneecaps liquefy.
I’m imagining the thud of heavy paws, I try to convince myself, regretting that I seem to have dropped my shovel somewhere and can’t use it as a weapon. I’m surely imagining how the sound grows closer. I squeeze my eyes tightly shut, as if that’ll rearrange reality to be more to my liking. Taking away one of my senses makes it worse, my hearing sharpening to compensate. I am not imagining the footsteps closing in.
Closer, closer.
I want to run but my arms and legs lock up instead; what a terrible way for me to learn my instincts in the worst-case scenario are all wrong. I’m frozen in place. I’m going to get mauled by a bear and I’ll just stand here and let it happen without making so much as a squeak. Even the bear will be confused.
And then there he is.
He gazes down at me, moonlight dusting the curves of his features. Bears don’t have wavy blond hair or cotton T-shirts. I’m so happy to see Wesley Koehler that I’d cry and leap at him, if only I could unstick my feet from the ground.
He waits. Watches. I still can’t talk, and he chooses not to.
Finally, my voice starts working again. “I’ve grown roots,” I say weakly. He must think I’m a huge baby. I can’t deny he’d be right. Tonight I’m sleeping with all the lights on.
Slowly, he holds out his hand, palm up. I examine the pale fingertips from a slight distance, as if this might not be real, but his gesture has a strange effect on my muscles, freeing them. I’m moving before I know it.
I lay my hand over his, which he tugs lightly, reeling me in. Once I’m safely at his side, he lets his hand drop, then motions for me to proceed down one of the trails.
His pace is measured so that I can keep up, the trail just wide enough to accommodate both of us walking side by side. It’s full dark now. I dearly hope I am not hallucinating this rescue, which seems like something I would do were I being eaten alive by a bear and decided I’d rather not be present in the moment. Out of the corner of my eye I glance at Wesley, who’s staring straight ahead. I don’t think my imagination could paint the tension he radiates, though, his awareness of me but refusal to glance my way. Annoyed that he had to stop whatever he was doing and come save me from being killed by elk or falling rocks or a river I didn’t see coming.
I don’t think my imagination would have the bandwidth, while I was spurting blood like a fountain, to generate realistic details like the small tear in his sleeve, the smear of dirt on his arm, the nick on his jaw from shaving. When my arm accidentally brushes his, I don’t think I imagine how his hand clenches. If I were making this up, the least I could do as a gift to myself would be to design a Wesley who smiled at me. And carried a military-grade flashlight.
We still haven’t spoken when we emerge from the woods, the tide of trees pushing us out and dumping us right on the cabin’s porch. The television is on, subdued voices bumping up against the door. He swings it open. There’s a plate on the coffee table with a meal only half-eaten, handle-end of the fork lying in sauce as though dropped in a hurry.
I open my mouth to say Thank you for finding me, for leading me back, but Wesley doesn’t grant me the opportunity. He yanks the cord for the pull-down ladder and climbs up to his bedroom. Only when I’m directly behind him do I notice the back of his shirt, which reads koehler landscaping, fabric darker from saturation. His nape glistens. It’s cool enough outside that the tip of my nose is numb and my teeth are chattering, but Wesley, not even wearing a jacket, is drenched in sweat.
* * *
• • • • • • •
THAT NIGHT I DREAM in black and white. I open the cabin’s front door to find that all the trees are gone, only gently sloping hills and prairie smoke flowers everywhere, everywhere, as far as the eye can see. They slant over and under one another in the breeze, each monochrome tuft a happy wave hello. The manor soars larger than life, laced up with climbing roses rather than creeper vines. There’s a wrought-iron archway in front—falling stars hotel—and beneath, in vivid color, Wesley waits for me with an unreadable expression, hand outstretched.
I sit up straight in bed.
Chapter 7
I KNOW WHAT WE SHOULD do with Falling Stars.”
