Chapter Three: Homecoming

Deidre

Stepping onto my grandma’s property after all these years felt eerie. Without her here, the place I spent so much of my childhood at just felt like an empty cottage in a plot of woods.

She was gone, and she took all of her energy and love with her.

“So, what do you think?” I asked the cat, who I’d decided to name Stallone, as I clung to him to stop myself from crying. “I used to spend a lot of time up here, believe it or not.”

The small patch of yard she kept was starting to get overgrown, but the rocks I’d painted as a child that marked the path to the house were still there, emblazoned with childish renditions of lizards and bugs, albeit a bit less vibrant than I remembered them.

She would have seen these every time she left the cottage, probably missing me on those summer days when I used to skip across the stones pretending the ground was lava.

The corner of my lip tugged upward in spite of my grief. The time I did get to spend with her had been idyllic. I couldn’t have asked for a better place to spend my childhood than Moonhollow.

Maybe, even though she was gone, I’d be able to make a good life for myself here, away from the hustle and bustle of the city.

When we learned that she passed away and left me the cottage, Mom begged me not to move out here, citing my father’s disappearance as reason to stay far away from all of this . . . but she never loved Moonhollow the way I did.

Maybe the city suited her fine, but the woods have always been in my blood.

I set Stallone down on the porch so I could fish the house key out of my purse. The lawyer had it sent it to me when I was notified of my grandmother’s death, and it felt wrong to see it in a manilla envelope instead of in Grandma’s hand.

It felt strange to hold, especially now that I was here.

Grandma had always worn the key around her neck, and anytime I went somewhere in Moonhollow, I’d stuck by her side like I was her shadow. Unlike most people around these parts, she always kept the cottage locked up tight, whether we were in there or not.

I never knew what exactly she was trying to keep out, or if there was something she was trying to hide, but I supposed that if I was ever going to find out, it would be now.

The cottage was officially mine—all the paperwork has been taken care of—but once I put this key in that lock and walked through that door, it would actually feel real.

More real than I felt prepared for.

Taking a deep breath as though I was going to jump in deep water, I opened the door. Stallone scuttled in past my feet as I walked in, making himself at home.

Grandma only had one pet in here when I was growing up. Voltaire—an absolutely ancient rescue parrot that followed her everywhere.

He taught me my first swear words.

But she never brought in another animal after Voltaire died, so Stallone’s tiny paws would be the first to grace this house in decades.

At the very least, his presence would help me feel less alone in this old place full of so many memories.

The sheer sameness of it struck me. The cottage was like a time capsule for everything I’d ever loved. I almost expected to see my grandma walking out of the kitchen with flour on her apron and a fresh tray of berry danishes in her hands—but no such luck.

“Hi Grandma,” I called, dropping my luggage in the middle of the main room, closing my eyes as I tried to feel her presence. “I’m home.”

But to my surprise, I didn’t feel a thing—nothing but Stallone’s soft fur rubbing against my legs.

My chest ached at the nothingness. I hoped that I just hadn’t called loudly enough, but deep inside a cold loneliness settled in my heart.

“Grandma?” It couldn’t be right—she was the one who taught me that ghosts existed in the first place.

She wouldn’t pass on without at least sticking around to see that her will had been carried out, would she?

I knew we’d become estranged over the years since Mom took me away from Moonhollow, but for Grandma to leave everything to me in the will, she must have still cared.

Part of me hoped that I’d at least get the chance to tell her that I loved her, one more time.

Tears streamed down my cheeks when it finally sunk in that she was gone. The last time I saw my grandma really was the last time.

I was too late to say goodbye.

Drifting through the house like the ghost I had hoped to find, I took stock of my new home. Not much had changed over the years, but that also meant that not much had been repaired either, and now that task was going to fall to me.

My foot tapped against a sunken throw rug, and moving it confirmed what I’d feared—the floorboards in this spot were cracked and warped, and she’d just covered it with a rug rather than bring someone in to fix it.

Grandma never had much money—living mostly off the land, tending her tiny homestead and selling her baked goods to pay for what she called, “the extras” . . . those luxuries like electricity, and peppermints.

But even so, with as much as she used to have the Hawthorne brothers here helping her, I couldn’t believe no one would have helped her had she asked.

A lot had changed though—River both had a kid and died since I’d been gone, so maybe Grandma didn’t have the amount of help I thought she did.

Whatever the case might have been, it was on me now. Without rent to pay, my income as an author would be plenty to cover the bills and the repairs that I’d need to do to fix the place up.

It didn’t feel like home without her, but it was my house now, and I needed to take care of it. I’d settle in eventually, but only if I didn’t let the place fall apart in the meantime.

My mind lingered on the Hawthorne brothers—Grant Hawthorne specifically.

I didn’t recognize him at first, but that was fair, considering he was only a teenager when I last saw him. We’d both done a lot of growing up since then, but those deep green eyes were unmistakable.

The childhood crush I had on him had come back in full force the second our eyes met, embarrassingly enough.

But . . . I didn’t know if he was single, much less remotely interested in me. Between his brother apparently dying a year ago, and looking after his niece, he probably had a whole lot going on in his own life. Too much to get into a relationship with the new girl in town.

And I’d never had a relationship with particularly high stakes before anyway, preferring to keep things on the casual side.

When my dad disappeared, I learned how quickly life could change in one fell swoop, and I wasn’t comfortable letting someone close enough to me that I would be hurt again if they left.

So a grieving man helping to raise his niece should’ve been off limits. But . . . there was something about him, something that kept him on my mind even when I knew that even trying to get close to him would be a mistake.

But it’s not like I’d never made a mistake before.

Besides, coming back to Moonhollow was supposed to be my fresh start. Maybe . . . I could start my new life off by getting to know him.