Page 111 of The Sugar Maple Inn

I wasn’t using you.

I’m not going to claim it was love at first sight or fate or any of the bullshit people say when they’re trying to make something messy sound poetic. What I will say is this: Somewhere between you dumping appetizers on me and me beating you at Monopoly, you became more important than the inn. More important than the treasure. More important than being right.

You should have that place, Grace. You NEED it, not because you’re desperate or running out of options, but because you’ve earned it. Because you’ve spent fourteen years putting everyone else first and you deserve something that’s yours.

Most of all, though, that inn needs you. Needs your vision. Your passion. Your ability to see potential in broken things. It needs someone who’ll fill it with warmth instead of treating it like another line item in a portfolio.

So I bought it for you.

Before you throw this letter away—and I know you’re thinking about it—let me explain. I know you want to buy it yourself. I respect that. So here are the terms:

Interest-free loan. Thirty-year repayment schedule. You can pay it back at whatever pace works for you. If you want to make payments of five dollars a month, fine. If you want to pay it all back in five years, also fine. The property is yours. The deed will be in your name.

I don’t want to be your landlord or your business partner or anything else that gives me power over your dream. I just want you to have it.

Consider it an apology for walking away. For shutting down. For proving you right about rich men who can’t see past their own egos.

Or don’t. Consider it whatever you want.

But please, Grace. Take the inn. Build your dream. Show Solace Springs what I saw from the start. What you’re capable of.

You deserve this.

Reese, forever your WildTrailGuide

Grace read it twice. Then three times.

Her hands were shaking.

Her vision was blurring.

Oh God, she was crying. Actually crying. Tears dripping on to expensive letterhead and smudging the ink.

He’d bought her the inn.

Interest-free loan. Her name on the deed. No strings. No control. Just…giving her what she needed because he could.

No. Because he wanted to. Because…he felt something for her?

And the truth was, she didn’t want the inn without him. Not really. Oh, she could run it. She had the vision, the plans, the sheer bloody-minded determination to make it work. But it wouldn’t be right. Wouldn’t be what it could be because their two visions had tangled up together like the roots of those sugar maples on the island. His conservation expertise and her hospitality heart. His ability to see the big picture and her knack for the details that made people feel at home. His resources and her relentless refusal to give up.

The inn needed both of them. She knew that now. Knew it in her bones the same way she knew Zach needed her, the same way she knew when the café was about to have a rush just by the feel of the morning air.

“You absolute idiot,” Grace whispered to the empty apartment. “You stupid, emotionally constipated idiot.”

She’d been so wrong about him.

Grace grabbed her phone. Pulled up his contact.

Her thumb hovered over his name.

What would she even say? Sorry I assumed the worst? Sorry I didn’t give you a chance to explain? Sorry I’m an idiot who’s spent so long being left that I forgot how to recognize when someone was actually staying?

Or maybe just: Thank you. And I’m sorry. Fancy a game of Monopoly?

She pressed call.

It rang once. Twice. Three times.