Correction: there was a big empty wall in the first-floor owner’s suite that called out for some. She’d decided that the future owner or manager would be most likely to settle in that room since it was big and on the first floor.

“Hello?” she called, sticking her head back out of the bedroom because Sawyer had not followed her in.

“Sorry.” He appeared from behind an unfinished half wall she thought would nicely bracket the front desk. “Why isn’t this wall done?”

“I didn’t have confidence in my own drywall abilities, and the guys I hired got really busy.”

“This little wall will take an hour, tops.”

She shrugged. “There was a drywall emergency somewhere else, I guess?”

He frowned and surveyed the space. It was looking more disorganized than usual. She was in a weird spot where a lot of projects were stalled.

Once they were in the bedroom, she swept her arms out. “So I’m seeing this entire wall done with built-in shelving.”

“You are not.”

“What?”

“You don’t want shelves in here. You were just rescuing me again.” He wasn’t even looking at her. His attention was fixed on one of Lucille’s posters, in which a mermaid was towing an unconscious prince through the water. “Just like this. I keep almost drowning, and you keep rescuing me.” He leaned in closer to the poster. “Huh.”

“What are you talking about? I want bookshelves in here.”

He sat on her bed and raised his eyebrows. “For all your books.”

“For all the books whoever buys this place will have.”

“Because normal people require storage for several hundred books.”

“Normal people have knickknacks they need to display.”

He snorted. “Right. What this inn really needs is more infrastructure for the display of knickknacks.”

She’d been getting a bit indignant, but she couldn’t help but laugh at that. “You’re a really bad rescuee, Sawyer.”

She’d been trying to lighten the mood, but he sighed and buried his head in his hands.

She lowered herself onto the bed and scooted back so she was sitting against the headboard, only belatedly realizing that last time she’d sat on a bed with Sawyer, bad things had happened. Good bad things.

She was so mixed up about that kiss. It should have faded by now. It had been a month, and Sawyer appeared not to have given it a second thought. He seemed to really believe his whole “overcalibration” theory. She…was not recalibrated. In fact, the more time elapsed, the larger the kiss loomed. She certainly thought about it enough—if enough meant “all the time.” But she had learned to live with it, with this kiss forever lurking just below the surface of her consciousness. “Sawyer, can I give you some friendly advice?”