Page 4 of First Street (Harbor View Cozy Fantasy #1)

Chapter Three

Skye

As we drove across the bridge into Harbor View, an ache formed in my chest. The thought that this might be the last time I made this trip, the last time I saw these familiar streets, began to pull at my insides like the rip current.

I tried to relax my grip on the steering wheel. Rolling down my window, I breathed in the briny scent of the sea and pulled to the side, letting an impatient driver pass before easing back onto the road.

“Low tide,” Ocean said, her head hanging out her open window.

“You used to complain about it whenever we came back here,” I reminded her.

“That was because we never stayed long enough for me to get used to it.”

A fair point. We never did stay long enough. Three days in New York, a weekend here to visit Clare, and back to LA again. That was the way Rhys liked it, just enough time to soak up the New England charm before retreating to the possibilities of Manhattan. And then back to the West Coast.

Clare never once complained, though. She took whatever time we were able to give her.

Ocean waved a hand out her window. “Do things look different?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, different from when you were growing up?”

Some of the shops along Washington Street were new, but a lot of them were the same.

“That breakfast place. The grocery store. The bakery. They all had different names back then.” Faces flickered across my memory.

People I hadn’t seen in years but had once seen almost like family.

“Maybe I already told you this, but when I was growing up, nobody paid cash at the grocery store. Not unless you were a tourist. The butcher’s son or daughter, whoever was working, would just jot down what you owed in a spiral notebook at the register.

You’d come back at the end of the month and settle up. No interest. Just your total.”

Ocean gave a disbelieving snort. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure that system would last about five minutes in North Hollywood.”

“I’m not even sure it would work here anymore.”

She pointed out the window. “That lunch place on the corner. Didn’t you take me there once? We had grilled bread and hot chocolate.”

A smile tugged at the corner of my mouth. “Grilled Portuguese Sweet Bread. Clare and I used to go there all the time. I always got hot chocolate. She drank tea.”

The wash of emotion in my chest grew stronger.

“You said Harbor View was pretty dead off-season. Those sidewalks look packed.”

She wasn’t wrong. For a town that supposedly slept through the spring, Harbor View was wide awake today. Summer was still three weeks off, but the streets buzzed like it was mid-July.

I eased off the gas and glanced up the cross street we were passing.

Second Street. The narrow sidewalks were still flanked by Colonial and Greek Revival houses, just like I remembered.

Some wore fresh paint like new clothes; others had faded under salt air and too many New England winters.

But the bones of the place hadn’t changed.

I used to know every shortcut, every broken fence and hidden path in this village.

A few more blocks down, as I turned left onto First Street, my eyes caught sight of the top of the lighthouse, standing solidly in place down at the Point, just like always.

From the time I was Ocean’s age, I always saw it as something more than beacon for passing ships.

I thought of it as a guiding light, pointing me toward something bigger and better than Harbor View.

Now, it suddenly felt like it stood for everything and everyone I left behind.

“I know there’s a ton of stuff we have to do before we head back to L.A.,” Ocean said, her voice soft, almost unsure. Not her normal tone. “But maybe we could take a day? Just one. So you can show me around? Like, really show me the village?”

I looked at her, surprised and a little moved.

“Yeah. Of course.”

First Street looked exactly the same. In front of the old red brick building that once served as the Borough Hall and volunteer firehouse, two men sat in folding chairs like sentries of the past. One waved a fat cigar as he talked, the other shook his head and took a long pull from a beer bottle.

On a sign above them, the names of the three original firefighting teams—Neptunes, Steamers, Pioneers—stood out in crisp relief against the freshly painted white doors and trim.

Halfway down the block, colorful flags fluttered outside Rainbow Reef Bookstore, Arthur’s shop. Its front door was propped open to catch the breeze. But that wasn’t what drew my eye.

Across the street stood Clare’s house.

The two-story Greek Revival looked tired.

The once-bright red door was peeling. The white picket fence that framed the yard was chipped and leaning, a few slats missing entirely.

On either side of the stone steps, overgrown lilacs fought to keep their purple blooms above the tangle of weeds trying to swallow them whole.

