Chapter 1 Homecoming #3
Dalton placed the letter gently on the table. “Her instructions were explicit. No sooner.”
Julia leaned back, crossing her arms. “So we wait.”
Emma touched the envelope with reverent fingers. “Mamma loved the Starfall. She said the sky always told the truth if you were brave enough to look up.”
Dalton nodded, his expression softening despite himself. “She spoke very fondly of that festival.”
A quiet washed over the room—thick, heavy, threaded with something almost electric.
Claire pressed a hand to the table, grounding herself.Twelve months.
A letter.
The festival.
She had come home intending to help sort out a financial mess and return to her carefully curated life in Seattle. She had not expected… this.
“We’ll need to see the financials,” Julia said briskly, lifting the folder. “And an audit of last season. And the projections for—”
Her voice cut off abruptly as the dining room door swung open.
A tall figure stood in the doorway.Rain-damp hair.Sea-salt jacket.Eyes the color of storm-touched cedar.
Walker Hale.
He hadn’t changed nearly enough for Claire’s comfort.
He held a toolbox in one hand and a coil of rope in the other, like he’d been fixing something on the docks.
His gaze swept across the room—past Julia, past Emma, straight to Claire.
And stopped.
The air shifted.Quiet.Immediate.Undeniable.
“Sorry,” he said, though his voice didn’t sound sorry at all. “Didn’t realize you’d started without me.”
Dalton blinked at him. “You are…?”
“Maintenance contractor,” Walker answered. His eyes didn’t leave Claire. “And a friend of the family.”
Dalton seemed unimpressed. “This is a private meeting.”
Walker leaned a shoulder against the frame, casual in a way that felt both familiar and unsettling. “Everything at the inn is my business. Especially now.”
Julia groaned softly. Emma grinned.Claire’s pulse stumbled.
Walker’s gaze softened—just fractionally—as he looked at her.
“Welcome home, Claire.”
It was not a question.Not an apology.Not the cautious hello she had expected.
It was a statement.Rooted.Steady.Like the tide returning.
Claire forced herself to breathe.
“Hi, Walker.”
Her voice betrayed her, cracking softly on his name.
He noticed. Of course he did.
And the way his eyes warmed told her he remembered everything she wished she had forgotten.
Dalton cleared his throat, the sound sharp enough to slice through the tension.
“As I was saying,” he began, “there are several financial matters we must address promptly.”
Walker pushed off the doorframe and set his toolbox down just inside the room, as if to say he was staying whether the lawyer liked it or not.
“I’m sure there are,” he said calmly. “Seeing as how your office has been calling the inn twice a week for the last three months.”
Claire turned to him. “Three months?”
Walker’s gaze stayed on Dalton. “At least.”
Dalton’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Some of those calls were simply standard collection reminders.”
“Some of them,” Walker said, “were not.”
Julia’s eyes narrowed. “You knew the inn was in trouble and didn’t call us.”
“I told your mamma I would,” Walker replied. “She told me not to. Said it wasn’t your problem.”
The words landed like a stone in Claire’s chest.Not your problem.
Of course, Mamma had said that. She had always been more concerned with her daughters’ hearts than with her own comfort.
Emma tangled her fingers together on the table. “She didn’t want us to worry.”
“She didn’t want you to feel obligated,” Walker said quietly. “There’s a difference.”
Dalton shifted his weight, clearly annoyed by the detour. “Be that as it may, the situation is now your legal responsibility. The inn’s mortgage is in arrears, and several vendors have outstanding invoices. Your mamma was… optimistic about future bookings solving past deficits.”
Emma winced. “Optimistic is a nice way to say terrible with money.”
“She was not terrible with money,” Claire said sharply. “She was terrible at putting profit before people.”
“That might be noble,” Dalton replied, “but banks are notoriously unmoved by noble.”
Julia leaned forward. “Let’s see the numbers.”
For the next twenty minutes, Dalton walked them through the inn’s financial state: a slow but steady decline in off-season bookings, a costly roof repair after last winter’s windstorms, a leaky boiler that had finally given up in February, and a line of credit stretched thin trying to keep up.
Claire listened, her brain automatically shifting into triage mode. Each new piece of information slotted into place: where costs could be cut, where revenue might be increased, which problems were urgent, and which could be managed with time.
When Dalton finally finished his overview, he closed the folder with a soft thud.
