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Chapter 1
Chapter One: The List
Evelyn Liang kept her life in a slim planner wrapped in slate-gray linen. In it, Cedarfin Lodge was a bullet point with a box she intended to fill with a crisp checkmark by Sunday: inventory, valuation, broker handoff, sale.
She pulled into the gravel lot late afternoon, her hybrid humming under the pines. The lodge’s cedar shingles wore the same honey shade she remembered, though the porch posts had gone slightly moss-green at their bases, like socks pulled up too long. On the bay, Lake Ullin lay flat as a kept promise.
Inside, she inhaled the familiar scent of lemon oil and woodsmoke. The front desk bell—her grandfather’s shiny joke—still perched by a faded map. She set her planner down, lifted the bell, and paused at the sound coming from the kitchen.
Not the orderly heartbeat of a commercial line. Laughter, layered with clinks, the wrong rhythm of pans. She followed it through the hall, past the dining room she’d swept for tips as a teenager.
A man stood at the stove in a rolled-up denim shirt, his hair tied in a knot that refused to be tamed. He tossed something in a skillet, the flame catching blue then orange. His profile was all angles and unexpected softness. Someone whistled. Not him. A woman in a baseball cap slid in a tray. A chalkboard leaned against the wall, scrawled with: Cedarfin Pop-Up, TONIGHT.
“Excuse me,” Evelyn said, cool. “Who authorized this?”
The man looked over, dark eyes quick, amused. “Hi. You must be the spreadsheet.”
She blinked. “I’m the owner’s representative.”
“Even better.” He turned back to his pan. “I’m Juniper Beck. People call me June. We’re your dinner rush.”
“I didn’t schedule a dinner rush.”
“We did,” June said cheerfully. “It’s Friday.”
Her planner lay like armor at her side. She opened it, willing the day to rearrange itself. It didn’t. The past had breached the present, and it smelled like citrus and heat.
