Chapter 15 Grace
Grace
The house didn’t feel broken anymore.
Boarded up, yes. Temporary in places where it used to be solid. But not broken.
Grace stood at the kitchen sink, staring out at the door, the plywood over the window a dull rectangle.
The kettle whistled, sharp and sudden, and she jumped.
Her body had finally stopped buzzing with adrenaline, but she was still on edge.
She poured hot water over the tea bag and carried the mug to the small table by the window.
Grace wrapped both hands around the mug and breathed in the steam.
Tomorrow was another day. She would stand in front of all those small humans who trusted her to be steady. She could do that. She had done harder things.
From the living room came the low sound of the television—Eli watching a late-night baseball recap, giving her space. He’d always been good at that. Terrible at lots of things, but good at this.
Grace glanced down the hallway, toward the closed front door.
Luke had stood there earlier. Had filled the doorway with his body and his masculine confidence, his infuriating assumption that she needed him.
Like he was entitled to access because he’d brought tools instead of apologies.
She exhaled slowly.
The thought angered her—but it didn’t unravel her. Progress.
“Gracie.”
She looked up to find Eli leaning in the doorway, his shoulder braced casually against the frame. The bruise beneath his eye had faded to yellow at the edges. Healing. Like everything else.
“You okay?” he asked.
She nodded. “Yeah.”
He didn’t challenge it. Just crossed the room and pulled out the chair across from her, sitting backward in it, arms folded over the backrest. The same way he used to sit at the kitchen table when they were kids, waiting for her to finish her homework.
“You scared?” he asked.
Grace considered the question honestly.
“I was,” she said. “This morning.”
“And now?”
She took a sip of her tea. Set the mug down carefully. “Now I’m angry.”
Eli huffed a quiet laugh. “Good.”
They sat in silence for a moment, the hum of the refrigerator filling the space between them.
Grace’s mind drifted.
She thought of the way Luke had looked at her when she’d said she didn’t need his help. Like the ground had shifted beneath him without warning.
Good.
Grace stood, carrying her mug to the sink. She rinsed it, dried it, set it carefully in the cabinet like she did everything else in her life—with intention.
Tomorrow would come whether she was ready or not. The town would keep watching. Luke would continue to see her as only good enough for a secret affair. Trouble might knock again.
But tonight—tonight she had a locks on the windows, a board over the kitchen door, and the hard-won knowledge that she would not make herself smaller for a man.
No matter how good he made her feel.
Not if he made her feel small, too.
Grace felt the attention the second she stepped into the teachers’ lounge.
Conversation didn’t stop. It shifted. Turned.
She knew that shift.
A uniformed police officer standing outside her classroom hadn’t gone unnoticed. The Hart name still carried weight in this town—just not always the good kind. If people thought she’d done something wrong, she wouldn’t blame them.
Grace braced herself against the inevitable and went straight for the coffee pot. She poured, added cream, stirred. The familiar ritual steadied her.
Behind her, the door swung open.
“So,” Mrs. Talbot said brightly, “are we just not going to talk about yesterday?”
Grace’s shoulders tensed despite herself. She took a careful sip. Too hot. Of course.
“Talk about what?” she asked mildly.
Mrs. Ellery grinned from the table. “You know exactly what.”
Grace turned, eyebrow lifting. “I do?”
Mrs. Talbot leaned back against the counter, arms crossed, looking pleased. “Officer Bennett. In uniform. Standing outside your classroom. Like a young man a’courting.”
A couple of teachers chuckled. Grace blinked. That wasn’t the direction she’d expected this conversation to go.
Grace exhaled through her nose. “He stopped by briefly.”
“Briefly,” Mrs. Ellery echoed, smiling. “Sure. But very noticeable.”
“And very handsome,” Mrs. Talbot added. “Very noticeably handsome.”
Grace snorted before she could stop herself.
“Am I wrong?” Mrs. Talbot said. “Because from where I was standing, it looked an awful lot like Luke Bennett was checking on you.”
Grace set her mug down carefully. “My house was vandalized,” she said. “Someone threw a rock through my back door window.”
Mrs. Ellery’s smile faded into concern. “Oh, Grace. I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”
“Yes,” Grace said. “It was handled. He came by to make sure I was safe. That’s it.”
“That makes sense,” Mrs. Talbot said easily. Her tone suggested she wasn’t convinced.
Grace wrapped both hands around her mug. “You’re all reading too much into it.”
