“Anyway,” he continues, “you’re welcome. But please don’t make it a habit. I don’t want to attract bears to the house by having food wandering around out there.”

“I’m food?”

“You will be if you keep getting lost in the woods. That’s their home out there, not ours.”

How does he keep rerouting this conversation? “It’s a big house. There’s plenty of living space for us along with the guests.”

“I’ll never agree to it.”

“I’ll never agree to the farm animal sanctuary, then.”

Checkmate. He arches a brow, jaw tensing.

“I know you haven’t factored my opinion into your plans,” I go on, watching in real time as he reckons with my unavoidable influence over his life goals, “but I’m co-inheritor, buddy. Your personal remake of Charlotte’s Web isn’t happening without my consent.”

“These . . .” He sounds strangled. “This isn’t comparable.” Wesley and I are both leaning forward now, nearly nose to nose. A crumpled napkin peeks from his fist. “You want a hotel, which means people in my living space.” He doesn’t hide the pure revulsion such a scenario inspires. “An animal sanctuary won’t affect you at all. They’ll be living outside.”

“I’ll have to smell it.”

He casts a withering look up at the ceiling, grinding his molars.

Maybe I’m playing dirty, but it isn’t fair that he gets to make all the decisions. “Fine. The hotel won’t affect you, either. There’s enough room on the first floor for plenty of guest rooms, which we’ve agreed is my floor. You’ll get to keep the second floor to yourself and be as people-hating as you please.”

He leans back again, mouth turning down at the corners. He’s trying to figure out how to argue this, but he also doesn’t want me interfering with his dream of filling our yard with geriatric goats. This must be what shady blackmail dealings in white-collar offices feel like.

“So you’d be turning the sunroom into a bedroom,” he says shrewdly.

“I don’t know. Probably.”

The frown intensifies, like he’s trying to solve a tricky math equation. I’d laugh if there weren’t so much at stake. “I want the sunroom.”

“Why?”

“Because I want it.”

Leverage! I love leverage. “I’ll give you the sunroom for the cabin.”

Wesley balks. “Why?”

I could do tons of things with this cabin. If I hire another manager, they could live in it. Or I could use it for a bridal suite, since Falling Stars would make an amazing wedding venue. But if I tell Wesley I want to throw weddings at his house, he might flip the table.

“Because I want it,” I reply evenly. His lips press together. I mimic him, sensing I am close to a resolution here, close to winning.

He tries to silent-treatment me into giving up. It almost works, but my discomfort with long silences prompts me to react strangely and I throw both of us off by giving him a wink.

He stares at me, wide eyed, like I’ve grown another head. “What the hell was that?”

“A wink?”

“Winking is weird.”

“You’re weird.”

“That’s a bizarre thing to do, shutting your eye at someone.”

I shrug. “It can be kinda hot, I think.”

Wesley is visibly uncomfortable, but the wink is effective. “Fine, you’ve got a deal. I get the animal sanctuary, you get your hotel. Which is a terrible idea, by the way.” He’s already getting up and leaving.

“Is not!” I sing at his retreating back, counting the donuts remaining. He ate three. I’m taking that as another win.

* * *

• • • • • • •

IT’S THREE DAYS AFTER we struck a deal and we haven’t agreed on a single thing since. Also, the manor is trying to kill me. All I want to do is love it, and it responds by raining plaster over me and moving the broom and dustpan so that they’re never where I last put them. Every time I open a window to get rid of the thick dust-and-lemon-Pledge cloud that hangs at nose level, I hear a rattle and glance over to watch the sash juddering back down. I’ve had two pairs of rubber gloves disintegrate on me somehow, but luckily the hoard replenishes itself and more pairs of gloves reappear on the living room mantel. Along with a bottle of ointment, which has helped heal the blisters that stupid shovel gave my fingers.

Wesley is going room by room upstairs and getting rid of broken stuff first, or stuff that’s rusted, expired, ruined from water damage, etc. After the obvious trash is dealt with, he sorts through whatever’s left. I, however, choose to tackle the hoard all at once, which results in a million piles whose purposes prove difficult to keep straight. We keep ramming into each other at the front door and in the yard, arms too full, each refusing to offer the other one assistance if an item is dropped. I rubberneck at whatever he tosses in the dumpster, but if I pick through his half of the house in addition to mine, this clean-out is going to take years.

Whenever I brush past Wesley, the image of him beneath the iron archway in my dream flickers to life, those eyes probing mine like I might offer the answer to a long-held question, or I remember him in the dark woods beside me, a solid protector, and it’s annoying. I don’t want to associate soft feelings with this person who scowls at me all day.

“What do you want the sunroom for?” I can’t resist asking at one point, as we’re passing each other in the foyer.

“Why’s my picture on your phone?” he shoots back so quickly, he had to have been already thinking about it.

I grumble as I skulk away and he takes off up the stairs. I am incredibly glad I called dibs on the first floor, because I can’t imagine what running up and down the grand staircase is doing to his calves.