The moment the engine started, and the vehicle pulled away down the service road, the space around Sabrina felt larger.Quieter.Too quiet.
She stared at the spot where Kara's SUV had disappeared around the bend, then let her gaze drift slowly back over the land.The ruins, tape, and grass that had somehow survived.
"So," Colby said, his voice low."You all right?"
"No," she inhaled deeply and let it out slowly."But I'm here, and I'm feeling stronger."
"That's good."
She huffed out a breath that was almost a laugh.Almost."I've never been brought so low."
He unfolded his arms, letting them hang loose at his sides."You want to get away from the rubble for a minute?"
She blinked."Where would we go?It's all rubble."
"Not all of it."He tipped his head toward the back of the property, toward the tree line she'd been carefully not looking at."Walk with me."
Her first instinct was to refuse.Exhaustion, grief, and sleeplessness weighed down her legs.Her head ached.But standing here, staring at blackened beams and thinking about developers with glossy brochures and bulldozers, made the walls close in even without walls around her.
"Okay," she said.
He lifted the yellow tape so she could duck under without snagging the borrowed sweater Bree had found for her—soft gray cashmere, too nice for this, but warm.They skirted the worst of the debris, following the curve of the old driveway around the side of the house.The asphalt was cracked in places, weeds pushing up at the edges, but the line of it was familiar under her feet.She'd walked this path a thousand times.
Once they passed the ruin, the land opened up.
Grass stretched out behind the house site, uneven and a little wild, where guests had rarely wandered.The old kitchen garden lay dormant, beds overgrown with weeds and the rusted ghosts of tomato cages neither she nor her grandmother had ever gotten around to replacing.Beyond that, the ground sloped gently down toward the tree line, where afternoon light filtered through branches to dapple the earth in shifting patterns of gold and green.
She had spent countless evenings back here as a kid, picking raspberries until her fingers stained red, listening to her grandparents trade stories and gentle teasing while they pulled weeds and checked on seedlings.
She had avoided this angle since the fire, her attention pulled again and again to what she had lost at the front.Now, with Colby beside her, the view shifted.Expanded.
He stuck his hands in his pockets as they walked, his stride easy and unhurried."You ever notice how big this place is?"
"It's always been this big," she said.
"Yeah, but did you notice?"He nodded toward the trees."From out front, it feels like the inn and the driveway and the porch.That's the story the property tells.Standing back here, you can see the rest.You've got room."
"For what?"she asked.
"Whatever you want," he said.
She let her gaze travel across the landscape.The slight rise near the tree line, catching the light.The natural clearing to the left, where overflow parking had gone during festivals.The way the land dipped just enough in one corner to hide the road from view entirely.
She had always known these things in the way a person knew their own kitchen in the dark—instinctive, unremarked.She had not thought of them as anything more than background.Scenery behind the main event.
"You sound like Kara," she said.
"I do not own a blazer," he said."And I'm not trying to sell your land out from under you.I'm just pointing out what's here."
"What's here is a burned-out house," she said.
"What's here is a burned-out house on good land with utilities and a killer view," he said."That part matters too."
She looked toward the inn's remains.From this distance, they looked almost small against the stretch of property behind them.Less like a catastrophe and more like a single piece of a larger puzzle.
Colby pointed with his chin toward the overgrown garden beds."Those were your grandmother's, right?"
"Yeah."Sabrina's mouth softened despite herself."She used to rope me into weeding out here every summer.Said it built character."
