Rafe nodded solemnly. “Understood. Are you ready, or do you want to change first?”

“Change.” I handed Eddie to Rafe. “Be down in a flash,” I said, running up the stairs. In the bedroom, I changed quickly from the jeans and sweater I’d worn for dessert into the coziness of fleece pants, an old T-shirt, and a fleece sweater.

Dressed in my regular Sunday night attire, I went back downstairs, my hand skimming the oak handrail Rafe kept muttering about. He was insistent that it wasn’t quite right and that one of these days he’d replace it. I had no idea what he was talking about—to me it was fine, even better than fine—but Rafe had milled, finished, and installed it, so it was understandable that he could find flaws that no one else would ever notice.

This, I’d found, was the downside of renovating your own home. Years ago, soon after I’d moved permanently to Chilson, Rafe had purchased a fixer-upper to end all fixer-uppers. It was Shingle-style and had a great location, right next to a marina, but it was also large, a century old, run-down, and chopped up into multiple apartments. Oddly, I’d just purchased an adorable little houseboat and moored it at that same marina, where I used to live from May through mid-October. When it got too cold, I moved up to stay with my aunt Frances in her boardinghouse.

But everything was different now. Aunt Frances had married Otto Bingham, a very nice man, and sold the boardinghouse to our cousin Celeste. Rafe had proposed to me; I’d accepted and moved into a gorgeous house. Just a few months ago, he’d told me he’d been renovating it with me in mind all along, and I still got sniffly when I thought about it.

In the living room, Rafe was already settled on the couch under a blanket, his long legs stretched out on the ottoman. Eddie was on top of Rafe’s legs, and a fire crackled in the fireplace. Everything was set for our Sunday night: Netflixing the next episode of a ten-year-old Australian television show we’d gotten hooked on in December.

“How is The Blonde doing?” Rafe patted the space on the couch next to him, carefully not dislodging Eddie. “Still pregnant?”

“As pregnant as I’ve ever seen anyone.” And her pregnant status had overridden our planning session for helping Ryan. Indigestion, she said, but her green face concerned me enough to call her husband. Scruffy said it probably was indeed indigestion, but he told her to get home and, shockingly, she did, proof that miracles happened.

Rafe tossed the right half of the blanket over me and I snuggled in, wondering how I’d gotten so lucky.