The bus smelled like stale french fries and someone's overpowering cologne.
Nora pressed her forehead against the window and watched Massachusetts blur into New Hampshire, then finally Maine. Trees everywhere, dense and green in a way Brooklyn never was. Her neck ached from the angle and her legs had gone numb three hours ago, but the ticket hadn't exactly come with luxury seating options.
The guy next to her had fallen asleep somewhere around Portsmouth, his head lolling onto her shoulder twice before she'd elbowed him awake. Now he was hunched against hisown window, drooling slightly. Small mercies.
Her phone buzzed. Mel's response finally coming through: *Sorry for your loss. Take the time you need.*
Which probably meant she still had a job. Or Mel was just being nice before firing her on Tuesday. Hard to tell.
Sophie had texted too: *You better call me when you get there. And take pictures of the house. I want to see this place.*
Sophie was the only person who knew the whole story—the debt, the rejection emails, the three AM panic attacks Nora pretended weren't happening. They'd gone to art schooltogether, back when Nora still believed talent and hard work mattered more than connections and trust funds.
*Will do,* Nora typed back. *Funeral tomorrow. Wish me luck.*
*You don't need luck. You need wine. And probably therapy but we'll start with wine.*
That pulled a smile out of her. Sophie always knew what to say.
The bus pulled off the highway onto smaller roads, winding through towns that looked like they'd been frozen in time. White churches with tall steeples. General stores with wooden signs. American flags hanging from every other porch.Then she saw the sign: Welcome to Sunset Cove, Population 3,847.
Something shifted in Nora's chest. Recognition maybe, though that didn't make sense. She'd been a kid last time, and kids didn't remember things like town signs or population counts.
But she remembered the feeling of this place. The weight of the air, thick with salt and fog. The way everything moved slower here, like the ocean had taught the whole town to breathe at tide-pace.
The bus station turned out to be a bench outside a gas station. Nora grabbed her duffel bag—everything she'd need for three days crammed into one beat-up bag—and steppedinto air that tasted like childhood.
Ocean. Pine trees. Something else, something sweet she couldn't name.
A black town car sat in the parking lot, looking wildly out of place next to pickup trucks and SUVs covered in beach stickers. An older man in a suit stood beside it, checking his phone.
"Ms. Chen?" He looked up as she approached.
"That's me."
"Robert Whitmore." He extended a hand and she shook it, suddenly aware of how she must look. Wrinkled jeans, oversized sweater with a coffee stain on the sleeve, hair in a messy bun that had given up any pretense of style six hours ago.He didn't seem to care. Just opened the back door for her like she was someone important.
The car was stupid nice inside. Leather seats, that new car smell, bottled water waiting in cup holders. Nora sank into it and felt her spine decompress.
"It's about a fifteen-minute drive to the estate," Whitmore said, pulling out of the parking lot. "I thought you might want to see it before tomorrow's service."
"The estate." The word still felt weird in her mouth.
"Your grandmother's property. She lived there for over fifty years."
Nora stared out the window asdowntown Sunset Cove rolled past. It looked exactly like the Google images, except more real. Actual people walking actual dogs. A diner with a line out the door. Bookshop, hardware store, ice cream place with picnic tables.
It looked nice. Safe. The kind of place where people probably knew their neighbors and left their doors unlocked.
Nothing like Brooklyn.
"Did you know her well?" Nora asked. "My grandmother?"
Whitmore's eyes met hers in the rearview mirror. "I handled her legal affairs for twenty years. She was a remarkable woman. Very private, very particular about how she wanted things done."
"We weren't close." Nora felt like she needed to explain. "I mean, when I was little, yeah. But then..."
She trailed off because she didn't actually know what had happened. One summer she'd gone to Gran's house like always. The next summer, nothing. No invitation, no explanation. Her mom had been vague about it, and then her mom got sick and there were bigger things to worry about.
"She spoke of you often," Whitmore said quietly.
That knocked something loose in Nora's chest. "She did?""She kept track. Your art school graduation, your shows—she knew."
The shows that nobody came to. The art school degree was basically expensive wallpaper at this point. Gran had known about all of it and never reached out.
Nora turned back to the window so he wouldn't see her face.
They left downtown behind, following a coast road that curved along rocky beaches. Houses got bigger the further they went, tucked back behind trees and stone walls. Money houses. The kind with names instead of numbers.
Then Whitmore turned onto a private drive, and Nora's breath just stopped.The house rose up through the trees like something from a dream. Victorian, all turrets and gables and wraparound porches. Pale blue paint peeling in places, shutters that had seen better days, but still. Still magnificent in that faded glory kind of way.
And beyond it, through gaps in the overgrown gardens, she could see the ocean. Endless and gray and exactly how she remembered it.
"Oh my god," she whispered.
The car crunched up the gravel drive. Nora saw it all in flashes: the garden shed she'd played in, the massive oak tree she'd climbed, the path down to the beach where she'd collected sea glass for hours.It came flooding back. Not just images but feelings. Running through those gardens. Painting in the studio with Gran. The sound of her grandmother's laugh, low and warm.
Being happy. Being safe.
The car stopped in front of the house and Nora got out on shaky legs.
Up close, she could see how much the place had deteriorated. Paint curling off siding, shutters hanging crooked, porch steps sagging in the middle. The gardens had gone wild, roses and hydrangeas tangled with weeds. One of the turret windows was cracked.
But it was still beautiful. Still home ina way nothing else had been since.
"The funeral is tomorrow at two," Whitmore was saying. "Sunset Cove Methodist Church. Then we'll return here for the reading at four. I should mention—"
He stopped as another car pulled up. Sleek, black, expensive in a way that made Nora's town car look like a toy. A BMW maybe, or something equally ridiculous.
The door opened and a man got out.
Tall. That was Nora's first thought. Tall and built like he spent serious time at a gym. Dark hair, sharp jaw, designer suit that probably cost more than her entire year's rent. He moved like someone who was usedto people getting out of his way.
And he looked pissed.
"Mr. Ashford," Whitmore said, and something in his voice went carefully. "I wasn't expecting you until tomorrow."
The man—Ashford—barely glanced at him. His eyes locked on Nora instead, cold and assessing.
"You must be the granddaughter." His voice matched his face. Sharp, controlled, annoyed.
"Nora," she said, because apparently her mouth still worked. "Nora Chen."
"Damien Ashford." He didn't offer his hand. "We need to talk."
"I'm not sure this is the appropriatetime—" Whitmore started.
"It's fine." Damien's smile was all edges. "She should know what she's getting into. Might as well be now."
He walked past them both, up the sagging porch steps, and pulled out a key. His key. He unlocked the door to Nora's grandmother's house like he owned it.
Maybe he did. Maybe that's what this was about.
Nora's stomach dropped as realization hit. Whatever inheritance she'd been hoping for, whatever fantasy she'd built during that eight-hour bus ride—this man was about to destroy it. She could see it in the set of his shoulders, the wayhe held himself.
This wasn't going to be simple. This wasn't going to be easy.
This was going to be a fight.
Damien stood in the doorway, backlit and imposing. "You coming? Or do you want to hear about your inheritance in the driveway?"
Nora looked at Whitmore. He gave a small, apologetic shrug.
She grabbed her duffel bag and followed Damien Ashford into her grandmother's house, into whatever mess she'd just inherited.
The door closed behind her with a sound like fate clicking into place.