The Spare Key Underneath

When the key to your past doesn't fit the lock to your future, sometimes you need to find a different way in.

Maya Chen returns to Willowbrook with nothing but heartbreak in her rearview mirror and her grandmother's Victorian house as her last hope for a fresh start. But when she arrives to find the locks changed and a shirtless stranger demolishing her kitchen with a sledgehammer, her carefully planned escape from her old life takes an unexpected turn.

The intruder turns out to be Liam Gallagher, the boy who broke her heart ten years ago, and he claims to have a legal right to renovate the house she just inherited. Forced into an uneasy truce while lawyers sort out the mess, Maya finds herself living under the same roof as the man she spent a decade trying to forget.

Liam isn't the reckless boy who disappeared without explanation anymore. He's a single father to a six-year-old daughter, a talented carpenter rebuilding his life one restoration project at a time, and he's carrying secrets that explain why he left all those years ago. As they strip away the layers of paint and wallpaper in the old house, they begin stripping away the walls around their hearts too.

SAMPLE - CHAPTER 1:

Maya Chen stood on the sagging porch of her grandmother's Victorian house, jiggling the ancient brass key in the lock for the third time. Rain had started to fall, a light mist that clung to her skin and made her hair frizz around her temples. She was exhausted. Beyond exhausted. The kind of bone-deep tired that came from crying through a funeral, packing up eight years of Seattle life into boxes, and driving ten hours straight through the night because she couldn't stand to spend one more minute in the apartment she'd shared with Brett.

The lock didn't budge.

Behind her, the rental car sat in the driveway with all her earthly possessions crammed inside. She'd given up the apartment, quit her job at Seattle General, ended the relationship that had been slowly suffocating her for the past year. Burned every bridge to come back to Willowbrook, to this house that was supposed to be her fresh start.

A sudden crash from inside the house made her jerk back. Someone was in there. Maya's nursing instincts kicked in before fear could catch up. She moved to the window, peering through the gap in the curtains. Through the doorway to the kitchen, she could see the back of a man - shirtless, broad shoulders slick with sweat - swinging a sledgehammer at the wall.

She was around the side of the house before she could think it through, trying windows until she found one unlocked. Maya hoisted herself up and through, landing awkwardly on the hardwood floor. She rounded the corner and stopped.

The man had his back to her, still attacking the wall. And she recognized those shoulders.