Chapter 8
EIGHT
WES
I woke up to the sound of humming.
For a second, still halfway in a dream where I had two working legs and a life that made sense, I couldn’t place it. It threaded through the house—light and aimless, drifting under doorways and across the ceiling. A cabinet door thumped shut. Something clinked against the counter.
Not my TV. Not the furnace.
Her.
I blinked my eyes open. My neck ached like I’d slept on a pile of rocks instead of the couch I’d once been proud to own. My residual limb throbbed in that familiar, pissed-off way, the shrinker twisted halfway down. A ridge from the cushion dug into my spine.
For months, the only sounds in this house had been mine—my uneven steps, the creak of the couch, the occasional food delivery at the door.
Now there was humming in my kitchen.
I wasn’t sure what pissed me off more—that the sound grated on my nerves, or that it didn’t entirely.
I scrubbed a hand over my face and stared at the ceiling fan. I had said yes. I’d stood in my own doorway yesterday and told Clara Darling she could move in.
Idiot.
Somewhere beyond the living room, water ran. A drawer slid shut. The house didn’t feel empty this morning, and I didn’t know what to do with that.
I shifted, biting back a groan as my back popped. The stale smell of sweat and takeout hit my nose, and I swore under my breath.
Perfect. Exactly how a man wanted to smell with a woman in the next room.
I’d gone months without giving a single shit what I looked like. Now, with one stubborn runaway bride under my roof, I was suddenly aware of everything—the mess on the coffee table, the dent in the couch, the fact that I hadn’t shaved in days.
I hated that. Hated that I cared. Hated that there was someone here to care for.
This was my house. My space. I’d built damn near every inch of it with my own two hands, and yet lying there on the couch, listening to her move around, I felt like an intruder in my own life.
I forced myself upright, every muscle in my back protesting. The shrinker had twisted in my sleep, digging into skin that already felt flayed. I reached for my liner and prosthetic, hands clumsy with sleep and irritation.
Putting the leg on was second nature by now, but it still wasn’t fast. Roll the liner. Adjust. Lock in. Check the fit. I’d done it in under a minute in PT before, but lying on my couch with someone else in my kitchen, it felt like trying to assemble myself under a timer.
Any second she could walk in and find me half put together. The thought made my jaw grind.
When everything was finally attached and as comfortable as it was going to get, I pushed to standing. The room tilted for a heartbeat, then settled. I grabbed the back of the couch until my balance caught up with me and then made my slow, uneven way toward the kitchen.
Clara was there, of course.
She stood barefoot at the counter, tiny pajama shorts showing a ridiculous amount of toned leg, a loose T-shirt hanging off one shoulder. The T-shirt was thin enough that her nipples were on full display, hard points against worn cotton.
Her hair twisted up in a knot. No makeup. No armor. Just soft skin and sleep-warm curves and absolutely no awareness of what she looked like in my kitchen. My body woke up and took notice, heat sparking low and unwelcome.
“Good morning,” she said, glancing over her shoulder. Her voice was easy, like we’d been doing this for years.
“Morning.” The word came out stiff, like I’d forgotten how to use it.
A coffee maker gurgled on the counter between us. She turned back to it, poured herself a mug, then hesitated for half a second before grabbing another and filling that one too. She didn’t look at me as she set it on the opposite side of the counter.
“There’s some if you want it,” she said, like it was an afterthought. Not an offer. Not caretaking. Just information.
I hated how much I wanted it. Hated how the smell alone made something in my chest unknot a fraction.
“Thanks,” I muttered, the word scraping my throat on the way out.
She gave a quick little nod, like that settled that, and didn’t push. No questions about how I’d slept. No comment about the leg. No bright, chirpy monologue to fill the silence.
Instead, she took her own mug and flitted right past me, out of the kitchen, like it was the most natural thing in the world to leave a grumpy man alone with his thoughts and fresh coffee.
I was left standing there in my own house, blinking at the spot she’d just vacated, feeling weirdly exposed in a room where nothing had actually happened.
Great.
Now I was stewing over coffee and a “good morning” like a goddamn teenager. I wrapped my hand around the mug and took a careful sip. It was strong and hot and exactly how I liked it, which irritated me on principle.
My phone buzzed on the counter.
I ignored it at first, expecting another check-in text from Hayes or some automated email about a bill. It buzzed again, this time with the sharp little chime I’d never bothered to change on my calendar app. The screen illuminated where it lay face up by the knife block.
PT—10:00 a.m.
I’d forgotten I’d even left that alert on. I had already planned to call and cancel later. I could blame the weather or a scheduling conflict or anything except the truth—that I didn’t feel like being poked, prodded, and measured like a science project today.
The buzzing stopped, but the banner stayed on the screen, glaring at me.
Of course that was the moment Clara drifted back in, mug in hand. She crossed to the sink, rinsed out the last of her coffee, and set the cup upside down on the drying mat. The whole time, I willed my phone to go dark again.
It didn’t.
Her gaze flicked down as she turned from the sink. Just a quick glance, the way anyone’s eyes would catch on a lit screen. She didn’t lean in, didn’t pick it up, didn’t act like she’d been caught snooping.
“Do you need to be somewhere this morning?” she asked, reaching for a towel to wipe a ring of water off the counter. Her tone was light. Neutral.
