Inheritance (The Lost Bride Trilogy, #1)(24)

They loaded the suitcase, the box, the bottle, then just held on to each other.

“Since we met, you’ve never lived more than ten minutes away.” Sonya pressed her face into Cleo’s hair.

“Text me when you get there.”

“I will. I will. I have to go before I do a lot more than water up. I love you.”

“Love you right back. Embrace the change, Son.”

“I’m going to try.”

But she kept the image of her friend, waving with both hands, inside her head and heart and she drove away.

She’d topped off her gas tank the night before, so she wouldn’t need to stop. Then stopped anyway due to a nervous bladder and a gnawing need for more caffeine.

Though her stomach churned too much to risk a cookie, she sipped a Coke and let the GPS guide her.

The landscape changed as she drove into Maine and shifted to the coast road. She had the ocean, sandy beaches and rocky ones. Little towns that struck her more as villages.

Forests, space. And, she couldn’t deny, beauty.

She’d been a city or suburban creature all of her life. And though she found the inlets, the bays, the endless stretch of the Atlantic amazing, the sturdy charm of seacoast towns fascinating, she wondered how she’d manage.

No quick runs to the market. No impulsive trips to a local restaurant or bar. No friendly neighbors next door or kids riding bikes down the sidewalk.

She had to remind herself she wasn’t a coward—and never had been. But the nerves kept jumping under her skin.

At just over the three-hour mark, she drove into the town (village? hamlet?) of Poole’s Bay.

Charming, yes, propped on its finger of land into the bay. A bay silver under the leaden sky. Clapboard buildings—white, colonial blue, soft yellow—ran up and down what the GPS called High Street.

Buildings with covered porches and shutters, some with smoke curling out of chimneys.

She spotted a restaurant called the Lobster Cage, another called Gino’s Pizzeria.

She wouldn’t starve.

She spotted a bookstore, called exactly that: A Bookstore.

People moved along the skinny sidewalk in their heavy winter gear.

She was out of town again in less than a minute, and promised herself she’d explore the other side of the village, the side streets, the bay.

But for now, she was rambling along the coast and climbing.

The peaceful silver bay was behind her, and the sea made itself known crashing against a rocky beach, churning under cliffs that rose jagged and fierce enough to stop her breath.

The road narrowed until she wondered if two cars could pass without scraping fenders. It snaked so she slowed to a crawl with the cliffs and windy sea on one side, a thick forest of shadows and blanketing snow on the other.

Mr. Doyle had said remote, she remembered. And someone had plowed since the last snowfall, as the narrow, climbing, winding road was clear for the most part.

Not that she feared winter driving, but her experience there lay centered in the city. But as long as the road stayed clear, she’d be fine. And the GPS told her she’d be there in …

She rounded a curve and there it was, rising up, spreading out on the cliffs under the brooding sky. Astonished, she braked.

She’d thought herself prepared. She had the photos, she had her father’s drawings. But there it stood on its carpet of snow, atop the rise of cliffs and over the lashing sea.

Like something out of a novel, she thought, or a classy horror movie, with its twin turrets and many windows, the deep blue cladding against stone that showed dull gold in the gloom.

There rose the big weeper, its curving branches glittering with ice. The house had the forest at its back, like a wall of green.

Smoke rose in lazy curls from the chimneys, and someone had shoveled paved walkways. One led to the wide, covered portico at the entrance.

And Sonya fell in love.

However foolish, she felt the house waited for her, and stood ready to take her in. Nerves conquered, sheer delight rising, she drove forward.

A muscular black truck was parked at the far end of the main walkway, and she pulled in beside it. She got out, simply stood in the kick of wind and studied what, through fate or lineage or the luck of the draw, could be hers.

She saw a shadow move across a window on the second floor. Someone watching for her arrival, she thought. As she lifted a hand to wave, the main doors opened.

She’d expected Mr. Doyle, but the man who stepped out, hatless, a parka tossed over a flannel shirt, was considerably younger.

The wind caught at his hair—a lot of black hair—as he strode toward her in scarred brown boots.

She caught the resemblance quickly—the shape of the face, the blade of nose, the sharply carved lips curved in a quiet smile.

And she couldn’t mistake the eyes, that wonderfully eerie blue rimmed in black.

As those eyes held hers, she smiled back at him.

“I’m Sonya. You look like your father. Oliver Doyle III?” She made it a question as she held out a hand. She’d expected smooth lawyer’s hands, but his had the feel of a man who worked with them.

“Guilty. Welcome to Lost Bride Manor.”

“I’m sorry. Lost Bride Manor?”

“So the locals dubbed it a couple centuries ago. How was the drive from Boston?”

“Uneventful.”

“Best kind, and you beat the snow. Let’s get you out of the wind, then I’ll get your bags.”