"You okay?" he asked.
"Yeah." I wiped my eyes. "Yeah, I think I am."
The morning sickness faded by week twelve. It was replaced by a bone-deep exhaustion that made everything feel like wading through honey. I moved slower, thought slower, fell asleep at nine o'clock, woke at midnight, and then couldn't fall back asleep until dawn.
My jeans stopped buttoning at fourteen weeks. I switched to leggings and oversized sweaters, grateful that fall had arrived and layers made sense. The bump wasn't obvious yet—not to anyone who wasn't looking. But I knew. Every time I caught myreflection, I saw the change. The slight rounding beneath my clothes. The body that was becoming something other than just mine.
The B&B was struggling. Bookings were down. Two of my regulars had canceled their monthly visits. Mrs. Patterson was still there, steady as always, but her rent only covered so much. The repairs from last winter had eaten through my emergency fund. Property taxes were due in November, and I didn't know where the money would come from.
I cut Elena's hours. Felt sick about it, but there was no choice. She'd nodded, said she understood, and I'd seen the worry she tried to hide.
Owen noticed. Of course, he noticed. He noticed everything.
"Business slow?" he asked one evening, looking at the empty dining room.
"Seasonal dip. It'll pick up."
He didn't push. But I saw him looking at the books I'd left open on the counter, the columns of numbers that didn't add up no matter how many times I ran them.
The building inspector came on a Tuesday.
I'd known it was coming. The county required inspections every five years, and I'd been putting this one off, paying the extension fees, hoping that somehow the problems would fix themselves. They hadn't.
He walked through the house with a clipboard, making notes. The knob-and-tube wiring in the east wing. The plumbing that had been patched so many times, the pipes looked like a medical diagram. The foundation crack in the basement that I'd been watching spread for three years.
"You've got sixty days," he said, handing me a list that went on for two pages. "After that, I can't certify the building for occupancy."
Sixty days. The repairs would cost more than I had. More than I could borrow, probably.
I stood in the kitchen after he left, staring at the list, and for the first time since Marcus left, I let myself think the unthinkable.
I might lose this house.
Gran's house. Three generations of my family, built and rebuilt and held together through sheer stubbornness. The only place that had never let me down.
I might lose it.
Owen found me that evening, sitting on the back porch in the dark, the inspector's list crumpled in my fist.
He didn't say anything. He just sat down beside me, close enough that I could feel his warmth, and waited.
"Sixty thousand dollars," I said finally. "Maybe more. The wiring alone is forty."
Owen was quiet for a moment. "What about a loan?"
"I'm already leveraged. The repairs from last winter, the new roof two years ago." I laughed, but it came out bitter. "Gran always said this house would outlast us all. Turns out even stubbornness has limits."
“There has to be another way.”
"There isn't." I smoothed the crumpled paper against my knee. "I've been running the numbers for months. The bookings are down, the costs keep going up, and now this." I pressed my hand to my stomach, the bump that was just starting to show. "Perfect timing, right?"
Owen reached into his jacket pocket. Pulled out his checkbook. Set it on the porch railing between us.
"I've got savings," he said. "Let me help."
Something hot flared in my chest. Pride, maybe. Or fear wearing a different coat, like Mrs. Patterson had said.
"I don't need rescuing, Owen."
