Thorn and Timber

A late-night phone call shatters the silence of Elara Vance's studio apartment, where she has spent years building a quiet life restoring fine woodwork. On the line is Solicitor Gordon MacRae, informing her of an unexpected inheritance: a remote timber estate entwined with the legacy of the Brennan family, a name she has never heard spoken aloud. When she arrives at the property to claim her birthright, Elara comes face to face with Cael Brennan, the brooding caretaker of the land, whose grief runs as deep as the roots of the old-growth forest. Their first meeting is sharp, defensive, and electric. As Elara uncovers the estate's history, she finds herself drawn into a tangle of family secrets stretching back decades. Miriam Ashford, a woman whose name keeps surfacing in the estate's ledgers, holds answers Elara isn't sure she wants. Declan Brennan, Cael's brother, offers friendship but withholds crucial truths. And Marcus Sterling, a polished outsider with an agenda of his own, arrives at precisely the wrong moment, while Tomás quietly watches from the edges of the conflict. With the timberlands on the brink of being sold and her inheritance contested at every turn, Elara must decide what kind of woman she wants to be. She can return to the safety of her old life, or she can fight for a place beside a man who has every reason to push her away. The forest remembers every secret buried beneath its roots, and so, she is learning, does love.