The dog remembered that thanks were in order and plowed his way up the porch steps.

“No jumping,” Silas yelled, jogging after his wayward wrecking ball.

Maggie was braced for the impact, but Kevin skidded to a halt, plopping his big ass on the porch boards at her feet.

Disaster averted, Silas slowed his approach. Sometimes his fat dog’s brakes didn’t work so well.

“Well, aren’t you the handsomest boy in the whole world,” Maggie said as she gave the muscly dog a rubdown. Kevin swooned over onto his back to provide better access to his tummy.

“Stop horning in on my business, dog,” Silas complained.

Maggie straightened to her full height, putting her about a head shorter than his own six feet four inches. Good height for kissing without getting a crick in his neck, he noted.

“Business,” she said. “Let’s walk and talk.”

“I’m all yours,” he told her as he followed her off the porch.

“I won’t insult your intelligence by warning you that this is a big job,” she told him. “For starters, the trees are trying to eat the eight-hundred-foot driveway.”

“I’ve got a tree guy. Gal, actually,” he said, falling into step beside her. Kevin trotted ahead of them to begin his sniffing inventory.

“Good. Then we’ve got these prehistoric shrubs crowding in the front and around the east side. A bumper crop of poison oak.”

“I’m immune,” he told her. “It’s one of my many superpowers. What’s yours?”

“Built-in bullshit detector. All of this needs cleaned up,” she said, gesturing at the tangle of underbrush and trees that had cropped up alongside the house.

“Agreed. We’ll get a lot more light into the first floor if we cut all this back. What’s your favorite holiday?” he asked.

“Thanksgiving,” she answered without missing a beat. “Back here we’ve got another small issue for your tree gal.”

The small issue was a seventy-foot fir that had decided to take a nap against the house.

He took a closer look. “Been here so long it’s all dried out. We’ll give you a nice stack of firewood, since I’m assuming you won’t be converting all of the fireplaces to gas.”

“I’m keeping the two first-floor fireplaces wood-burning,” she said.

“Good. I’d hate for us to hit a deal breaker this early in our relationship,” he said, lifting a branch of a crabapple out of her way as they picked their way through the backyard. She ducked under his arm.

The dog joyfully barreled past them, nose to the ground as he sniffled and snorted his way around the perimeter of the old iron fence.

“The fence kind of makes me think haunted cemetery,” Maggie said, eyeing it. “I wouldn’t be heartbroken if you said it needed to come down.”