“Never in my life,” he said, making an X with his finger over his heart. “How do you feel about breakfast for dinner?”

She rolled with the change in subject. “I don’t trust anyone who doesn’t want pancakes and eggs every once in a while for dinner. How do you feel about being on camera?”

She heard the already familiar screech of the screen door behind her. This time the noise was interrupted by a clunk and a crash. The hinges gave up their decades-long fight and surrendered, sending the door crashing to the porch floorboards.

“Maggie, if you don’t burn this hellhole down to the foundation, I’ll do it for you,” Dean bellowed.

“I’ll fix it,” she called back cheerfully. “Come over here and meet the landscaper before you make any more arson threats in front of witnesses.”

Dean clomped over in jeans and sneakers that were too nice to do any dirty work. He had an iPad in one hand and a very large coffee in the other.

Juggling both, he freed a hand and offered it to Silas. “Morning,” he said with slightly less grump.

“You must be Dean,” Silas said, shaking hands.

“That’s me. Has the tour of this three-story garbage dump scared you off yet?”

“One man’s garbage dump is another’s mountain of hidden potential,” Silas responded.

Maggie grinned.

Dean shook his head. “Great. Now there’s two of you.” He looked pointedly at Silas’s backward cap and then at Maggie and smirked.

She shook her head and mouthed, Don’t. You. Dare.

“If you don’t mind me asking, how old are you, Silas?” Dean asked.

Maggie elbowed Dean hard in the ribs.

The landscaper watched their exchange with interest. “Thirty-seven.”

“He’s thirty-seven, Maggie,” Dean repeated with as much subtlety as Kevin the borderline-obese pit bull.

“I heard,” she said dryly. “Don’t you have some calls to make? Dreams to crush with your heartless budgets, Dean?”

“Sure do. And I’ll be doing all of that from the comfort of the inn because a ceiling tile just missed my head by inches when it crashed to the floor in the hellscape you call a kitchen.”

“After you finish the B-roll of the sunporch and library,” she reminded him.

“Yeah, yeah. Silas, it was nice to meet you. Give us a good deal.” With that last demand, Dean squared his shoulders and stomped back inside.

“He’s a mercenary at heart and definitely not a morning person,” she explained.

“I bet he doesn’t like pancakes for dinner either,” Silas predicted.

She laughed because it was the truth.

“Couple more questions,” he announced.

“Shoot.”

“You married?”

“Not anymore,” she said. “Do you have any problems using advertiser products for the job?”