For Now and Forever (The Inn at Sunset Harbor-Book 1)

CHAPTER FOUR

Emily woke early the next morning feeling disorientated. There was such little light coming into the room from the boarded-up windows, it took her a moment to realize where she was. Her eyes slowly adjusted to the dimness, the room materialized around her, and she remembered—Sunset Harbor. Her father's home.

A moment went by before she remembered that she was also jobless, homeless, and completely alone.

She dragged her weary body out of bed. The morning air was cold. Her appearance in the dusty vanity mirror alarmed her; her face was puffy from the tears she'd shed the night before, her skin drawn and pale. It suddenly occurred to her that she'd failed to eat sufficiently the previous day. The only thing she'd consumed the night before had been a cup of Daniel's fire-brewed tea.

She hesitated momentarily beside the mirror, looking at her body reflected in the old, grimy glass while her mind played over the night before—of the warming fire, of her sitting by the hearth with Daniel drinking tea, Daniel mocking her inability to care for the house. She remembered the snow flecks in his hair when she'd first opened the door to him, and the way he'd retreated into the blizzard, disappearing into the inky black night as quickly as he'd come.

Her growling stomach dragged her out of her thoughts and back into the moment. She dressed quickly. The crumpled shirt she pulled on was far too thin for the cold air so she wrapped the dusty blanket from the bed around her shoulders. Then she left the bedroom and padded downstairs on bare feet.

Downstairs, all was silent. She peered through the frosted window in the front door and was astonished to see that although the storm had now stopped, snow was piled three feet high, turning the world outside into a smooth, still, endless whiteness. She had never seen that much snow in her life.

Emily could just make out the footprints of a bird as it had hopped around on the path outside, but other than that, nothing had been disturbed. It looked peaceful, but at the same time desolate, reminding Emily of her loneliness.

Realizing that venturing outside wasn't an option, Emily decided to explore the house and see what, if anything, it might hold. The house had been so dark last night she hadn't been able to look around too much, but now in the morning daylight the task was somewhat easier. She went into the kitchen first, driven instinctively by her grumbling stomach.

The kitchen was in more of a state than she'd realized when she'd wandered through here last night. The fridge—an original cream 1950s Prestcold her father had found during a yard sale one summer—wasn't working. She tried to remember whether it ever had, or whether it had been another source of annoyance for her mother, another one of those bits of junk her dad had cluttered the old house up with. Emily had found her dad's collections boring as a kid, but now she treasured those memories, clinging onto them as tightly as she could.

Inside the fridge Emily found nothing but a horrible smell. She shut it quickly, locking the door with the handle, before going over to the cupboards to look inside. Here she found an old can of corn, its label sun-bleached to the point of obscurity, and a bottle of malt vinegar. She briefly considered making some kind of meal out of the items but decided she wasn't yet that desperate. The can opener was rusted completely closed anyway, so there'd be no way to get into the corn even if she was.

She went into the pantry next, where the washer and dryer were located. The room was dark, the small window covered with plywood like many of the others in the house. Emily pressed a button on the washer dryer but wasn't surprised to find that it didn't work. Growing increasingly frustrated with her situation, Emily decided to take action. She clambered up onto the sideboard and attempted to pry off a piece of plywood. It was harder to do than she'd expected, but she was determined. She pulled and pulled, using all the force in her arms. Finally, the board began to crack. Emily wrenched one last time and the plywood gave, coming away from the window entirely. The force was so great she fell back off the counter, the heavy board falling from her grasp and swinging toward the window. Emily heard the sound of the window smashing at the same time as she landed on a heap on the floor, winding herself.