Page 1 of Oops I Fell For The Lumberjack Next Door

CHAPTER ONE

MARGOT

The cabin looks like it's trying to die.

Not in a charming, rustic, "she needs a little love" kind of way. More in a "the foundation has given up and the roof is next" kind of way. The listing photos were taken with the confidence of a used car salesman and the moral compass of a politician, because the structure slumping at the end of this gravel driveway bears zero resemblance to the cozy mountain retreat I emptied half my divorce settlement on.

Princess Buttercup yowls from her carrier in the passenger seat. She's been yowling since Reno. Before that, she was silently judging me, which honestly was worse.

"I know," I tell her. "I see it."

The porch sags to the left. One of the front windows has a crack running diagonally across it like someone drew a line through the glass with their finger. The gutters hang at an angle that suggests they stopped functioning as gutters roughly around the time I was in college, and the front steps look like they'd collapse under the weight of a strong opinion.

This is what I bought. Sight unseen. With actual money.

My mother's voice echoes in my head. You're having a moment, Margot. My brothers said the same thing, just louder and with more sports metaphors. Everyone in my family thinks driving three hundred miles to a town I've never visited to renovate a cabin I've never seen is a breakdown in progress.

It's not a breakdown. It's a decision. The first real one I've made in a decade that wasn't filtered through Daniel's preferences, Daniel's schedule, or Daniel's vision of what our life should look like.

I grab the bottle of cheap Merlot from the cup holder, take a sip that's closer to a gulp, and get out of the car.

The air hits me first. Cold, clean, pine sharp. Nothing like Portland. Nothing like the San Francisco apartment I shared with Daniel for seven years, where the air always smelled like someone else's cooking and the fog made everything damp. Here, the sky is wide and blue and the mountains are close enough to feel like walls. Protective ones. The kind I actually want.

"Okay." Deep breath. "It has bones."

It has something. Whether those somethings are bones or termites remains to be seen.

Princess Buttercup yowls again, louder this time, rattling her carrier with the fury of a fourteen year old cat who did not consent to this road trip. I open the passenger door, unhook the carrier, and set it on the gravel.

"Welcome home, Your Highness."

She hisses.

Fair enough.

My moving truck won't arrive until tomorrow, so tonight it's me, the cat, a sleeping bag, the wine, and whatever fresh horrors await inside. I haul my overnight bag onto one shoulder, hook Princess Buttercup's carrier over the other, and walk toward the porch.

The first step groans under my foot.

The second one holds.

The third one does not.

My right leg punches straight through the wood up to mid shin, and I pitch forward with a sound that comes out of my mouth as something between a scream and the word fuck. Princess Buttercup's carrier swings, she shrieks, my overnight bag slides off my shoulder, and I'm stuck. Literally stuck. My leg is jammed in rotted porch wood up to my knee while the rest of me is sprawled flat across the porch.

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me."

Pulling my leg free doesn't work. The wood splinters but holds. Another try. Pain lances up my shin where a jagged edge is pressing into skin, and I freeze because ripping my own leg open on day one feels like an omen I don't need.

"Okay. Okay, okay, okay." Calm. Professional. Former book editor who once managed a launch party for a bestselling author while simultaneously hiding from her husband's assistant in the bathroom. I can handle a porch.

I brace both hands on the wood and pull. Nothing. Princess Buttercup watches from her carrier with an expression that clearly communicates she expected this.

"Don't. Say. A word."

She blinks.

I'm considering my options, which range from calling 911 to living here permanently, when a voice comes from somewhere to my right.