Page 13 of The Whisper Place (To Catch a Storm #3)

I woke up in the middle of the night to a faint banging noise, the sound of a door closing, maybe, or a window hitting the frame.

I ran to the living room, searching the entrances, looking for the source of the intrusion, but there was nothing.

The door to the deck was latched with the pole of wood notched firmly in the sliding glass frame.

The windows were empty of everything except shadows and the door to the stairs was closed, too.

“Blake?” As I moved to her bedroom door, another bang stopped me cold. It came from downstairs. Knocking quietly, I pushed open Blake’s door. Her bed was empty. Maybe she was the one making noise downstairs, but she’d also gone out last night with a guy and I hadn’t heard her come home.

Slipping to the apartment kitchen, I pulled a carving knife out of the block and crept to the stairs.

My heart knocked against my ribcage. If I had to use the knife, it wouldn’t be the first time I’d attacked someone.

I guess some things didn’t get easier with practice.

Shifting my grip on the handle, I paused at the bottom of the stairs.

Voices drifted from the other side of the door as metal scraped against metal.

Someone was definitely here. I couldn’t run or hide, not if Blake’s business was in danger.

Taking a deep breath, I shoved open the door and sprang into the bakery kitchen, making both of the people standing next to the stove jump in surprise.

Blake and Charlie.

Blake dropped the pan she was holding with a crash. Charlie tried to lunge in front of her, slipped on the pan and fell into his sister, sending them both to the floor. I stood frozen, knife raised, in complete shock.

“What. The fuck!” came Blake’s voice from somewhere behind the butcher-block counter.

“I thought someone broke in,” I whispered. It felt like all the air had been knocked out of me. With the adrenaline fading, I felt weak. Trays of silicone molds filled with tiny gummy doughnuts wavered in front of my eyes.

Suddenly, Blake was right in front of me. She was talking, but I couldn’t hear what she said.

“What are you making?” I asked eventually, trying to breathe.

She looked at her brother, who stood behind her and wore a bright pink apron over his flannel. He glanced at me before nodding to Blake.

“Chooch is a farmer, and his best crop is . . .”

“Gelatin?” I blinked the silicone molds back into focus. The whole counter was covered in them, and I noticed for the first time that all the window blinds were closed. I stuffed down the feeling of being trapped and tried to concentrate on what Blake was saying.

“Weed.” She smiled. “Chooch grows some pretty fine pot, and I help him turn it into some pretty spectacular edibles.”

“Oh.”

It made sense now, the closed blinds, the middle-of-the-night cooking.

Marijuana was still illegal in Iowa, which was probably why they had to do this at 3:00 a.m. on the day the bakery wasn’t open.

The pungent tang to the air—a bitterness riding underneath the smell of liquified sugar—would clear out long before the next customers came through the door.

That must’ve been what was in the backpacks they exchanged. Weed, edibles, cash.

“Are you freaked out? You look freaked out.” Blake seemed worried as she loaded trays into the fridge.

“I’m not.”

“I would’ve told you before, but . . . ”

“No, you don’t have to tell me anything.” We’d only known each other a month. She didn’t owe me details about her life. And the less she told me, the less I would feel pressured to share with her. I shifted the knife awkwardly and started moving to the stairs. “I’ll let you finish.”

Blake grabbed me by the shoulders. Her wide, makeup-less eyes peered deep into mine. “Are you one hundred percent sure you’re okay? Because—”

“Blake.” Charlie pried her hands off me. “Back off.”

“Oh, right. Sorry. I can get a little—”

“You can get a lot,” Charlie cut in.

“Shut up.” Blake elbowed him in the side.

“Darcy’s the best thing that’s happened to the bakery and I don’t want your shit scaring her off.

” She turned back to me, not grabbing me this time but it looked like she was half a second away.

She shifted her weight between her feet nervously. “Are you okay with this?”

The knife felt suddenly slippery in my hand, like I would drop it or cut someone.

Blake’s words bounced around in my head, not finding anywhere to settle.

Darcy’s the best thing that’s happened to the bakery.

My heartbeat picked up again, not because I was scared of a break-in or worse, that someone had found me here.

