Page 2 of Falling for Him (Honey Leaf Lodge #3)

Ben

I didn’t run.

I walked.

Up the stairs.

Down the hallway.

Key in hand.

Bag on the shoulder.

I moved like a robot that had been sucker-punched by a human sunbeam, who wore an apron with an embroidered bee on it.

Room four was located on the right, the second door. The key card slid into the lock smoothly, as if the door knew I was coming and was pleased about it.

Creepy.

Everyone knew it was impossible to get hotel doors to open on the first try. It always took a few failed attempts, mixed with curses and a kick, before the doors opened.

But the room was warm, cozy, and even had natural wood floors. Whitewashed paneling. And a quilt on the bed that looked like someone named Mabel had stitched it while humming lullabies and baking something involving rhubarb.

I stared at it, unblinking.

The pillows had gingham cases.

The bed frame had spindles.

There were mason jars on the windowsill filled with buttons. Not flowers. Not potpourri. Buttons .

I dropped my bag on the wicker chair and turned in a slow circle. Every detail was aggressively... quaint. The kind of place where someone might offer to knit you a blanket and ask if you’re doing all right .

There was a wooden plaque on the wall that said ‘Wake Up and Smell the Pines!’ next to a dried wreath.

Pinecones, burlap ribbon, and a carved wooden moose adorned the shelves.

This room was less a temporary lodging and more an interior design project inspired by a Pinterest board named Fern.

I spotted the shortbread cookie that sat on the nightstand. Lemon shortbread, apparently. Labeled in calligraphy. Probably spelled lemony for cuteness.

I rubbed the back of my neck.

Focus on the details. Stay grounded. Do not think about the woman who checked you in.

The one who talked a mile a minute and smiled as if she had invented light.

The one who said she’d be in my room later and then tried to explain it with a word salad of turndown service, pillow fluffing, and possibly something about beard conditioner.

Nope.

I yanked open the dresser drawer just to have something to do.

Inside were sachets of lavender. Lavender .

Who even uses sachets anymore?

A handwritten welcome packet was on the desk. Of course, it was handwritten. In purple ink with little bees drawn in the corners.

Dear Mr. Jensen, it read, Welcome to the Honey Leaf Lodge! We hope your stay is restful, restorative, and pleasantly pine-scented. Please let us know if you need anything! We’re usually just a holler away…

I stopped reading.

I was not about to be emotionally disarmed by whimsical bee-themed stationery.

Instead, I unpacked slowly and deliberately. T-shirts. Flannel. Socks. Shoved them into drawers next to the lavender like I wasn’t being stalked by cheerful aesthetics.

The room smelled of lemon and nostalgia.

I hated it.

I loved it.

No. I hated it.

And I absolutely did not want to think about her again.

Her name tag said Fifi, which sounded like a nickname for a poodle, but she wore it as if it were a badge of honor, like she dared you to underestimate her.

She probably had a secret handshake with every tree in town.

In fact, I vaguely remember her saying, “I’m Fifi,” in that overly perky voice of hers.

Why so happy?

I pulled back the curtain and stared out the window. The lake sparkled just beyond the trees. Birds chirped. Probably rehearsed harmonies, knowing this place.

Two weeks.

I had booked this stay in a moment of desperation. Cabin fever. Too many questions. Too few answers. I needed quiet. Time. Space. Preferably, all three without some grinning hospitality sprite declaring war on my emotional walls.

I sat down on the bed.

The mattress was firm but soft. The kind of surface that implied safety.

Peace.

The opposite of how my brain felt after five minutes in Fifi’s presence.

I didn’t understand her.

People like that…sunny, relentless, humming with energy…they made me itch. It wasn’t because they were bad, but because they were unpredictable. You couldn’t brace against someone who operated entirely from the heart. There was no armor thick enough for that kind of nonsense.

And worse, worse , there’d been a moment. A flash. Right after she fumbled that line about being in my room later, when her face flushed, and she tried to recover with something about towels, turndown, and fluffing ...

My ears still felt hot.

It had been… funny.

She had been funny.

And warm.

And kind.

And sharp.

And my brain had short-circuited long enough to forget where I was, what I was doing, and why I was here.

That was dangerous.

Very, very dangerous.

I stood up, walked to the little bookshelf by the closet, and scanned the titles.

Local wildlife guides, a romance novel titled Dash of Love , and something about llamas sat upright, flanked by two bookstands.

A puzzle book and a guest journal filled with messages from previous visitors had been stacked next to them.

I flipped to a random page of the journal.

“We came here to celebrate our tenth anniversary and fell in love all over again. Thank you for the magic!” — Claire & Jo, room four.

“My mom and I came to reconnect after a rough year. We cried, we laughed, we ate too many scones. Bless this place.” — Amelia, room four.

I slammed the book shut and shoved it back on the shelf.

Nope.

No emotions.

No scones.

Just two weeks. I could survive anything for two weeks. Even lemon shortbread. Even rooms decorated like a Hallmark movie exploded. Even…

“Enjoy your stay,” she’d said, after all that chaos at the front desk, with a thumbs-up.

A literal thumbs-up.

Who even does that?

It should’ve been absurd.

It was absurd.

But all I could think about was how earnest she’d been. How hard she was trying to make me feel welcome.

And how, for the first time in months, the knot in my chest had shifted. Not loosened. But moved like it didn’t know what to do with itself anymore.

I stared at the ceiling.

This was going to be a long two weeks.

No, I wasn’t going to go down that rabbit hole. I grabbed my laptop out of my bag and booted it up with a soft ding , but I immediately regretted opening it.

