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I glance back at the farmhouse, seeing the open window to my assigned room and wondering how the hell the showrunners are going to get the crows out. My eyes dart to my car, and the urge to drive far away grips me—but I manage to tamp it down. I’m here; I might as well compete. I might as well win.
Even if I have to bunk with someone.
Beside my little white car is a black Jeep. Frowning, I squint to get a better look at it. I could have sworn I saw that Jeep in town when I drove here. It reminds me of—
“This way!” Gus angles down another path and the parking lot moves out of view. We walk past the huge barn and I take another peek at the state-of-the-art kitchen appliances inside, a knot of nerves tightening in my belly.
What if I fail? What if I embarrass myself?
Closing my eyes for a step, I take a deep breath.
Those fears have been my constant companions since I was a little girl. I grew up with a surgeon for a mother and a Fortune 500 CEO for a father. Needless to say, they expected a lot from me. When I told them I wanted to go into computer science, the disappointment radiating from them was palpable. It tasted rotten on my tongue.
Over the course of a decade, when they saw how fast tech was growing as a field and how successful I was, they came around.
Then I quit and became a baker.
Let me tell you, even though I was in my thirties and more than capable of making my own decisions, that was not a fun conversation.
Jennifer Newbank was supposed to be somebody. She was supposed to do her parents proud. At the very least, she was supposed to marry somebody who was a somebody. Unfortunately, Jennifer Newbank decided she wanted to make muffins for a living.
Perfectionism doesn’t quite cover how I feel about myself. It’s somehow too big and too small a word. There’s no amount of success that could ever be enough. No wins that make me feel satisfied. I should have been more. Done more. Achieved more.
Anyway, I’m here now, competing on a televised baking competition and being swooped by homicidal crows instead of being a brain surgeon like my mom wanted.
Gus and I find a little dirt path on the side of the barn and he gestures for me to follow. “I have confirmation that there are no crows in this cabin. I promise.”
“So why are you still holding that broom like a weapon?”
“Just in case.” He grins over his shoulder.
The woods open up to a clearing where a tiny log cabin sits nestled in tall grasses, a beam of bright sunlight shining across the front of the house. Charming—except my eyes are searching the trees for angry black birds.
I’m just as bad as Gus.
“We’ve done so much shuffling of accommodations in the past few hours. This guesthouse was supposed to be for the host, Carrie, who asked for privacy from the contestants and staff, but she got here and didn’t like the isolation. She said it was creepy.” He snorts, looking at me with a flat gaze. “You know what’s creepy?” He doesn’t wait for me to answer. “Crows.”
I can’t quite help the smile that tugs at my lips.
Gus hurries ahead and knocks on the door to the cabin.
I hear a muffled male voice say, “Just a minute,” from the other side, and let out a tired sigh. After all those assurances that I won’t be bunking with anyone, here I am.
I can survive a few weeks of sharing my space with someone else…right? Never mind that I’m now officially in my mid-forties and I haven’t lived with anyone else since college.
Maybe they’ll let me stay at my own house in light of the whole crow thing. My contract requires that I stay on site, but these are extenuating circumstances…right? I know there was some clause about force majeure. If a murder of crows isn’t an unforeseen circumstance preventing me from adhering to the contract, I don’t know what is.
But Gus is standing on the doorstep, holding that broom like he’s Gandalf back from the dead, and the words die on my lips.
I can do this. If I can start my career over in my thirties, publish a successful recipe book, and survive those damn crows, I can sleep in the same room as whoever is inside this cabin.
That is, until the door swings open and I see the man on the other side.
CHAPTER 2
Jen
Fallon Richter is standing in the small, one-bedroom cabin, a half-emptied suitcase lying on the bed in the corner. That Jeep in the parking lot? It’s his.
