Page 43 of Snowed Inn

I bite my lip and try to focus on something else, anything else. Wind. Snow. The threat of death.

We pass through rows of orchards, their bare winter branches stretching against the pale morning sky. The fields feel endless, and then—suddenly—we’re in front of a big white farmhouse.

“That’s the Parkers’ place,” Jesse calls.

“Nice!” I yell over the engine.

That’s where Charlotte and Miller are staying. But still, I wonder . . . Where does Jesse live? In the basement of the Parkers’ place? In one of the rooms of the inn? In a secret lair hidden beneath his bar?

I’m about to ask when we stop.

The snowmobile rumbles to a halt at the top of a hill, and I take in the view.

It’s a wide, smooth slope leading down to a rough-hewn fence, sprawled across the orchard’s edge.

“This is it,” Jesse says. “Cinnamon Hill.”

I climb off, still eyeing the slope with suspicion. “Cinnamon Hill?”

“That’s what the Parkers call it,” he says. “And if they own it, I guess they get to name it.”

I glance back at him. Hmm. That was the same logic he used when he renamed my cat. I don’t care for it. But this is my opening.

“That reminds me . . . can I come visit Christmas later? Where exactly do you live?”

Jesse coughs. A little too obviously.

Huh. That was suspicious.

“I told you. I’ll bring Eve to the inn to visit,” he says, expertly dodging the question and renaming my cat again at the same time.

I narrow my eyes.

Before I can press him, he’s already pulling something from under the snowmobile’s seat.

Two cookie sheets.

I stare at him, my expression hovering between confusion and concern. “What are those for?”

He grins. “Don’t tell Sera I took them.”

“Okay, but I don’t see an oven out here.”

“They’re for sledding.”

I gape. “Wait. What now?” Is this how people die in rural towns?

Jesse shrugs. “I don’t own a sled. Besides, these are better. Faster.”

Faster? I stare at the hill again. Faster way to die, perhaps.

“Don’t worry,” he adds. “I didn’t grease the bottoms.”

“Grease the bottoms?”

“Yeah, my sister and I used to do it when we were kids. It makes you go way farther.”

Oh, good. A guaranteed way to die, then. But I did just learn something else about him. In addition to a mother, he has a sister. And apparently was a child. I was half convinced he just spawned one day as a fully formed adult, decked in flannel and equipped with a selection of dad hats.