It wasn’t that he wished bad things on his dad—hell, for a second he thought maybe he should offer to drive him home, but that was going too far. One breakthrough at a time. But he did suddenly see things Evie’s way.

The reaction he usually had to seeing his father was a habitual one. There was a groove worn into his psyche that his dad could slip right into, like a kid making a beeline for a favorite slide at the playground. In the past, that reaction, that fight-or-flight response, had been justified by the circumstances. He’d been a child, and his father had been an abusive asshole. You never knew when he entered a room if you—or your kid sister—were going to be safe.

You never knew if, next time the social worker came, she was going to see through your lies. Everything was fine with his dad. No, he didn’t mind “helping out” with his sister.

But everything was different now. Maybe it wasn’t “fine.” That was probably an impossibly high bar when it came to Charles. Evie had said, “You won.” That didn’t seem quite right, either. It was more that a war had ended without him noticing. He didn’t have to let his father slide down that groove anymore.

It was an astonishing thought.

So astonishing that while he stood there marveling as his dad’s taxi pulled away, Sadie managed to drop the bag of cinnamon rolls on the hood of his squad car and flee inside.

So yeah, there weren’t enough bookshelves in the world to thank Evie for springing him from that particular mental prison. For rescuing him yet again. And since he didn’t know how to actually thank her, he just kept building stuff for her.

Well, not her, he reminded himself. None of it was for her, as she herself had pointed out. It was for the inn. Which would soon belong to someone else. It might help her sell the place, but it wasn’t for her.

When she went home to Toronto for Christmas, he missed her. But it was a good reminder of where she really lived. She went home for Christmas. That was how she had phrased it.

Also a good reminder? When she started texting him on New Year’s eve while he was finishing the front desk.

It started with her usual dry Evie humor. She sent a picture of what must have been a party with her colleagues, because it was a bunch of women sipping drinks inside what looked like a library. Librarians gone wild, she’d written.

An hour later there was another one, of her grinning next to a banner that read “Happy New Year.” New Year’s EVE! Get it? she wrote. What are you doing?

He put down his paintbrush.

Sawyer: Final coat of varnish on the front desk.

Eve: You’re at the in?