Chapter One – Meryl
Oh boy.
Meryl sat in her car, staring at Pine Cottage, the little house she’d inherited from her great-aunt Hilda. To say it wasn’t what she’d expected, or what she remembered, would be an understatement.
Sure, she’d expected to have to fix things up. But the building in front of her looked as if it was barely standing at all.
It made her sad to see it this way. Hilda had loved this place so much. She’d taken such pride in keeping it up. But the cottage had been empty for some time now, and it showed.
The porch sagged to the left as if it had given up trying to stay level. Paint peeled from the window frames in long, tired curls. The three front steps looked as if they should not be stepped on. And Hilda’s much-loved garden, if you could still call it a garden, had gone completely feral, a riot of woody lavender, knee-high grass, and something thorny that had colonized the path with real commitment.
Meryl let out a slow breath and tightened her grip on the steering wheel.
Right. Okay. This was fine. A slightly bigger project than she’d expected, that was all. Different from the sort she usually took on, certainly. Pens and paper were normally her tools of choice. But she could do this.
She had the organizational skills to sort the place out, get the work done, and put it on the market.
She sat there a moment longer than she meant to, engine off, keys still in her hand.
Pine Cottage waited beyond the windshield, leaning and shabby and far worse than she’d prepared herself for. Even so, she had the sudden urge, no, the need, to get out of the car, to feel the air on her skin, to stand in front of the cottage properly without glass between her and it.
The lane behind her was narrow and shadowed by pine trees crowded close on both sides. Beyond the cottage, the mountains rose blue in the distance. It was the kind of place people escaped to. The kind of place Hilda had loved.
For a moment, Meryl could understand why.
Then she looked back at the house and had to swallow. Hilda had adored this cottage. She had kept it neat and welcoming and full of life. Seeing it like this felt wrong.
Better not to dwell on things she couldn’t change.
Instead, she reached for her notebook and pen on the passenger seat, opened the door, and stepped out.
The first thing she noticed was the smell.
Pine, warm earth, and beneath it the faded sweetness of lavender. Not much, but enough to catch her off guard. For a second, it was easy to imagine Hilda out here with her secateurs and a sunhat, muttering at the weeds as if they had personally offended her.
Meryl shut the car door and walked to the gate. It hung open on one hinge, the wood weathered gray and splitting with age.
She jotted down a single note.
Front garden and entry: first priority.
That felt better than listing every little thing. Better than looking too closely at the flowerpot lying on its side in the grass, or the way the path had nearly disappeared beneath moss and weeds.
The cottage looked worse up close, which was saying something. Neglect clung to it. The porch leaned. The paint had gone. The garden had run wild enough to make the whole place seem half-abandoned.
And that was the annoying part.
Because underneath all that neglect, Pine Cottage was lovely.
The stonework still held its warm, honeyed gray. The windows were generous and deep-set. The cottage sat in its clearing as if it belonged there, backed by dark pines and fronted by what had once been a carefully planned garden. Someone had placed this house here with care, and time still hadn’t quite managed to ruin that.
Meryl looked down at her notebook.
No room for sentimentality.
She crossed the path and stopped at the foot of the steps. Up close, the wood looked even less trustworthy. She tested the bottom one with her boot. It groaned, but held. The second gave softly under her weight, and she shifted quickly, reaching for the railing to steady herself.
The railing came away in her hand.
