“I thought I was doing it,” he rasped.

“You need to bring Maggie here.”

“I’m going to. Tomorrow night.”

She shook her head. “No. Tonight.” And though she hated to step free of his embrace, she stepped back.

He ran one hand through his hair. “But . . . why?”

“Because tomorrow I’m going to have to tell her, Neil. I’m scared it’s going to break her heart. So give her this first. Enchant her the way you did me.”

His other brow lifted.

How, after everything that had happened today, did he manage to pull a blush from her? “Okay, not exactly the same way.” She moved to the bed and picked up the blanket Neil must’ve covered her with earlier. She folded it up, straightened the comforter.

“You know, hard as today was for you, there is one good thing—at least Micah won’t worry any more that you’re acting very inappropriately with someone you’re legally related to.”

She nabbed a pillow from the bed and lobbed it at him, earning a laugh. “Will you, though? Bring her out here tonight?”

He nodded and moved to her side, replacing the pillow on the bed then reaching for her hand. “And tomorrow we can tell her the rest. Together.”

For the second time in as many hours, Neil’s steps carried him into the clearing, the treehouse he’d put so many weeks of work into coming into view.

He knew the moment Maggie caught sight of his project. She gasped, froze in her tracks.

He’d done more than hang fairy lights inside the treehouse while Sydney slept earlier. He’d also strung outdoor lights all along the staircase and the small landing at the top, and he’d hung an antique lantern—another of Indi’s contributions—from a thick branch that curved near the entrance.

And then there was the antique spyglass propped atop the railing, a nod to Alec Muir and the Legend of Muir Harbor. Sydney had declared it a brilliant addition when she’d seen it as they left earlier, said the exterior appearance as a whole was pure perfection, and he’d have been lying if he said her approval hadn’t meant everything to him.

Or that his mind hadn’t drifted back to what she’d said earlier. About honeymooners. And there was that ring back in Maggie’s room . . .

Even now, he felt his pulse sputter as thoughts it was too early to be thinking trailed through his brain.

He’d tried to talk Sydney into coming along for this, but she’d insisted it was something he should do alone. “It’s your dream to share, Neil.”

Yes, but he was beginning to think he might not have gotten around to sharing it at all if Sydney Rose hadn’t swept into his world. Her interest and intrigue that first night he’d showed her the still-unfinished structure, her encouragement that he let his sisters in on the farm’s struggles, her push for him to not wait any longer to show Maggie . . .