My brothers—Michael, Jared, Greg, Kevin, and Chris—were divided on how it all went down. Michael and Kevin were pissed that they didn’t get anything, while Greg, Jared, and Chris just chalked it up to crazy Great-Aunt Maude. What they all agreed on, including my father, was that I shouldn’t be heading out there.

“Peanut, do you have any idea what land like that, especially right on the beach, is worth? Why in the world are you not selling it?” my father asked, after all the details of the will had been explained and analyzed.

I rolled my eyes. He’d been calling me Peanut since I’d been the size of an actual peanut. But if by twenty-nine the nickname hadn’t gone away, I would be a peanut now and for always.

“Maybe I will sell it eventually. But for now? I just want to get out there, see what’s what. Then I’ll decide.” I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. “Who knows, maybe I’ll just stay out there.”

I went from Peanut to young lady in 2.2 seconds.

“Young lady, would you care to explain to me exactly how you intend to run your business from California?”

“Dad, I’m hardly pulling up stakes and moving to California. Although technically I can do my job from anywhere, that’s beside the point.” I tamped down the internal thrill I got from just saying those words out loud. I could work from anywhere in the world, one of the perks of owning an online business. But I needed to focus on the Right Now. This was a fact-finding mission, not an adventure.

It’s totally an adventure! Internal Carefree Happypants Viv was dancing a jig of excitement. But External Serious Viv had to keep it together, especially in front of her father. So even though I couldn’t keep my mouth from turning up at the corners, I tried to convince my father that this was not like when I ran off to Europe.

“So you’re coming back soon, then?” he asked pointedly.

“I didn’t say that.”

“But—”

“But nothing,” I interrupted as he continued to sputter. No one ever interrupted my dad, except me. My father owned a computer software company that had been around since the seventies. He got in on the ground floor of the emerging industry and had been smart enough to stay ahead of the pack. He’d built his business from scratch, and now two of my brothers ran different divisions, two were software engineers working on new programs, and one was being groomed to take over for my father when he retired. Which he swore would be never, but my mother had other ideas.

One of the ideas my father had been entertaining for years, and had been asking me about frequently recently, was selling my company to him and joining him and my brothers. I’d gotten a lot of press within the computer world recently for creating a new app that was snatched up by Google. Not as much money as some apps were being purchased for, but a nice chunk of change. Coupled with the fact that I was still renting the small apartment I’d been in for the last few years, owned my car outright, and spent most of my time with my nose either in a laptop or in a book, I had zero debt and a sizable savings account. Saving for what, I didn’t know, but saving I was.

For a rainy day? For something exactly like what had just dropped into my lap by a mysterious phone call from across the land, telling me that my life had changed and if I was adventurous enough to take a chance, everything could change?

Back to the present. A present where, if my father couldn’t convince me to sell my business to him, he was still going to tell me how to run it. Or how I was not running it correctly, as so many fathers do.

“Dad, I love you. I love you all. But I’m heading out to Mendocino. I might be back in a few weeks, ready to sell off the land and the house and everything else, but for now? I’m going. And not making any decisions beyond that.”

That conversation had ended in grumbles and gruff agreements on both sides.

My mother’s argument was of a different tactic, but no less strategic. My mother lived perpetually in the land of Hopeless Romantic.

“You know, I just have a good feeling about this, Vivvie. I can’t say exactly why, just that I have a good feeling.” She was perched on my bed, helping me pack. Which meant making suggestions about certain clothing items that she thought would be more flattering and appropriate for the trip.

“I have a good feeling too, Mom. Is it weird that I’m excited about something that’s the result of someone dying? Is that terrible?”

“It’s not terrible, sweetie. It’s life. You didn’t really know Maude; even your aunts and I didn’t. We tried to reach out, to get her to move east to be closer to family, but— Not that red one, sweetie. It washes you out.” The red sweater went back into the closet. “And, besides, she loved that house. She always said they’d carry her out feet first. Not the yellow one, sweetie. Makes you look jaundiced.” The T-shirt was replaced by a pink one.

“Feet first! Ew, that’s f**king morbid.” I shivered slightly. I’d be in her house soon.

“Vivvie! Language. Besides, that’s how old people talk. They don’t think of it as morbid; they’re just being obstinate. ‘Feet first,’ she’d say whenever someone would suggest maybe she should think about moving into a retirement community. That’s a pretty one. Green has always been a good color for you, especially with your eyes.”

“Mom, I’m not going to a garden party.”

“Well, it doesn’t hurt to be colorful, no matter the occasion. Now, where are those cute sandals I brought you last week? You have such cute, tiny feet, Vivvie, I wish you’d stop burying them in those combat boots. Who knows who you’re going to meet out there! Why you could meet The One! A nice man with a good job and . . .”

I tuned out all her nice-man talk. I knew what I was hoping for out there. And it had nothing to do with nice . . .

So now I stood at the curb at the airport, surrounded by suitcases and duffel bags, ready to head west. I had a new romance novel downloaded to my Kindle for the five-hour flight, and a bubbling excitement at embarking on my very own adventure, just like the ones in my favorite books.

Bring it.

I’m pretty sure that in my romance novels, the heroine always arrives at her new destination fresh and unwrinkled, smelling of gardenias and excitement.

I arrived at San Francisco International Airport with swollen ankles and a T-shirt covered in marinara sauce from an in-flight argument with a chicken parm. I smelled like recycled airplane air. I was exhausted and cranky from staying up late with last-minute packing, and annoyingly horny due to my marathon read of Loins of Endearment.