“Animal sanctuary,” Wesley replies mechanically, sipping his coffee. I’ve sneak-attacked him in the kitchen at seven a.m., an hour before I usually get out of bed. I don’t want to think he intentionally gets up an hour before I do to avoid bumping into me, but my skeptical side has its third eye narrowed.
He observes the donuts curiously, which I baked in the midst of a planning frenzy at four in the morning specifically for the purpose of buttering him up. He reaches for the plate.
I open my mouth and a single word pops on my tongue like a bubble. “Hotel.”
He retracts his hand. I watch his guard rise like defenses around a castle. I am full of similes when I haven’t had much sleep.
“You know?” I’m already botching this. “I want to make the house a hotel again, like it was in that newspaper you found.”
“I didn’t find that newspaper, you did.”
I’m trying to make this his idea, so that he’ll be more receptive to it. It requires logic gymnastics. I stack my fingers together on the tabletop like my imaginary businesslady BFF. “Falling Stars Hotel, two point oh. It’s the perfect idea.”
“A hotel,” he repeats.
“Yes.”
Our stares lock, and it’s unsettling how much his attention weighs when he decides to pin me with it instead of looking right past me like he generally does. He has long eyelashes, brown at the root and fair at the tips. The freckles on his cheeks, the gold locks of hair curling every which way above thick, stern eyebrows—the effects of each detail pool into an exceedingly distracting portrait that will derail me if I don’t fight hard against the current.
“No,” he says, devoid of emotion. Wesley does not need or care to be liked at all; I doubt my opinion could touch him. Those who care less always have the upper hand.
I’ve only ever wanted to be liked, and I’ve only ever wanted to be liked by absolutely everybody I come in contact with, however temporarily and inconsequentially. It’s my most dominant and simultaneously weakening driving force, which leads to my toning down various wants and needs in order to make myself digestible, easy to get along with. The essence of Maybell Parrish is painfully sensitive, and if you touched it, it would retract and try to surrender. For better or worse (and I’ve certainly tried to be anyone but myself), I am a wobbly white flag.
No. Just like that.
My natural reaction is to say okay and pack myself up nice and small and out of the way, too unobtrusive to be a bother ever again. But even though my idea is only a few hours old, it is burning up in me like a fire demon. I want it. Nobody can make it happen for me but myself.
I lean forward, matching his determination. It surprises us both. “Yes.”
“You’re suggesting that instead of living in the house myself, I let a bunch of strangers sleep in it. There is no possible way you can convince me to agree to that.”
“Let me try.”
He welcomes the dare, gesturing for me to go right ahead. I’m abruptly jittery—he doesn’t realize how much voltage it took for me to push back and I’m crackling now with an excess of electrical energy my body isn’t used to supplying; I have to grip the seat of my chair to keep from jumping out if it. I can play it cool.
The sales pitch I’ve spent the morning rehearsing is dust in the wind. My mind is a wide white void.
“I really, really, really want it,” I plead, throat scratchy.
I watch my flow of power redire
ct in midair. Wesley leans back in his chair, crossing his impressive, tanned arms, siphoning it off. My brain blinks. Forearms.
Shh, I scold myself. Not now.
“Do you know what kind of an undertaking this would be?” he inquires placidly.
I have found myself in a job interview without warning. The most important interview of my life. I am wearing a Sonny & Cher shirt with a broken zipper and there’s a streak of flour in my hair. I should have an overhead projector beaming pie charts onto the wall and more than five hours of sleep on deck.
“Actually, yes. I have experience in the hospitality industry.”
A modicum of my power changes hands, passing back to me. “I was an event coordinator at a hotel. One of the biggest hotels in Pigeon Forge, Around the Mountain Resort and Spa.” He can’t deny that I definitely worked there. No one alive has more Around the Mountain Resort & Spa merchandise than I do. It’s all I have to show for a decade of hard work, along with a text message from Paul that landed half an hour ago: You’re fired. I’ve been expecting it. I’m surprised it took him this long to swing the axe, actually. But I’m a Goody Two-shoes to the core, priding myself on my strong work ethic, and reading that message threw me into a cold sweat. I’m still keyed up over it, stomach playing badminton with my breakfast.
