“My grandfather built Darling House five years after he'd arrived from Scotland. He knew by then that the climate was going to require something different from what he'd been used to as a boy."
"She's a grand old lady," Matt said of the house. "Dressed up in an iron-lace shawl, looking out over her harbor."
Nora smiled. "That's exactly what she is. It's the reason she and I get on so well together. We're two of a kind."
Nora had lived in Darling House all her life and was as much a part of the building as the pair of lions guarding its entrance gate and the brick chimneys punctuating the sparkling blue sky. It was almost impossible to imagine her anywhere else. Jess had only to close her eyes now to invoke a vivid picture of her grandmother standing on the wide concrete steps that led to the front door, both arms lifted in welcome.”