Hazel excused herself with a murmur about checking the porch, slipping out before I could say anything. I watched her go, the line of her spine straight despite the fatigue I could see pulling at her shoulders.
Maude and I cleaned in easy rhythm: me washing, her drying, stories flowing unbroken like a river that had found its course. "There was the writer in '95," she said, towel snapping soft against a plate. "Came for a weekend, stayed a month. Holed up in the west room with nothing but a typewriter and black coffee. Said the isolation cracked him open, poured words outlike water from a broken dam. Left us a signed copy—still on the shelf in the sitting room, if you're curious."
Her voice held that ache for the past, for fuller days when the inn breathed with life, but no bitterness—just love for what had been and maybe hope for what could be again.
Dishes done, counters wiped clean, Maude patted my arm with her damp hand. "Nap for me. Choir practice at four—dinner'll be late tonight, if that's all right with you."
"More than all right."
The house settled into quiet around me after Maude left.
I dried my hands on the dish towel, hung it neat, then headed back to the porch.
Hazel was there, prying at a stubborn shutter hinge with a screwdriver, tools scattered around her feet like she'd waged a small war. Sweat dampened her shirt, plastering it to her back, hair escaping in red wisps that caught the afternoon light. She was getting it—real progress visible in the straightened rail, the patched spots that would hold through the next storm. Determination radiated off her in waves.
I leaned against the doorframe, watching for a beat before speaking. "Thought you'd have the whole place rebuilt by now."
She glanced up, smirk tired but real, eyes bright despite the exhaustion. "Give me another hour."
"You're allowed to rest."
"Rest is for people who don't have a year-long deadline," she said, but there was humor in it now instead of the desperate edge from yesterday.
Awkwardness lingered from earlier—those words unspoken, hanging like humidity between us. We worked around it at first, me taking the heavy lifting without asking permission: hauling lumber from the pile she'd started near the side of the house, muscling a sagging beam into place while she measured andmarked with that little torpedo level, tongue caught between her teeth in concentration.
The property revealed its potential under the decay—solid bones beneath the rot, views of the marsh that could draw guests if polished right, a kind of wild beauty that money couldn't buy and tourists would pay good money to experience.
It stirred thoughts of home I didn't want, the old Dane ranch: fixing fences with Dad in the Montana wind, his hands guiding mine on the post hole digger, the satisfaction of work done and done right.
Stupid.
Me, picturing Hazel there—red hair whipping in the Bitterroot breeze, laughing as we patched barn roofs side by side, her competence matching mine, that sharp mind solving problems I hadn't even seen yet.
Where the hell had that come from?
I shoved it down, focused on the task. One board at a time. One moment. That was all I knew how to do.
Time blurred in sweat and sun, the afternoon stretching long and golden. We didn't talk much—didn't need to. There was a rhythm to it, the way she handed me tools before I asked, the way I knew when she needed me to hold something steady while she secured it.
Partnership.
The word lodged somewhere uncomfortable in my chest.
Maude's sedan crunched away down the drive eventually, choir practice calling, and suddenly we were alone. Truly alone for the first time since I'd arrived.
The air changed.
I fetched water from the kitchen—two glasses, condensation already beading cool against my palms. Hazel sat on the steps, wiping her brow with the back of her hand, exhaustion and satisfaction warring on her face.
Her hand shook faint as she reached for the glass I offered—fatigue, maybe, or something deeper. I steadied it with mine, fingers covering hers, the touch lingering longer than necessary. Her pulse jumped under my thumb.
"How long's choir practice?" My voice came out rougher than I meant.
She stared at our joined hands, then up at my face, eyes dark and uncertain and wanting. "Hard to tell. I'm new here, too."
We drank—water, air, the moment stretching thin and dangerous between us.
She set her glass down carefully on the step, like it might shatter. "Maybe enough manual labor for one day."