Wesley acquires a calculating look, rubbing his chin. “What kind of events did you coordinate?”
Ahhhhhhhh. A fine question. I am fine with this fine question.
I flash a winsome grin to conceal how badly I need him to say yes. “All sorts. I planned an indoor fall festival in September. Very large-scale.” It’s technically true. I did plan a fall festival, with the works: Scarecrows, fog machines, hot chocolate and cider. A booth where you can bob for apples and then decorate them with chocolate, caramel, and candy. Hayrides. Halloween-costume and pumpkin-carving contests. Cozy, family-oriented activities appealing to all age demographics. It took me two sleepless weeks to crunch budget numbers, reach out to local vendors who might contribute supplies, and put together a seamless proposal. Haggling for discounts, bargaining, exhaustion slumping me over the keyboard, discovering I was more likely to persuade contacts over email than by phone, especially if I changed my signature to the gender-ambiguous M. Parrish.
The project didn’t clear the first hurdle, which was getting a sign-off from Christine, my co-coordinator. I cried in my car during lunch break and loathed myself for it. Mean Christine has probably never cried when somebody told her no. She probably just jammed a nail in their tire and then felt better.
With my own hotel, I can green-light any project I want. No overhead management to tell me my ideas are too big or impractical, that I’m being idealistic or missing the forest for the trees . . . I snap off that dark trail of thought, the condescending internal voices that bubble up.
“Okay, so you do have some experience, then,” Wesley concedes grudgingly.
“Mm-hmm!” Lying doesn’t come easily to me or sit well with my conscience, so I hope I sound suitably innocent.
I prod the plate of donuts closer to Wesley, my resolve ironclad. He’ll be more congenial on a full stomach, and no one can be grumpy when they’re eating jelly-filled donuts. It’s biology.
He takes one. Polishes it off in three swallows. “That’s good.”
It ought to be, with all the blood, sweat, and tears I’ve put into mastering the recipe. “Baking donuts is a hobby of mine. They’re almost as delicious as Violet’s, I think.” I feel myself starting to glow with pride and take it down a notch. People call women who brag about their accomplishments unlikable. “Hers were legendary.”
“Violet used to bake?”
His gaze slides to the purple sheet of paper taped to the living room wall, then back to me. There’s a strange glint in his eye.
“She loved to bake.” I can’t believe he doesn’t know. “She never made donuts when you lived with her?”
He shakes his head. Taps the back of his hand. “Arthritis made it difficult for her to do anything in the kitchen. I did all the cooking, except when I was away on a job, and then Ruth helped out.”
“Oh.” A little sliver of my heart chips away.
“She liked to watch baking shows on TV, though,” he adds thoughtfully. “The holiday ones on Food Network were her favorite.”
I realize he’s sidetracked me from my hotel pitch, and come at him from another angle. I am a confident, capable event coordinator. I deserve this promotion to hotel manager after all the hard work I haven’t been allowed to do. “The hotel will be a reliable source of income,” I point out. “Keep in mind that Violet isn’t here to pay your salary anymore.”
“I make a decent income doing landscaping for businesses. Violet hasn’t paid me in half a year, thanks to QVC, Home Shopping Network, and the catalogs they kept sending. I don’t have many enemies, but if I ever meet Lori Greiner . . .” His face clouds.
Oof.
“Well. Just think of all the money you’ll save on gas if you don’t have to do all those landscaping jobs. From here on out, it’s only the easy streets for you. No effort, no involvement required with the hotel. Simply live your life and rake in a percentage of the profits.” I’m offering him a kingdom here and he doesn’t even appreciate it.