The place was a little neglected, but it was the house I grew up in. Whatever I’d been feeling before, my emotions now spun out of control.

My mother was really gone. I’d never see her again.

Her old station wagon was parked in the cobblestone driveway, close to the street.

At the far end of the drive, nestled against the back of the property, stood the antique shop in the converted carriage house.

The Salt Box, Clare had called it. Her pride and joy. A ‘CLOSED’ sign hung on the barn door.

I blinked hard, willing the tears not to fall.

I pulled in to the curb in front of the house. Before I could even cut the engine, Ocean popped open her door and darted toward the front gate, curious as ever.

At the far end of the block, a middle-aged couple rounded the corner from Franklin Street. They smiled politely as they crossed in front of my car before disappearing into Arthur’s bookstore. As I climbed out of the rental car, their voices drifted out through the open door.

Arthur. Another goodbye waiting for me, once I sold Clare’s house.

I swallowed hard, forcing down the lump rising in my throat. No emotional outbursts. Not in the bookstore, not now, not in front of strangers. Arthur would understand. He knew we were coming. I’d check in with him later, once we were settled. Once I had a second to breathe.

“It’s locked. Do you have a key?” Ocean called, already at the front door, her hand on the knob.

“I’ve got it...somewhere.” I went up the slate-topped steps I’d walked a thousand times, digging through my bag. Crumpled receipts, phone, brush, loose change, an old cough drop.

“It’s in here,” I said, more to myself than to her. “Clare gave it to me before I moved out West.”

I knew I hadn’t lost it. Not that key.

Harbor View is your home, Skye. This house is your home. You can always come back.

Clare’s words echoed in my mind as my fingers finally closed around the familiar key ring. I pulled it out with a little flourish—one that didn’t come close to matching the tangle of emotion I felt—and slid the key into the lock. It turned with a quiet click, and the door creaked open.

A wave of stale air drifted out. That closed-up-house smell: dust, silence, and time. It wrapped around me like memory.

I hesitated on the threshold, the weight of the past pressing in from every corner, then stepped inside.

“Whoa,” Ocean said from behind me. “It seriously smells in here. Want me to open windows?”

“Yeah,” I said softly. “That’d be great.”

I didn’t need any light to know every inch of this house.

The floor plan was engrained in my mind.

It was the first place I’d ever called home.

To my right, the stairs leading up to the second floor.

To my left, the large living room Clare had always used as her business office, with a huge wooden desk; bookcases packed with ancient volumes and magazines on furniture, paintings, and other antiques; and a row of battered old file cabinets where she kept the bookkeeping records for the store.

Straight ahead, an arched doorway led to two connected rooms—dining and sitting—linked by a coal stove where a wall had once separated the space.

At the back of the house, a kitchen and a small half-bath had been added to the original structure.

Upstairs, three bedrooms and a pink tile bathroom completed the home.

Ocean pulled back a heavy curtain covering a window facing the street. I blinked, forcing myself to focus on the space before me.

It was a lot to take in. Clare’s office was filled to the brim. There was furniture in every available space, stacked and wedged in like a puzzle. The overflow continued into the old sitting room, where more pieces crowded the space, each one familiar and yet oddly out of place.

A fine layer of dust dulled once-polished surfaces.

At the far end of the office, large paintings draped in canvas leaned against the wall, blocking the French doors that led to the dining room.

Cardboard boxes were stacked up in teetering towers, the lower boxes buckling beneath the weight.

Papers, books, and curled maps spilled from open containers, cluttering the floor in silent disarray.

It was as if the antiques in the barn had reached a high tide mark and begun flooding into the house itself.

It had never been like this when I was growing up. Even the last time we visited, the house had still felt…ordered. Loved.

“What happened?” Ocean whispered, her eyes wide. “I don’t remember Grandma ever being a hoarder.”

“She was an antiques dealer. Went to estate sales. This is not hoarding,” I said in her defense, dropping my bag onto a nearby table.

“But that’s what the barn is for, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know, Ocean. Maybe there was a leak in the roof, and she had to move stuff in here.”

I worked my way through the clutter, helping my daughter climb over furniture to reach the windows and open them.