Chapter 1 - THE WOMAN EVERYONE PITIED
By the time Emily Calloway reached the bottom of Miller’s Ridge, the rope around the firewood had cut a red line across her shoulder.
She stopped beside the road and rested one hand on her stomach.
Eight months.
The baby kicked.
“I know,” she whispered. “I’m tired too.”
From the highway below, expensive cars passed without slowing.
Emily looked like someone those drivers would pity.
Her gray dress had been washed so many times it had lost its original color. Her brown shawl had belonged to her grandmother. Mud covered the edges of her boots.
Six months earlier, Emily had lived in a three-bedroom townhouse outside Philadelphia with her husband, Ryan.
Now Ryan lived in a penthouse.
With Madison Blake.
At least that was what everyone in Ashford believed.
Emily lifted the bundle again and continued toward the farmhouse.
Her grandmother’s house stood alone beyond a line of bare maple trees. The place needed paint, plumbing, and more repairs than Emily could afford.
But it was hers.
Or it was supposed to be.
Inside, a yellow envelope waited beneath the door.
FINAL NOTICE.
Emily opened it.
The letter claimed that Calloway Development Partners held a lien against the property.
Amount due: $1,840,000.
Emily laughed softly.
Not because it was funny.
Because Ryan was becoming impatient.
Her phone rang.
Arthur Wynn.
Her grandmother’s former attorney.
“Emily?”
“I got another notice.”
“Same amount?”
“Yes.”
“Do nothing.”
“They’re threatening foreclosure.”
“They can threaten.”
Emily lowered herself into a chair.
“Arthur, I’m eight months pregnant. I’m cutting firewood because Ryan froze the joint accounts. I need something better than ‘do nothing.’”
“You’ll have it.”
“When?”
A pause.
“Tomorrow.”
Emily looked toward the old cabinet in the corner.
“Did you find the missing deed?”
“No.”
Her hope disappeared.
“But I found something else.”
“What?”
“Your grandmother kept records.”
“She kept everything.”
“This is different.”
Arthur lowered his voice.
“She recorded conversations.”
Emily sat straighter.
“With who?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Where?”
“That’s the problem.”
“What problem?”
“The device should still be inside the farmhouse.”
Emily looked around.
“Where?”
“Your grandmother left one instruction in her estate notes.”
Arthur read it.
“When the man who loves the land more than the woman comes to take both, look beneath the winter room.”
Emily frowned.
“The winter room?”
“You know what she meant?”
Emily looked toward the closed door at the end of the hall.
Her grandmother had called the tiny sitting room the winter room because it had the only fireplace that worked during the blizzard of 1996.
Emily stood.
“Maybe.”
Before she could move, headlights swept across the front windows.
A vehicle stopped outside.
Emily looked through the curtain.
A black luxury SUV.
Ryan stepped out.
Then Madison.
Emily’s hand tightened around the phone.
“Arthur.”
May you like
“Yes?”
“I think the man just came for the land.”
