That stopped me.
Camille pulled out her phone.
The lock screen showed her standing beside another woman and two teenage boys on a beach.
I looked at Marcus.
He rubbed both hands over his face.
“Camille is a real estate broker.”
I said nothing.
“She also manages renovations for investment properties,” he continued. “That’s what the transfers were for.”
“Then why the secrecy?”
Marcus looked toward the farmhouse.
I followed his gaze.
“And why,” I asked slowly, “does Sophie have a bedroom in there?”
Marcus’s shoulders dropped.
“Because Sophie is going to live here.”
Something inside me broke.
I actually stepped backward.
“So that’s it.”
“What?”
“You were planning to leave.”
Marcus looked horrified.
“Leave you?”
“Who else?”
“No.”
“Then who exactly is supposed to live here with Sophie?”
Marcus stared at me.
Then he said two words I wasn’t prepared for.
“You are.”
I blinked.
“What?”
“This is your house.”
For several seconds, I genuinely couldn’t understand the sentence.
Marcus pointed behind me.
“Not mine. Not Camille’s. Yours.”
“Stop.”
“I’m serious.”
“No.”
“Elena—”
“Do not turn this into some ridiculous explanation because you got caught.”
He didn’t argue.
Instead, he reached into his truck and pulled out a flashlight.
“Come with me.”
I didn’t move.
“Please.”
Tessa touched my arm.
“Maybe hear him.”
I followed Marcus around the side of the farmhouse.
The light swept across the property.
That was when I saw what darkness had hidden.
Behind the house stood a restored barn.
Not new.
Old timber.
Fresh roof.
A row of repaired stall doors.
Beyond it, new fencing stretched across the field.
Near the eastern side of the property stood the frame of a chicken coop.
The opening faced the rising sun.
Exactly east.
My feet stopped.
Marcus noticed.
“You told me about your grandmother’s chickens on our third date.”
I said nothing.
“You said she always complained that your grandfather built the first coop facing the wrong direction, so she made him rebuild it where morning light came through.”
My throat closed.
Nobody remembered that story.
At least, I hadn’t thought anyone did.
Marcus continued walking.
“There’s space behind the barn for a garden.”
The flashlight moved.
Raised beds had already been marked into the earth.
“And Camille found an agricultural contractor who can restore the old orchard.”
I stared across the field.
Apple trees.