“I’m fine,” I said automatically.
“That’s not what I asked.” She nodded toward the phone without really looking at it. “You’ve got an appointment?”
The muscles in my neck went tight. “I’m not a child, Clara. I don’t need a keeper.”
She stilled, the dish towel in her hand. I braced for a lecture—some combo of guilt and my therapist’s pep talks.
Instead, she just shrugged, folding the towel back over the oven handle. “Okay. I can drive you, or you can call and cancel. It’s your leg. Your choice.”
No pity. No lecture. Just that.
Somehow that pissed me off more. If she’d nagged, I could’ve dug in my heels and blamed her for being overbearing. If she’d begged, I could’ve felt righteous turning her down.
But this—this dropped the decision squarely in my lap. If I skipped, it wasn’t because the roads were bad or I couldn’t get there. It was because I’d chosen not to try.
“I was going to reschedule,” I muttered.
She nodded, unbothered. “Then reschedule.” She turned toward the doorway like the conversation was already over. “I’ll be around if you change your mind.”
I stared at the back of her head, at the messy knot of blond hair and the way it bounced slightly as she walked away.
I hated the idea of her driving me. Hated the image of myself hobbling out of her car under the fluorescent lights of the PT clinic, of her watching me wobble and sweat through exercises that used to be nothing.
But I hated the idea of calling and canceling more.
“Be ready in twenty,” I said, the words out of my mouth before I’d fully decided on them.
She paused halfway up the stairs and glanced back with a small, unreadable smile. “You got it.”
When she disappeared again, I stared down at my coffee and at the appointment reminder still glowing on my phone.
This was my decision. My life. My rehab.
So why did it feel like I’d just been maneuvered into doing the right thing by someone who’d barely said ten words to me before breakfast?
Getting showered and out the door was a whole damn operation.
I shrugged on my coat with more effort than I wanted to admit, wrestling my arm through the second sleeve while my balance adjusted.
Then the boots—one easy, one not. I hated putting them on while sitting down, but there wasn’t really another option unless I wanted to risk face-planting before we even hit the porch.
By the time I made it to the front door, my residual limb was already starting to complain, and the cold never helped.
Clara was waiting by the entryway, keys in hand, a chunky knit hat pulled low over her ears. She glanced at me, then reached past to open the door. The blast of Michigan winter slapped me in the face.
“Watch the top step,” she said, and then—nothing. No reaching. No hovering. She stepped out ahead of me, moving to the side so I had a clear shot at the stairs.
I gripped the banister and took the first step down, slow and careful. Snow clung to the edges of the boards, the kind that packed into a slick film over the wood. Anyone else would have had a hand clamped around my arm by now, breathing down my neck.
Clara just walked ahead of me, boots crunching on the path as she hit the bottom and veered toward the car. My truck, for once, stayed where it was. Today, she was driving.
By the time I reached the last step, she’d already unlocked the passenger side and was sitting in the driver’s seat, fiddling with the radio or the vents, pointedly not looking at me.
I made my way across the yard, leg heavy, focusing on each placement of my foot. No gasp of panic when I slipped slightly on a patch of ice, no startled movement in my peripheral vision. She stayed bent over the console until she heard the door close.
The silence in the car was thick enough to chew on. She buckled her seat belt, then reached for the ignition. The engine turned over, heater roaring to life.
“Seat warmers work,” she said, flicking a switch on my side. “In case you were wondering.”
“Great.” The word was flat.
We pulled out of the drive and headed toward town, the wipers squeaking across the windshield. Snowbanks rose on either side of the road, the sky that familiar, oppressive gray.
After a minute, she tried again. “Star Harbor looks different,” she said, mostly to the windshield. “When did we get so many people? And a second stoplight?”
“Summer,” I said.
“Is that because of the farm?” Her mouth curved faintly. “Elodie won’t shut up about the restaurant. She said your crew did the heavy lifting.”
My shoulder rose. “Some of it.”
“Did you design it?”
“Parts.”
My clipped answers dropped between us like cinder blocks.
She huffed out a little breath that wasn’t quite a laugh. “You know most people would turn that into a humblebrag.” She lowered her voice to sound like a man. “‘Yeah, I built half this town, no big deal.’”
I almost laughed. “Most people like talking more than I do.”
A short burst of laughter huffed out of her nose. “Noted.”
For a while, Clara filled the space with small observations—how her favorite bakery wasn’t around anymore, how the Lady’s Lantern sign had been repainted, how the lake still managed to look both beautiful and scary in winter.
It was mostly one-sided, her voice a low hum under the grind of the tires on packed snow.
I stared out the window, watching the familiar streets slide by.
She wasn’t treating me like glass. She wasn’t talking to me like I might break. She was just driving a man to his appointment and occasionally tossing words into the void to see if any would stick.
I didn’t know what to do with that any more than I knew what to do with pity. Both made me feel off-balance, like the ground under my feet had shifted and I was the last to know.
The clinic came into view all at once—brick, glass, too much light. Clara pulled into a spot and shifted into park.
Her fingers drummed the steering wheel once. “You want to go in,” she said, “or you want me to turn around? We can make a break for it. It would be very on brand for me.”
My mouth twisted into something resembling a smile.
“Let’s go,” I said before I could talk myself out of it.