1
HAZEL
Ialways thought the worst sound in the world was the hum of the office printer.
That endless whine that meant someone—usually me—was running reports no one would ever read.
But now, standing in my grandmother’s inn with the Atlantic wind shoving at the shutters and a silence so deep it makes my ears ring, I know I was wrong.
The worst sound in the world might be nothing.
No clicking keyboards.
No phone calls.
No background chatter about quarterly reviews.
Just the ocean, and the creak of a house too old to remember who owns it.
I hadn’t planned to come here. Not really.
When the lawyer called two weeks ago, I thought it was a mistake. My grandmother and I hadn’t spoken in years. But apparently, she hadn’t forgotten me—not entirely.
According to the will, I was her “sole surviving heir.”
And according to that same will, she’d left me this place—The Bradford Inn—on the condition that I live here and “see it through one full turn of the sun.”
One year.
No selling. No renting. No quitting.
If I broke the clause, the property would revert to “the trust.” The lawyer said it like a warning, his tone clipped like he didn’t fully understand why it was there either.
At first, I laughed.
A bed and breakfast on an island off the South Carolina coast?
I’d never even taken a proper vacation.
I managed human resources for a logistics firm in downtown Chicago. My life revolved around routine and control. Order. I color-coded my inbox. I measured my coffee grounds by weight. I kept my hair in a bun so tight it made my eyes look more alert than I felt.
I wasn’t the type of woman who inherited inns.
And yet here I was, holding a key that looked older than me, staring at six rooms full of ghosts and peeling paint.
“Miss Bradford?”
The voice came from the doorway—soft, Southern, and edged with years of habit.
I turned. A woman in her sixties stood framed by the weak afternoon light, wearing a faded floral dress and a half apron. Her posture was straight, her hair gray and pinned, her expression something between suspicion and sorrow.
“Maude Williamson?” I asked, my voice catching on the name.
She nodded once. “You favor your mother, but you’ve got your grandmother’s eyes.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to that.
Compliment? Curse? Both?