“In summary, the inn is viable for the next twelve months if,” he emphasized the word, “certain conditions are met. Increased occupancy. Reduced discretionary spending. No further major repairs.”
Claire glanced toward the window, where she could see the edge of the porch roof. She knew for a fact the shingles over the west corner had been iffy ten years ago.
Hope was not a business strategy.
“We can do it,” Emma said quickly. “We always get full during the meteor festival. And the fall colors bring tourists. And the Christmas boat parade crowd—”
“The festival alone will not fix this,” Dalton said. “You need a comprehensive plan.”
Julia crossed her arms. “We’re not idiots.”
“Of course not, Ms. Hastings,” he replied. “I’m simply obligated to present the facts.”
“It’s Mrs.,” she corrected automatically. “On paper, anyway.” Then she seemed to regret the admission and shoved her hair behind her ear with unnecessary force. “What happens after the twelve months?”
Dalton slid a final document toward them. “At that point, if the three of you unanimously decide that the inn is not sustainable, you may list the property for sale. The proceeds, after debts are paid, will be divided equally.”
Claire stared at the black-and-white print like it had personally betrayed her.
One year.
One year to save the place that had built her, broken her, and haunted her.
“What if we decide we want to keep it?” Emma asked.
“Then you must continue to meet the financial obligations.” Dalton folded his hands. “Given current trends, that will require substantial changes to the way this establishment is managed.”
He said this establishment the same way some people say 'this mess'.
Walker shifted again, the movement drawing Claire’s attention back to him. He had stayed quiet during the financial rundown, but not inattentive. She could feel his focus on the room, on her, like a steady pulse.
“What kind of changes?” Claire asked.
Dalton opened his laptop, tapped a few keys, and spun it so they could see a chart on the screen.
“You have a strong brand tied to the meteor festival and the Starfall Bay mythology. Your mamma leaned into that in small ways—decor, events, themed weekends. It could be expanded. Repackaged. Marketed. You have an asset most inns would envy: a story.”
Emma brightened. “Mamma always said stories kept the lights on.”
“And your location,” Dalton continued. “A short drive from Seattle. Picturesque. Ideal for retreats, small weddings, film crews, even.”
He said the last part offhandedly, but it stuck to Claire’s ribs.
Film crews.
Starfall Bay looked like the kind of place people would watch on screen and wish they could visit.
Mamma had always joked about it when they were younger.
“Someday they’ll bring cameras here,” she’d say, tying on an apron. “And you girls will be the ones telling them where to point.”
Claire’s throat tightened. “Did Mamma leave any guidance for how she wanted us to handle all of this? Beyond the twelve-month rule and the letter?”
Dalton hesitated. “Not in legal terms. She did, however, dictate one more… personal request.”
He reached into the folder again and withdrew a second envelope. This one was smaller, the paper slightly wrinkled, as if it had been carried around in someone’s pocket for a while.
On the front, in Mamma’s looping handwriting:
For Claire.Open when you are standing in the lobby.
Claire’s vision blurred for a second. She blinked hard.
“I was instructed to hand this to you the day you returned,” Dalton said gently. “She insisted it would be obvious when that was.”
Emma made a soft sound in her throat. Julia pressed her lips together as if physically holding back words.
Claire took the envelope with careful fingers. The paper felt fragile and somehow warm, as if Mamma’s hands still lingered on it.
“Would you like privacy?” Dalton asked.
The weight of three sets of eyes landed on her—Julia’s sharp and worried, Emma’s open and hopeful, Walker’s steady and unreadable.
Claire shook her head. “No. If it’s about the inn, it’s about all of us.”
“But it says your name,” Emma protested.
“Mamma never wrote anything that didn’t also somehow include the rest of you,” Claire said softly.
Her fingers trembled as she slid one nail under the flap and eased it open. Inside was a single sheet of stationery, folded twice. The top corner bore the faint watermark of the inn’s logo—a tiny cluster of stars over the outline of the bay.
She unfolded it.
The handwriting was familiar and uneven in places, as if written slowly, with pauses built in for breath or thought.
My dear Claire,
If you are reading this, you are standing where I always knew you would come back to stand.
I don’t know what finally pulled you home.
Grief, duty, anger, love—probably a tangled handful of all of them.
That is all right. Most of the best decisions in my life have been made with a mixture of all four.
You have always been the careful one. The planner. The girl who double-knots her shoes and double-checks the locks and worries whether the ferry has enough life vests for everyone onboard.