Undertow by K.R. Conway (1st book in trilogy)

Chapter 1

Centerville, Massachusetts (Cape Cod)

Present Day

When Mae and I first found out about the house a month ago it screamed fraud - especially since our luck was always worth dirt.

But according to Mr. Talbot, the auction house owner, the transaction was legit, though highly unusual. I never even knew about the house until my phone rang at the beginning of August and he was on the other end, deed in hand. Apparently, when the estate went up for auction, an anonymous buyer purchased it . . . and put my name as owner and rightful heir.

            Yeah, talk about Twilight Zone.

I will admit that even Mr. Talbot was a bit stunned to learn I was still in high school, and I was sure he had the wrong person. I mean, seriously, what seventeen-year-old is given a million-dollar estate?

But he had my address in Kansas correct, scumball apartment that it was, and the names of my parents, though he was unaware they had been dead for the past fifteen years. Mae, my mom's BFF and my legal guardian, had been my only family since I was two and she was working herself into the ground to keep that rotted roof over out heads. But with one call from Cape Cod, we were given the chance of a lifetime.

We couldn't say no. We didn't say no.

Thankfully the home, number 408 on Main Street, was in good shape and downright massive in size. It had been updated regularly, due to a trust fund that had cared for it until the money ran out. And yeah, the house still needed a bit of work and a nuclear-fueled weed whacker. As for the barn and carriage house, however- only a bulldozer could help. Or a time machine.

Mae and I had driven out to see the home two weeks after Mr. Talbot had called. During that three-day trip, I didn’t really get a chance to feel out the Cape, though stunning definitely applied. It was a seaside paradise speckled with quaint little towns and outgoing locals. A few bumper stickers even claimed that the area was basically a “friendly drinking village with a fishing problem.”

It turned out my 4th great grandparents, Elizabeth and Josiah, had built the place, an elegant, three-story black and white home, in 1850. It was graced with huge windows and a wrap around porch large enough to host my old high school’s junior prom . . . not that I went. Not that I wanted to either.

 The roof was topped with monstrous chimneystacks and a Widow’s Walk that could see the glittering bay. And even though it was more than 160 years old, it was simply the most beautiful house I had ever seen. Surrounded by other antique homes, it was, without question, the best of the best.

            I will admit that I had some serious reservations about the move from Kansas. I was torn between the tantalizing idea of living in such a spectacular home by the beach, and my reservations about a small town mentality.

And school . . . which would start in two days.

It was like a countdown to inevitable torture.

The mere mention of Barnstable High sent my stomach twisting into a sailor’s knot. I had no desire to meet my classmates until I was forced to, especially given the fact that I was such an easy target in elementary school.

Back then I had even more freckles, was a tad chub, and had a funky scar on my lower back from a damn radiator incident when I was a baby. Top that off with being raised by Mae, who was barely an adult herself, and I became quite the bulls-eye.

Granted, I still had the freckles, the scar, and Mae, but the roundness sort of stretched-out, as I grew taller to five and a half feet. I was in no way a string bean, but I wasn’t a sumo wrestler either. I also had become accustomed to living life as a reject and, quite frankly, enjoyed the nosebleed section. I had no desire to be dragged into the ridiculous, self-serving dramas that so often plagued the cliques of my old high school.