Page 4 of Falling for Him (Honey Leaf Lodge #3)

Ben

The trail was supposed to start behind the row of birch trees just past the goat fence.

That’s what the little wooden sign back by the lodge had said, complete with a hand-drawn arrow and a cartoon goat wearing a park ranger hat. “Follow the Pines to Buttercup Lake!”

Cute.

Too cute.

But it worked. I found the path, narrow but obvious, winding through the woods with just enough crunch underfoot to remind me I was in a real forest.

And quiet. Really quiet.

Birds chirped in the distance while the wind brushed against pine needles. Somewhere behind me, the occasional indignant quack of a duck from the lodge’s petting zoo reminded me that a bunch of animals awaited my return.

I took a breath.

It wasn’t the kind of inhale you do when someone tells you to calm down.

It was the real thing, filled with deep, clean, pure air that tasted like cedar and moss, and the beginning of maybe being okay.

I hadn’t realized how much noise I’d been carrying.

City noise. Work noise. Life noise. That low, constant hum of something’s coming even when nothing did. My life was filled with nothing but deadlines, my empty apartment, and the echo of things I never should have said.

The truth was that I picked Wisconsin because it was the exact opposite of Florida. There weren’t any palm trees or seashells. There were no eager tourists looking for the next great beach getaway. Wisconsin held the promise of peace, and I yearned for it.

I tightened the straps of my backpack and kept moving. The trail sloped gently downward, sun dappling through the trees in uneven patches, like the forest itself wasn’t sure what mood it wanted to be in today.

Same, honestly.

I still wasn’t sure why I’d picked Wisconsin. I wasn’t from here, I had no friends here, and it wasn’t some childhood haunt or nostalgic memory zone. It was just a dot on a map. A lodge with good reviews and a ridiculously sweet name.

The Honey Leaf Lodge.

It sounded like a scented candle. Or a teahouse run by benevolent woodland creatures.

And I hadn’t realized how accurate that assumption was until the front desk woman, Fifi, smiled at me like I’d personally wronged her by not being excited to receive lemon cookies.

God.

Fifi.

I should’ve kept walking. Kept moving down the trail and out of my head. But instead, I stood there like an idiot under the trees, replaying her flustered, soap-themed apology from earlier like I had nothing better to do.

She’d been covered in hay.

Cheeks pink from the sun and probably embarrassment.

That smile. The way she talked was a mile a minute, as if her thoughts arrived early to everything.

She was… a lot.

But not in a bad way.

In a what the hell is happening to me way.

I stopped at a bend in the trail, the path opening up just enough to give me a glimpse of the lake below. Buttercup Lake, the lodge brochure had promised, was a tranquil jewel nestled between tall pines and warm memories .

They leaned into the nostalgia thing around here. I suppose that if a person’s childhood was all unicorns farting rainbows and teddy bears belching glitter, it made sense, and somehow, I got the distinct feeling that was how Fifi’s was.

I stood still for a moment, watching the lake shimmer between the trees. It was beautiful. That soft kind of beauty that didn’t announce itself, because it didn’t need to .

But it was almost too quiet, too still, and too easy to think.

And I didn’t want to think. That’s why I’d brought the laptop, why I’d kept the laptop.

I told myself I needed it to tie up loose ends. To finalize a few things before I could fully check out, whatever that meant.

But the truth was simpler. I didn’t know how to stop.

I didn’t know what it meant to sit still without guilt. And to not fill every second with some kind of productivity, even if it was just cleaning the same unread emails out of my inbox, like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

I let out a breath and turned back toward the trail, retracing my steps.

Enough wandering.

The lake would still be there tomorrow.

Right now, I needed to go back, open that laptop, and get through the last of the work I’d promised I’d finish before letting myself even pretend to enjoy this place.

I followed the bend again, the lodge roof peeking through the trees ahead. A red squirrel darted across the path in front of me like it had urgent rodent business, and I muttered under my breath.

“Even the wildlife here looks motivated.”

I made it back to the edge of the clearing, pausing for a second at the wooden fence. The goats were still out, one of them chewing on a baseball cap that wasn’t theirs. The miniature donkey watched me approach, eyes half-lidded like I owed her an apology for existing.

I passed the barn and stepped back onto the gravel walkway toward the lodge.

It looked too cheerful in the midday sun. Quaint. Inviting. The kind of place where someone might try to offer you homemade apple butter and emotional insight.

And sure enough, through the window, I could see her.

Fifi.

At the front desk, laughing about something with a clipboard in her hand and a smear of flour on her cheek.

I looked away fast.

Nope.

Not going there.

I had emails to finish, a report to finalize, and I was here for solitude, not… whatever that was.

Still, as I climbed the stairs back to my room, I couldn’t shake the sound of her voice from earlier.

“I smell like a barnyard.”

No one said things like that. No one owned it like that.

