Hard to Leave

Nora Bishop came back to Salt Point to sign three papers and leave: the deed, the sale, and the goodbye she was never going to say out loud. Her father left her a stretch of working shoreline and the old growth behind it — the only inheritance she'll touch — and she means to be gone before the rain stops. She writes for a living. She can do that anywhere. Anywhere but here. 

Wyatt Mercer is one bad season from losing his boat and grinning about it like it's a joke he's in on. The mills are closing, the fishing's next, and half of Main Street's already gone dark — but Wyatt stays, because somebody has to, and because the most beautiful, most haunted woman he's ever seen just rolled into town with a FOR SALE sign and a head start on running. 

A developer wants Nora's shoreline cheap enough to wall the crab fleet out of its own cove. A new land trust wants the old growth and has nothing to offer the men who'd lose the work. Somehow the last decision Salt Point gets to make about itself comes down to one woman who swore she'd never let this town — or anyone in it — be a reason to stay. 

Some things are hard to fix. Some are hard to hold. This one's just hard to leave.