When Landon Wood and Joy Kalm meet, they feel an instant connection and quickly become inseparable. One day shortly after they’ve met, they take a trip to view The Hart Farm, an idyllic property located in a remote area. It’s perfect, with room for Landon to set up his carpentry shop and Joy to have an art studio. In love and smitten with the farm, they decide on the spot to buy it. As they spend their days creating art and their evenings listening to music and drinking wine, they can barely believe their good fortune. However, as the heat of summer and their initial infatuation wanes, Landon and Joy realize how little they know about each other or the house they now share. They begin to feel a mounting sense of danger and uncertainty about what they used to delight in--the mysterious and tragic history of The Hart Farm, the wolves that prowl in the dark of night, and the near stranger they share a bed with.

Marty grabbed the handle and dragged the old slatted door open, which took some effort. He stood back and hipped his hands.

“Here it is. Like the listing says, it’s in good condition.” He looked at Landon. “Handy as it sounds you are you should have her turned into a shop in no time.”

Landon looked around. Light seeped in through the cracks and the holes in the barn board walls. A single bale of hay remained in the loft, the hay itself old and dust dry. The ladder leading to the loft looked solid. The smell of wood and hay and long-rotted manure hung faintly in the air. The stalls held no real evidence of the animals they once contained: hard-packed earth where hooves might have been, a bit of old straw strewn and worked into the corners, empty wooden troughs in each, rusted faucets that whined and produced no water when Landon tested them. An old wood-handled shovel leaned against the gate of one of the stalls and beside it a tin bucket, flipped over like a stool.

“What do you think?”

Landon nodded. He took the shovel and tested the heft of it. Stood the handle in the ground so the blade was level with his shoulder. He held the shovel there, one hand around the throat of it.

Joy thought he looked like one half of American Gothic. She moved in beside him, completing the image. She touched the small of his back. She turned to Marty.

A family of sparrows bantered in the rafters. One descended and perched on a post nearby. Joy watched it. She was certain the bird looked at her.

Marty folded his arms and cleared his throat. “There are a few things I have to tell you before we go any further. You remember I mentioned the last Robert Hart. And Molly.”

Landon and Joy waited.

“See—the thing is—one day Molly up and disappeared.”

Joy held up a hand. “Wait.”

Marty looked at her.

This is where the transaction had ended for every other prospective buyer. Whatever it was Marty was about to say, it had been bad enough to shatter the glass that protected the portrait of what The Hart Farm might be. Joy did not want to shatter the glass.

She turned to Landon. “What if we said we didn’t want to know?” Marty, collecting on the good luck he felt he was due:

“Well. That’s up to you.”

Landon nodded. Joy smiled and tucked her hair.