My inbox looked like a forest fire had swept through it, with charred fragments of deadlines, updates, and reply-all disasters. I’d told them I was taking a break. Two weeks. Just two weeks. Not forever. Not even close to forever.

However, it was apparently unavailable, which was code for 'please forward me everything that could possibly go wrong and then some, thanks so much.'

I clicked through the top five. Half-formed project plans. Passive-aggressive subject lines and a calendar invite for a meeting I was no longer attending but had somehow still been assigned to lead.

I rubbed my temples.

No. I wasn’t doing this. I had come here not to do this. I needed rest, clarity, and distance. A break from the noise.

I closed the lid, leaned back in the wicker chair, and stared at the ceiling again. Pine beams, with twinkling lights strung across one corner, screamed rustic and charming, albeit irksomely so.

Just like her.

And there it was again.

Her.

She kept worming her way in like sunlight through blinds you forgot to close.

Fifi.

The way she said my name, as if it had weight and fizz. The way her hands fluttered like punctuation when she talked too fast. That look on her face when she realized what she said about being in my room later. The immediate panic. The full-body cringe. The thumbs-up.

It should’ve made me roll my eyes.

Instead, it made me grin.

And that was the problem.

I didn’t grin. Not at strangers. Not at all. But somehow that chaos tornado with the shiny eyes and aggressive domestic energy had tripped some kind of switch in me I hadn’t realized was still operational.

I pulled on a flannel, shook my head, and turned toward the nightstand. Maybe a cookie would help me reset. Sugar as emotional shock therapy.

The knock at the door made me flinch.

I wasn’t expecting anyone.

Obviously, whispered a traitorous part of my brain. You know who it is.

I opened the door cautiously.

There she was.

Fifi.

Standing in the hallway with a small wicker basket in both hands. Wearing jeans and a button-down knotted at her waist. Where the hell did the apron vanish to?

Her dark hair was pulled up, and there was a smudge of something near her temple.

Flour? Dust? Whimsy? Unclear.

“Oh,” she said, blinking like I was the surprise. “Hi.”

I arched a brow. “You knocked.”

“Right. Yes. I do that. It’s a thing I do. Boundaries and whatnot.” She paused, then held up the basket. “Soap.”

I looked at the basket. Then back at her.

“I realized I might’ve forgotten to refresh your toiletries,” she said quickly. “Which would be, like, a full-scale violation of the Honey Leaf Code of Hospitality Conduct. Not that it’s a real code. We’re not legally bound. But spiritually, emotionally, you know? We strive for excellence here.”

I stepped back wordlessly and opened the door wider. She hesitated for a split second, like she wasn’t sure if she was allowed to cross the threshold, then tiptoed in as if she were entering a sacred space and not a man’s room with socks already trying to escape the bottom drawer.

“I brought chamomile, cedarwood, and this one that smells like fresh-baked cinnamon rolls,” she said, holding up tiny amber bottles. “Not to brag, but the cinnamon one has started at least two failed romances and one short-lived engagement.”

I blinked. “That’s… a lot of pressure for soap.”

She grinned and set the basket on the dresser.

I crossed my arms. “You always barge into guest rooms armed with mood-altering toiletries?”

“No,” she said cheerfully, arranging the bottles like they were part of a sacred altar. “Just yours.”

My brain misfired.

“Because I messed up,” she added quickly, straightening. “With the soap, and I rarely mess up. Plus, the whole… I’ll be in your room later debacle. Which I swear sounded way less like an invitation in my head.”

I exhaled slowly. “Look, I get it. You’re enthusiastic.”

“Is that code for unhinged?”

I shrugged. “Time will tell.”

She laughed, bright and unfiltered.

“You are funny,” she said, as if she hadn’t meant to say it out loud.

I raised a brow. “You expected me not to be?”

“Well, no offense, but you kind of give off brooding forest exile vibes. I figured your main personality trait was frowning while getting lost in the woods.”

“I don’t frown,” I muttered. “And I can find my way around a forest just fine.”

“If you say so.”

“I do.”

“Of course you do! But in a way that suggests you’re contemplating the futility of joy or that you once lost a bet with a woodland creature and they may want you to suffer.”

That earned a half-smile from me. She saw it. I know she saw it. Her eyes lit up like she’d cracked a code.

“Ah-ha,” she said softly.

“Don’t read into it.”

“Too late. I’m going to record it in the lodge’s guestbook of emotional breakthroughs.”

I looked at the basket again, now full of soap and optimism.

“So,” I said, quieter now, “was this really about toiletries? Or were you worried I was going to leave a bad Yelp review because you forgot conditioner?”

She hesitated, just for a second, and then, “Honestly? I just didn’t want your first impression of this place to be missing anything.”

“Mission accomplished,” I said before I could stop myself.

Our eyes met.

She tilted her head. “That sounded friendlier than I think you intended.”

“It really wasn’t.” I shrugged.

“Mm-hmm.”

She stepped back toward the door. “Well. You’re officially toiletry-fied. If you need anything else, like emotional counseling or a pine-scented bath bomb, I’ll be downstairs.”

She opened the door but then turned.

“Oh, and Ben?”

“Yeah?”

She smiled. “Thanks for not making me feel like a total idiot.”

I shrugged. “You did that all on your own.”

Her jaw dropped.

I shut the door before she could throw something biodegradable at me.

And then, in the sudden quiet, I smiled.

Not a twitch.

Not a smirk.

A real one.

God help me . I might actually like it here.