Page 23 of Brushed By Moonlight

Bene must have caught my expression. “You did tell us to rearrange if we wanted to.”

“Thefurniture. I said, rearrange thefurniture.”

He made a face. “Okay, okay. But, hell. Would you want to room with a vampire?”

“No.” I slapped a hand against the partition frame. “I wouldn’t.”

“Smart.” He chuckled. “Not that this will hold him if he really wanted to get through.”

“No, but it will remind him he’s not wanted.”

“Good luck with that,” he muttered, then caught himself. “I mean, good plan.”

“Do you have a better one?”

“No. But for whatever it’s worth, I think he’ll play by the rules from now on.”

I snorted and got back to sawing planks. Enough for a double layer.

Just in case.

* * *

Thanks to the partition — and the thick string of garlicandthe massive crucifix I’d dug out of storage to hang on my side of the structure — I slept slightly better that night, and even better the next. Over the next few days, things settled into something like a rhythm, and at the end of the week…

“Roux,” I said as breakfast wound down the following Saturday.

“Yes?” He turned, waiting.

A big improvement over our first meeting. These days, he actually noticed me.

Good. I was starting to make an impression. Even if that impression wasgrouchy, I would take it.

“Are you ready?” I asked, bracing myself for a decisiveno.

Roux looked less than thrilled, but he did nod. “We’re ready, as promised.”

“Yeah. Put us to work, boss,” Bene chirped.

I led them out to the north stable block, where I pulled the double doors open and motioned around.

“We need to make the property earn its keep by renting it out for events,” I explained. “You know — weddings, retreats, photo shoots…”

Bene shot Henrik a look, muttering, “Funerals…”

I ignored him the way I did when kids cracked jokes in class. “The plan is to start here, so we have a big, multipurpose space that we can start renting soon — next spring, I hope. When this is done, we’ll move on to creating accommodations and developing other venues.”

“We?” Roux asked, sounding a little worried.

“Not you guys,” I chuckled. “We have a three-year plan.”

“She means her, her sister, and her cousin,” Bene filled in.

So, ha. He’d actually listened. The only gold-star student in an otherwise challenging class.

“Why aren’t they here to help?” Roux asked.

“They’re coming as soon as they can. Dora is finishing her master’s degree, and Gen is…um, getting her affairs in order.”