My pulse beat faster this time because my answer actually mattered.

I smiled at Blake and clutched the knife harder.

“Do you need any help?”

Edibles were a whole new subgenre of cooking.

I’d only smoked pot a few times, when I briefly dated a boy in high school who always seemed to have a joint in his pocket.

He said it would help me relax, but he was wrong, just like he was wrong about the musical significance of Bon Iver.

Weed made me feel like I was underwater, my limbs weighted down while a giant air bubble was trapped inside my chest. I got paranoid, convinced my stepfather would somehow burst into the boy’s parents’ basement and I’d be too high to get away.

Stoner boy said I had issues. I broke up with him a few days later.

I’d never tried edibles. I’d heard of pot brownies and I knew dispensaries carried gummy products, but in a vague, distant way, trivia that would never touch my life.

And it wouldn’t have, not my old life, not the person I used to be.

But I was Darcy now. Darcy started her days with rock ballads and dancing.

She made baked goods that smelled like heaven and worked in a sun-drenched space without computers or copy machines or bosses who spoke in monotone acronyms. Darcy had friends and a home here.

She was needed, valued. And the longer I stayed Darcy, the more real it all felt.

A few days later, Blake and I drove a batch of edibles out to Charlie’s farm.

“You never wear dresses.” Blake commented as we left the city.

I smoothed a hand over the paisley skirt of a wrap dress. “I found it at Ragstock for six dollars.”

It wasn’t like anything I’d worn before.

I’d dressed in baggy, dark-colored clothes in my other life and grabbed whatever was comfortable for the bakery, but when I’d browsed the racks the other day this dress had caught my eye.

It was buttery soft and hugged my hips in rose and brown swirls.

Instantly I could picture a woman wearing it with boots, her hair in loose waves.

And I knew—it was Darcy. The woman I pictured was me.

“It looks great on you.” Blake side-eyed me in the car, not saying anything else about my makeover.

When we got to the farm, Charlie sat on the front porch of a rambler that looked like it had seen better days.

Paint peeled off the window shutters and debris was clogged in the gutters.

A few flower beds grew weeds in the front yard, but the lawn was freshly mowed and a brass wind chime hung next to the front door, sending low, lazy notes across the yard.

We brought the edibles inside and set the plastic tubs on a kitchen table crowded with books and newspapers. The smell of coffee hung in the air. Blake started in on Charlie about the peeling siding when she was interrupted mid-shade by a text from someone she’d been messaging on Tinder.

A slow smile lit up her face as she read. She was already typing back as she slipped out the front door, calling behind her. “To be continued. This could take a while.”

Charlie and I faced each other, making eye contact before looking away.

“Do you want these somewhere else?”

“What?” He seemed distracted by my dress and it took a second for him to remember the existence of the tubs of edibles on the table. “No, don’t worry about it.”

There was another awkward silence as I tried not to stare at his mouth. Outside, Blake wandered into the yard and sat on a tire swing hanging from a tree, aggressively texting and grinning at her phone.

“Do you live here alone?” It seemed like a safe enough question. I never asked Blake or Charlie anything too personal, but I was standing in his house, trying to think of anything to say that wasn’t Can we please make out now?

“Yeah. I had a roommate for a while, but he moved to Milwaukee.” He shrugged, and one corner of his mouth lifted. “I like a lot of space.”

“Me too,” I agreed even as I stepped toward him, closing the space between us. Suddenly we were both smiling. The air in the kitchen felt warm and taut. I wondered if he could see my heart beating through the fabric of the dress.

He asked if I wanted a tour of the grow room. I had zero feelings about seeing it, but it gave us something to do. A reason for Charlie to touch my back lightly and steer me toward the front door. And Charlie seemed eager to talk about it as he led me around the house.

“It’s insane that Iowa is still policing marijuana. Most of the cities don’t give a shit, but out here some departments still hunt growers. And there’s the DEA. You can’t grow in a field because of drones.”

“Do you use a barn then?” He had outbuildings on the property, a medium-sized barn and a handful of smaller sheds and garages.

Charlie shook his head, stopping by a cellar door on the back side of the house. “They can find grow sites in barns using infrared. That’s why I keep it under the house.”