And no one had looked quite so beautiful while saying it.

Which meant it was time to double down on avoidance. No more accidental hallway run-ins. No more watching her from the corner of my eye.

Just me, my laptop, and the logical structure of a spreadsheet.

That was safe.

Predictable.

No hay involved.

I stepped into room four, shut the door behind me, and opened the laptop as I set it on the desk. The screen flared to life. My inbox blinked awake. And I stared at it for a long, long minute.

And then typed exactly four words:

“Out of office: Activated.”

I hit send.

And let the silence settle in again.

The thing about being alone is that you start to forget what it feels like to be flabbergasted.

I didn’t mean by deadlines or flat tires or people saying one thing and meaning another, but genuinely, bone-deep surprised. It was the kind that snuck up on me, hit me in the ribs, and made me forget I was supposed to be sulking.

I was standing by the window, mug of cold lodge coffee in hand, pretending to check the weather while just avoiding my laptop, when I saw her.

Fifi.

She was out by the coop, knees bent, arms outstretched, hair slipping loose from whatever attempt she’d made to tie it up. She was chasing something, running sideways in an awkward crouch like someone trying not to scare a ghost.

A second later, I spotted the culprit.

A chicken. Obviously.

It flapped out from behind the coop, wings going wild, legs moving faster than physics should allow on something that puffy. The thing looked like a malfunctioning feather duster with anger issues.

Fifi lunged for it and…

Missed.

Skidded slightly in the grass, then popped back up with the sheer determination of a woman who refused to be outwitted by poultry.

I should’ve turned away. Gone back to work. Focused.

Instead, I stayed rooted to the spot, watching her.

And not in a casual, oh-look-someone's-chasing-a-chicken way.

No.

I stared in a mesmerized, can’t-look-away, what the hell is happening to me way.

She shouted something inaudible through the window, but it sounded like a threat. The chicken flapped again, zigzagged left, then doubled back like it was calling plays in a football game.

Fifi followed, weaving between buckets, hurdling a feed bag, hair bouncing like she was in an ad for some kind of rustic shampoo.

It should’ve been ridiculous.

It was ridiculous.

And yet—

I laughed without warning or build-up.

It was just one of those laughs that came out of nowhere and caught me off guard. It even bent me forward slightly with the force of it.

It felt good to release a real one that wasn’t a polite exhale or a forced chuckle on a Zoom call.

This was a gut-twisting , full-bodied laugh I hadn’t felt in… years.

I leaned my forehead against the windowpane, trying to catch my breath, still watching her attempt to corral a bird one-tenth her size with all the grace of a flamingo in hiking boots.

And I didn’t stop smiling.

Not when she finally managed to corner the bird near the compost pile.

Not when she stood up, triumphant, holding it under one arm like a football.

And not when the chicken pecked at her shirt and she scolded it like it was a toddler throwing a tantrum at Trader Joe’s.

She was talking to it sternly and pointing as if the thing could understand her, and maybe, at this point, it could.

I couldn’t hear the words, but I could imagine them.

She marched it back toward the coop, head held high, chicken squawking like it was giving an exit interview.

And that’s when I felt it again.

That thing .

It scared me a little to feel that flutter in my chest like maybe I’d accidentally swallowed sunlight.

I didn’t come to Wisconsin for connection.

And for that matter, I certainly didn’t come for chaos, or for coffee that tasted like nostalgia, or people who smiled at you like they saw right through the armor you didn’t know was still showing.

I came here to unplug, breathe, and stop the bleeding from whatever part of me had gone numb and gray and tired in the last few years.

But now?

Now I’d just laughed at a chicken chase and felt something shift inside me like a door creaking open.

I hadn’t meant for that to happen.

I backed away from the window and set my coffee down. My face was still split in that dumb grin. One of those too-wide, too-rare things that made my cheeks ache in a way I wasn’t used to.

And I realized—

She’d done that.

Without even knowing I was watching.

Fifi.

Flustered, fast-talking, sunshine-wrapped-in-flannel Fifi.

She’d made me laugh. Honest to God laugh. And now I was standing in a guest room with goosebumps because of it.

What the hell was wrong with me?

I ran a hand down my face. Shook it off. Sat back at the desk and opened the laptop again.

Emails.

I stared at the things that made sense, my responsibilities.

But even as the screen glared back at me, even as I clicked open a message titled Updated Timeline for Site Migration, all I could see in my head was a woman yelling at a chicken like it had violated curfew.

And I didn’t want to stop seeing it.

Not yet.

I sat back in the chair and stared at the blinking cursor, feeling a pull in my chest I didn’t want to admit was hope.

Not for her.

But maybe for… whatever the hell was waking up in me again.

Something that felt suspiciously like joy.

I exhaled, shook my head, and whispered to no one in particular, “You’ve gotta be kidding me. I don’t have time for this.”