“I enjoy those jobs. Like the golf place one?” He takes a casual sip of coffee. “With that woman, Gemma, who’s the reason you have a picture of me at my brother’s wedding on your phone. The why of which you still haven’t shared.”
I flush, praying to all the Norse gods and a few Greek ones to shield him from reading my mind.
“I haven’t forgotten that,” he finishes impassively.
I do a flawless impersonation of Wesley by opting to ignore what he said. “By the way, I wanted to say thank you for finding me last night.” I bestow upon him my best damsel-in-distress smile. “Saved me from being eaten by Bigfoot.”
“Sasquatch inhabits the Pacific Northwest and eats a vegetarian diet,” he replies mildly. “Like me.”
I.
What.
“What?”
“I’m a vegetarian,” he responds in the voice of a patient kindergarten teacher. And then this man helps himself to another donut. Is he trolling me? I think I’m being trolled, but I can’t tell. My Myers-Briggs personality type is INFP. We give too many people the benefit of the doubt.
“Anyway,” he continues, “you’re welcome. But please don’t make it a habit. I don’t want to attract bears to the house by having food wandering around out there.”
“I’m food?”
“You will be if you keep getting lost in the woods. That’s their home out there, not ours.”
How does he keep rerouting this conversation? “It’s a big house. There’s plenty of living space for us along with the guests.”
“I’ll never agree to it.”
“I’ll never agree to the farm animal sanctuary, then.”
Checkmate. He arches a brow, jaw tensing.
“I know you haven’t factored my opinion into your plans,” I go on, watching in real time as he reckons with my unavoidable influence over his life goals, “but I’m co-inheritor, buddy. Your personal remake of Charlotte’s Web isn’t happening without my consent.”
“These . . .” He sounds strangled. “This isn’t comparable.” Wesley and I are both leaning forward now, nearly nose to nose. A crumpled napkin peeks from his fist. “You want a hotel, which means people in my living space.” He doesn’t hide the pure revulsion such a scenario inspires. “An animal sanctuary won’t affect you at all. They’ll be living outside.”
“I’ll have to smell it.”
He casts a withering look up at the ceiling, grinding his molars.
Maybe I’m playing dirty, but it isn’t fair that he gets to make all the decisions. “Fine. The hotel won’t affect you, either. There’s enough room o
n the first floor for plenty of guest rooms, which we’ve agreed is my floor. You’ll get to keep the second floor to yourself and be as people-hating as you please.”
He leans back again, mouth turning down at the corners. He’s trying to figure out how to argue this, but he also doesn’t want me interfering with his dream of filling our yard with geriatric goats. This must be what shady blackmail dealings in white-collar offices feel like.
“So you’d be turning the sunroom into a bedroom,” he says shrewdly.
“I don’t know. Probably.”
The frown intensifies, like he’s trying to solve a tricky math equation. I’d laugh if there weren’t so much at stake. “I want the sunroom.”
“Why?”
“Because I want it.”
Leverage! I love leverage. “I’ll give you the sunroom for the cabin.”
Wesley balks. “Why?”
I could do tons of things with this cabin. If I hire another manager, they could live in it. Or I could use it for a bridal suite, since Falling Stars would make an amazing wedding venue. But if I tell Wesley I want to throw weddings at his house, he might flip the table.
“Because I want it,” I reply evenly. His lips press together. I mimic him, sensing I am close to a resolution here, close to winning.
He tries to silent-treatment me into giving up. It almost works, but my discomfort with long silences prompts me to react strangely and I throw both of us off by giving him a wink.
He stares at me, wide eyed, like I’ve grown another head. “What the hell was that?”
“A wink?”
“Winking is weird.”
“You’re weird.”
“That’s a bizarre thing to do, shutting your eye at someone.”
I shrug. “It can be kinda hot, I think.”
Wesley is visibly uncomfortable, but the wink is effective. “Fine, you’ve got a deal. I get the animal sanctuary, you get your hotel. Which is a terrible idea, by the way.” He’s already getting up and leaving.