Amy Hilgendorf built her life on glass and steel. She was a rising lawyer in Tallahassee’s most powerful law firm, had a trial record that silenced doubters, and a reputation for staying calm when everyone else lost their composure. Then she was pushed to the sidelines, nudged out of the very ground she fought to claim.

When her best friend calls with a plea for help in a small coastal town, Amy agrees to consult on what should be a simple pro bono case. Instead, she finds herself in the middle of a battle that’s anything but simple: Harold and Jean McAdams, beloved community figures, are being forced out of the garden they’ve tended for decades; all because of a late lease renewal.

The fight should be straightforward. It isn’t. Not when every motion feels like a slow bleed, not when the town itself is watching, and not when Ciara Maxwell, the sharp, guarded local attorney, seems determined to test Amy at every turn.

What begins as a strategy across a conference table blurs into something more dangerous, more intimate. In Dolphin Cove, law isn’t just about contracts. It’s about history, belonging, and the lives rooted in the soil. And as Amy is drawn deeper into both the case and Ciara, she must decide whether leaving Tallahassee was only a detour… or the first step toward the life she’s wanted all along.