Chapter 1
Miscommunication
It was go time.
I put my ear buds in before looking around the kitchen, grateful to the tips of my toes that I had three days before the wedding party arrived for the bachelor/bachelorette shindig to complete my stupid projects. Thank God, my brother knew what a crappy Maid of Honor I was and arranged for a little extra time for me to complete the Pinterest tasks once I finally landed back in Minnesota. While I didn’t know the dude who owned the place I was in, the cabin sat an hour outside of St. Paul surrounded by a forest with a frozen lake out back; it reminded me how much I missed the state I’d grown up in.
The kitchen floor of the cabin had been converted into a meadow of white flowers that I was attempting to use my hot glue gun to stick onto foam boards that leaned against the wall to provide a magical photo backdrop at my cousin’s wedding. Whoever invented Pinterest should burn in hell like my poor little thumb.
I pulled up my “kicking ass” playlist, with everything from Olivia Rodrigo and Adele to Noah Kahan and Taylor and was ready to slay my projects. Okay, not slay, more like muddle through with a mediocre result, but I was in it to win it.
As my head bobbed to my tunes, I felt a presence. I whipped around to see a man wearing a black sweatshirt with the hood up over his head inches from me. Screaming doesn’t cover what shot out of my mouth in an octave I wasn’t even aware I could hit. Dude put his hands up.
This was it. This was the day I would die in a cabin in the middle of nowhere as the serial killer would then chop me into pieces right there in the kitchen.
Lucky for me, survival mode kicked in. A split second later, my left fist hit his nose while the right nailed his eye. My foot whipped up and kicked him in the balls with all the might I had before he crashed to the floor with a thunderous thud.
“Don’t move, or I’ll kill you!” My voice was shrill, and I grabbed a toaster from the counter and hurled it at him.
I zipped to my purse and dumped the contents on the counter. I grabbed the little pink can of mace and ran back over to the fella who was rocking side to side while cupping his family jewels.
His eyes were closed, and I leaned forward to shoot him with my liquid protector before I’d call the police, but nothing came out of the can. I shook it and looked at the nozzle and then shot myself in the face. MACE IN MY FACE!
I heard myself screeching as my face caught on fire. Instant tears streaming, snot dripping, with a new inability to get oxygen in my lungs. I blinked hard, realizing I needed to get myself out the door because I had just incapacitated myself for the serial killer. Clearly, the word of the day was fuck.
I wiped my eyes and took a step toward where I thought my keys may be when my ankle was yanked hard, causing my body to slam into the floor with such force I swore a bone somewhere must’ve busted.
I scooted blindly on my stomach toward the door. A hand grabbed my leg while panic pumped through my veins at the same time visions of my funeral whipped through my cranium. My poor mama crying her eyes out while she clung to Madam Fluffypants, the family cat, who was wearing a knit sweater dress my mom made her to match my humiliating crocheted jumpsuit.
Sorry, Mom, you were right…a girl alone at a cabin was the worst idea ever. See ya on the other side.
“Let go of me!” I kicked with all my might.
“Ouch! Stop!” boomed out from the man behind me.
I pulled a kitchen chair out so hard it hit my lip, and I instantly tasted a little blood. “Son of a bitch!” I pushed it to the ground, fairly certain it landed on my attacker, and got to my knees while more coughing kicked in as the mace crawled deeper into my lungs.
Snot was dangling from my nose when there was suddenly a hand on each of my ankles, and in an instant, I was being dragged along the kitchen floor on my tummy.
“Leeggooo!” I squirmed, but his grip was tight. “Fuuuccckkk!”
I was flipped on my back, and he sat on my stomach holding me still. But not my arms. I was swinging and made contact with a scruffy beard and dug my fingernails of one hand into his face while slapping him silly with the other. If CSI had taught me one thing, it’s to get some shit under your fingernails so they could track down my killer.
“Ouch! Stop it,” a deep, husky voice that shook the room ordered. “This is my cabin!”
“Huh?” My face was saturated with my tears which you’d think would be washing the mace out of my eyeballs, but I was as blind as a bat.
He got hold of my wrists, held them firmly above my head and pinned me to the floor. I was the weak mouse dropped into the cage of a python. Powerless.
“Why the fuck are you in my house?” he hissed, and I felt his hot breath on my neck.
The burn in my face was almost debilitating as my skin throbbed. I closed my eyes, hoping the stabbing would subside.
“Shit. I’m Dave Novotny’s sister, Fern. He said I could come here to finish some wedding projects. I assumed he told whoever the hell owned this place that I was coming.” My heart was sprinting. “I’m going to kill him.”
I was instantly released, a little surprised when I was picked up and set on a chair.
“He did not tell me.” I jumped as I felt the stranger’s breath on my face. “I’ll kill him first.”
