Outside the greenhouse, Jack was still staring at her.
“What?” Calisa said.
“Just…what I said before…it’s true,” Jack said. “You really aren’t anything like what I thought you would be.”
She hoped that was a compliment.
Chapter Eight
By afternoon, Calisa had finished cleaning the bathrooms, and Jack had finished patching the porch roof. “It’ll hold until it rains,” he said confidently as he joined her in the kitchen, where she was putting away the latest batch of cleaning supplies.
“Just until it rains? Isn’t its entire purpose to block the rain?”
“Sure, but I don’t want to overpromise.” Jack pulled a glass jar out of the refrigerator and held it out to Calisa. “Soup for lunch? Could you…you know, the stove? If you don’t mind…Absolutely don’t want to take advantage, but you haven’t been banned from cooking yet.”
She took the jar. “What did you do before I showed up? Just eat cold soup?”
“No?” he said, as if it were a question.
Calisa located a pot and dumped the soup into it. It looked like a chicken soup with carrots, celery, and pasta. She turned the stove on. “No?”
“Yes.”
She raised her eyebrows at him.
“I also eat a lot of sandwiches.”
He sounded so pathetic that Calisa couldn’t help but laugh. “Do you think she’ll ever lift the ban on you cooking?” At some point, Auntie Zee had to admit he’d learned his lesson and forgive him, didn’t she? She doubted he’d make the same mistake again. “How long can she hold this against you?”
Jack shrugged. “How many years did you say it’s been since your family visited?”
Fair point. Auntie Zee had proved she could hold a grudge an impressively long amount of time. He was probably doomed. “I hope you like sandwiches.”
“Goat cheese and fig spread, you said? I’m going to try that sometime.” He pulled two bowls out of the cabinet. “As soon as I find a goat.”
“I’m going to assume you’re joking, and you know they sell goat cheese in the grocery store,” Calisa said as she stirred the soup. She liked that he’d been listening to whatever cheese-related nonsense she’d spouted while she was stuck in the hole in the porch, even if he hadn’t helped her climb out of it. “Do you think the guests want any soup? Or Auntie Zee?” She realized she hadn’t seen Auntie Zee in a few hours. She wondered what the innkeeper was busy doing. Had she noticed the clean bathrooms yet? Would she care?
“I don’t make it to the grocery store often,” Jack said, hovering over her shoulder to watch the soup heat. “Auntie Zee gets most of the supplies for the inn herself.”
As soon as the soup was warm enough, she ladled it intothe bowls while Jack set out spoons, napkins, and glasses of water. She sat on a stool next to him. “Who made the soup, if there isn’t a cook? Auntie Zee?” It didn’t look store-bought.
“You ask a lot of questions,” Jack observed.
“I know I’m not supposed to.”
“It’s kind of the Faraway Inn policy,” Jack said. “Guests are supposed to come here to escape whatever they left behind. So that means we don’t remind them of where they came from or who they are.”
Calisa wondered if he’d overheard her with Kendra and winced. “So, we aren’t supposed to talk to them?” she asked. She ate a spoonful of soup. Herbs exploded on her tongue, and the warmth slid down her throat. “Wow, seriously, who madethis?”
“You can talk to the guests,” Jack said. “Just don’t ask them questions about themselves. If they choose to share with you, fine, and if you want to share with them, also fine. But Auntie Zee really believes in respecting everyone’s privacy.”
“Including yours?”
He shrugged, which wasn’t a no.
“Come on, I want to know your story.” She poked his shoulder lightly. “What do you like to do? When you’re not fixing things around the inn…do you have hobbies? Obsessions? Shows you watch? Wait, is there no TV in this inn?” She hadn’t seen one, and she already knew there was zero cell phone coverage, which with no Wi-Fi meant no streaming anything. Ugh, no wonder there were vacancies.
Jack laughed. “I don’t know why you’d want to know about me. I’m boring.”
