“Well, somebody better tell me before I explode. What is it?”
Pane drapes his elbow on the molding leading into the living room. “How would you feel about having your own permanent space for massages, facials, and whatever else you want to do?”
Her gaze swivels from Pane to me. “Rowe, what’s he talking about?”
I gesture to the house, which is covered in drop cloths and lined in painter’s tape. “He’s talking about turning the farm into a spa, a place that caters to couples and girls’ weekends.”
Her jaw drops. “Oh my God. It sounds fabulous. It would be a dream come true. But can you do that? Do you have time?”
Pane nods out the front door, where Ron, Isaac, and McCauley the lawn guy are all in the midst of putting up new fencing. “We have time. We’re only renovating a few rooms downstairs, plus the bathroom, and painting the others.”
Cristina squeals. “Yes! Show me everything.” Then she turns around. “Oh, wait. Your piggies followed me up. They want in, too.”
Ten of them sit in front of the screen door, watching us with dark eyes full of questions and hope—hope that they will once again be able to pile up on quilts at my feet.
Pane thuds over in his heavy boots, shakes his head, and says, “Go on. You aren’t allowed in here.”
“Pane,” I scold.
“What?” He turns and shrugs. “They know the rules.”
They do. In fact, Tallulah leads them off, making a point to lift her tail, showing us her rear end.
Oh yeah, they have an opinion about Pane, all right.
I stifle a laugh before grabbing Cristina by the arm. “Come on. Let me show you what we’re thinking.”
A few minutes later, I’ve gone over Pane’s concept and talked to Cristina about her role in the business. I’ve pitched the nighttime walks and the option for people to play with piggycorns as a stress-relief activity.
“I love it,” she tells me. “It’s absolutely brilliant. Why didn’t you think about it before?”
I rest my shoulder on a doorframe leading into what will become Cristina’s studio. “I don’t know. Maybe because we were too close to all the sadness.”
“These are good things, Rowe. Really good things. So”—her mouth pinches into a tinyO—“how are things with ...” She nods toward the front of the house, where Pane is working.
“I kissed him,” I whisper.
“What?” she shrieks.
I press a finger to my lips and shut the door. “I had no choice in it because that was the day all those cars were honking and coming by.”
“Oh my God!” She grabs my sleeve. “How was it?”
“So good!” I then tell her how he broke away and then kissed me again, and the use of tongue, and then I finish with the whole no-kissing rule.
She exhales in disappointment. “No! Not another rule.”
“It’s fine. We need it. I can’t get attached. He’s leaving.”
“He is, but you can have fun while he’s here.”
I sip my coffee and rest my back against the closed door. “Right now, the best thing is for me to focus on the farm.”
“Well, if you find yourself lonely one night, you might just want to walk out to that shamper. I bet he’d let you in with open arms.”
I smirk. “I’m not going to find out.”
“I don’t know,” she chirps. “I see chemistry. There’s something in the way he looks at you.”
