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Chapter One
This was how she was going to die.
With her lower body dangling below the splintered landing on the spiraling staircase of the B&B, Sarah Lewis supported her weight as best she could on the broken wood around her. She’d fallen through and had been hanging there for almost seven minutes, and according to her Apple Watch her heart rate was reaching a dangerous level.
Herinheritanceof Dove’s Nest B&B felt more like punishment the longer she was stuck there. The ominous water damage bubble on the ceiling above her head looked ready to pop any second, and the yellowing of the ceiling tiles in other areas suggested it wasn’t the first warning sign that the place needed a new roof.
She tried pulling herself out of the hole, but each upward motion of her body caused spikes of wood to dig into the exposed flesh at her waist. She winced, squirming to get more comfortable as the wood threatened to impale her. Glancing down through the opening in the shards was terrifying. She couldn’t go up…could she go down? The drop was only about twelve feet…
She could survive the fall, but her body was literally trapped. Up or down required significant bravery that she simply did not have right now.
Her cell phone taunted her from a position on the lower step, just out of reach of her fingertips. Her boss’s number lighting up the display for the third call in seven minutes had her freaking out more than her current predicament.
What the hell was she going to do?
Risk a broken ankle or the death of her career?
She closed her eyes tight.
Here goes nothing.
But a knock on the B&B front door saved her from the split-second decision of letting go. “It’s open!” she yelled, her voice echoing through the large open foyer. Luckily, she’d left it unlocked.
A slow creaking sound was like something out of a horror flick before heavy footsteps resonated on the hardwood floor below. “Hello?”
Oh no. Anyone else but him.
The familiar voice from her past made this situation a million times more mortifying. Maybe she should stay quiet. Maybe he’d leave again without noticing her legs dangling above his head.
“Hello?” Wes Sharrun called out again.
Sarah sighed. He was not her first choice for rescue, but he may be her only one. “Hi… Up here,” she called out.
A moment later, she could see Wes’s face looking at her through the cracks in the shards. “Sarah?”
Was it the sight of someone stuck in a staircase that made his voice rise in surprise or the fact that it was her? “Yep, it’s me,” she said, her cheeks burning. Thank God she wasn’t wearing a skirt.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Isn’t it obvious?” she asked, catching a glimpse of him through the shards.
He put his hands on his hips as he smirked up at her. “You know, I’m actually not surprised to find you this way.”
Great, her past reputation as…accident prone hadn’t been forgotten when she’d left town. “Do you think you could help? I’m starting to lose feeling in my lower half.”
“How long have you been there?” Wes asked, slowly ascending the staircase.
Long enough to miss three calls from her boss.
Gail Woodrow, CEO of Digital Strategies in L.A., didn’t believe in leaving messages. She simply called until Sarah answered. Which was usually immediately.
“Too long,” she said. “Be careful.”
If he fell, too, she would be stuck in a staircase with her high school crush, who looked even better in person than he did in his Facebook photos. In tight, faded, dirty denim; work boots; and a black T-shirt with white paint splatters on the chest, he would have caused her heart to race any day, but right now, the embarrassment and fear of falling were all she could think about.
This was not the way she had envisioned running into him when she’d gotten the call about her grandmother’s passing and had made her plans to return to her hometown of Blue Moon Bay.
She was a successful professional now with an amazing promotion pending and a rent-controlled apartment in downtown L.A. Not the gangly, dorky teen he must remember.
