Saltwater and Cedar
When Nora Thorne is publicly cast out from the gala celebrating her mother's coastal pavilion, she activates a long-dormant environmental land covenant that strips her father and stepmother of their corporate control.
Fictional story. Contains themes of familial estrangement, corporate misconduct, emotional conflict, and legacy disputes.Chapter 1: The Cold Bluff
I stepped through the heavy oak doors of the Penobscot Bay Glasshouse seven minutes after the inaugural patron toast had begun. I was still wearing my salt-stained canvas work jacket and oil-rubbed leather boots because I had driven straight from the restoration docks at South Bristol. I had not stopped home to change into the silk evening gowns that my stepmother, Vivian, believed were mandatory for women claiming a place in coastal high society. All I had brought with me was my mother’s brass drafting divider, tucked securely into the inner pocket of my coat.
The dockmaster had recognized my truck when I pulled into the upper lot. The lead carpenter near the timber portico had tipped his hat without a word—the silent, respectful nod of a craftsman who remembered whose hand had sketched every mortise and tenon joint in the pavilion before my family tried to erase her name from the foundation plaque.