“Yeah, you’re staying here.” Wallace sounded just as determined, though without the intensity that was exuding off Harrison in waves. “It’s my house, and I’ll invite whoever I damn well please to stay in it.”

Sophie looked back and forth between them, a smile playing at her lips despite the gravity of the conversation. They were literally fighting for the same thing, and neither one of them seemed to notice the irony of it.

“With such polite offers from you both, how can I refuse?” she said sweetly. “I’ll call my sisters and have one of them bring me a bag. But I’ll be staying on the couch until you can work something better out between you. I’m not about to sleep in a room that hasn’t been touched in over two decades. I didn’t want to have to admit it to two such robust outdoorsmen as yourselves, but I’m scared of ghosts.”

“The devil you are,” Harrison said, watching her. “You aren’t scared of anything.”

“Of this kind of ghost?” she asked. Of the past, of the woman who somehow broke these two glorious, hardheaded men? “Are you kidding? I’m terrified.”

* * *

Despite her most earnest protestations, Sophie ended up in Harrison’s bedroom. The weird embargo on the room that had belonged to his mother stayed in place, but instead of letting her crash on the couch like she wanted, he insisted she take the privacy and comfort of his room instead.

“That couch is too damn lumpy,” he’d said as though it were the clincher in the argument.

It had been another one of those moments that could have easily riled her temper—she was just as capable of sleeping on lumps as the next girl, thank you very much—but Harrison’s motives had been nothing but chivalrous. Well, mostly.

It’s the least I can do after subjecting you to all that.

I mean it—there could be things living in that couch that no human should have to cohabitate with.

Goddammit, Sophie, would you stop being difficult and just do as I ask for once?

With such obvious displays of affection on the table, she had no choice but to relent. Besides, there was something so deliciously forbidden about being invited into the place where Harrison Parks slept. Unlike the rest of the house, it was cozy and neat and incredibly like him. The wallpaper was a more masculine blue pinstripe than the faded florals in the hallway, and the floors had been meticulously sanded and redone sometime in the past decade. She’d almost expected him to go for sleek metallics and modern fixtures, but all the pieces had the worn look of well-loved furniture—antiques, probably, and as old as the house itself.