She still looked clueless.

“I want to rent it out. Put it on Airbnb. Give the farm a supplementary income. And once I’m finished with this one, there’s other spots on the farm where I could build—cabins or more treehouses. There’s an abandoned outbuilding I could turn into a small lodge.” Now that he’d started talking, he couldn’t stop the rest from spilling. “There’s other farms in Maine where tourists actually get to rake their own berries. That might be fun for guests who stay during harvest. Agricultural tourism—it’s a thing.”

And he knew—he knew—he could make a proper go of it.

If only he could convince Maggie. Twice, he’d brought up the idea, though he’d never gone so far as to mention the treehouse he’d begun constructing. Twice, she’d shaken her head at the idea. “This is Muir Farm, Neil. Not Muir B&B. We’re a family farm. Not a tourist destination.”

He couldn’t seem to make her understand that he wasn’t trying to veer them away from being a small family farm. He was trying to make it possible for them to keep being a family farm.

“I’m honestly not sure what made me think of it originally, but the truth is, we could really use the extra income.”

“Neil, this . . .” Sydney’s voice drew his focus. “It’s . . .”

Crazy, most likely. About as far-fetched of an idea, probably, as picking up and traveling across the country on the oh-so-slim off-chance that you might be someone’s long-lost relative.

But it was a far-fetched idea he hadn’t been able to let go of.

And so here he found himself, night after night. Putting in an hour of work here, two hours there, wondering when he’d muster up the gumption to show this place to his sisters, to Maggie. Honestly, how they hadn’t all already figured out he was up something, he didn’t know. But then, Lilian was working so much these days and Indi spent half her time in Augusta.

As for Maggie, she was so often caught up in the past. Guess that made it difficult to notice all the details of the present.

“It’s incredible.”

His gaze dashed to Sydney’s face. What had she just said?

“It’s impressive too. You built this treehouse. By yourself. It’s just . . . it’s incredible. And your vision for the farm—I love it.” She paced from one end of the treehouse to the other, ducked her head out a window frame, glanced back at him over her shoulder. “Next door to my apartment building back home, there’s this old Victorian house. I walk past it every day on my way to work, and I always think about how much fun it’d be to get my hands on it. It could be so much more than a run-down house. It could be a bed-and-breakfast or an artsy sort of coffeehouse or even a restaurant. If I had money and time and resources, I could do something with it. That’s what you’re doing. That’s what you’ve done. You have a vision and you’re making it happen. It’s so . . .”