Mrs. Ellery tilted her head. “You don’t have to tell us anything, Grace. But if Luke Bennett is soft on you, I just want you to know—good taste on his part.”
A few murmurs of agreement followed.
Grace felt heat creep up her neck. “He doesn’t feel any way about me.”
“Mm-hmm,” Mrs. Talbot said.
Grace shook her head, but she was smiling now despite herself. “You’re all impossible.”
She picked up her mug and headed for the door.
“Grace,” Mrs. Talbot called after her. “If Officer Bennett comes back today, feel free to warn us. Some of us might need a moment to compose ourselves.”
Grace laughed as she left the lounge.
The hallway felt lighter. Warmer.
When she reached her classroom, she paused just long enough to straighten her cardigan and take a steadying breath.
Then she opened the door and stepped inside.
“Okay, friends,” she said, smiling as the room erupted. “Who remembers what comes after the beginning of a story?”
Hands shot into the air.
Grace smiled wider.
Whatever Luke Bennett did or didn’t feel—
In this town, in this school, in this room she was seen. She was valued. And she wasn’t standing alone.
She was standing in the produce aisle at Morton’s Grocery, one hand resting on the handle of her basket, mentally calculating whether she needed milk or if there was enough at home.
Then the air shifted behind her. Too familiar. Too close.
Grace knew it was Luke before she saw him. There was a particular way her body reacted—an old, unhelpful reflex. A sharpening of awareness.
“Grace.”
She turned.
He was close—close enough that she could smell his soap, clean and sharp beneath the grocery store’s faint scent of apples and floor cleaner.
Close enough that his arm brushed hers.
“Officer Bennett.”
He was standing just a fraction too close for someone who hadn’t slept with her. He usually didn’t stand so close to her in public. He usually didn’t start conversations with her in public.
God, she’d been kidding herself. How had she ever thought that he saw her as anything other than a physical release for him.
At least Grace was seeing things clearly now. At last.
She took a step back. She watched, fascinated as a puzzled crease appeared between his brows. She felt grim satisfaction at how wrong-footed he looked right now. He wasn’t used to Grace being the one who didn’t want to be around him.
“Did you have any more trouble last night?”
She lifted an eyebrow. “Window’s fixed,” she confirmed.
Silence stretched.
Luke studied her face. It used to make her feel seen. Now she knew exactly what he had been seeing when he looked at her. Someone beneath him. She raised her chin. She was done being found unworthy by Luke Bennett.
His eyes narrowed slightly. “Who was that helping you?”
Oh, there it was. The worry that whoever Grace was interacting with might spill out on him and his precious cop reputation.
All at once, Grace deflated.
Because it would, wouldn’t it? Grace might have rebelled against her upbringing, but Eli had gone the other way. Eli had followed the example of their parents, breaking whatever rules he wanted, hot wiring cars for fun.
Grace stepped past him.
“That’s not your business,” she said. “Unless you’re asking as a police officer.”
Luke let out a breath through his nose. “I’m not asking as—” He stopped himself, recalibrated. “I just want to know if you’re safe.”
“I am,” she said, and turned away.
His fingers closed around her wrist—not tight, not rough, but familiar in a way that made her breath catch anyway. Heat flashed through her. For a split second her instincts betrayed her, forgetting the pain, the rejection. Remembering only the comfort of his hands.
Until he spoke.
“With him?” The words were sharp.
Grace stilled.
At the end of the aisle, Mrs. Connors paused with a carton of eggs in her hand. Her eyes flicked from Luke, to Grace, to his hand on Grace’s wrist.
Grace knew Luke saw it too. The crease between his brows deepened, irritation and something else tangling together in a way she didn’t bother to decipher.
He dropped his hand. Took a step back. The space between them reset, measured and impersonal.
Like they were nothing.
The cut was clean. She felt it slice her. A sharp, precise wound straight through her chest.
Luke cleared his throat. “Grace, I—”
“Who helps me now is not your business,” she repeated, voice calm despite the hollow opening beneath her ribs.
Luke’s expression shifted—hurt flickering beneath control. “Grace, I’m trying to protect you.”
She adjusted the strap of her bag on her shoulder. “I was nothing to you. You didn’t want to be seen with me. You didn’t want to be with a Hart.”
His mouth opened. Closed.
“And now,” she continued, “you want details about who’s in my house? Who helps me fix things? Who shows up when something breaks?”
Luke’s voice dropped. “I showed up.” His voice sounded raw, wounded almost.
“You were too late,” Grace said. She felt so tired. “And you expected to be welcomed anyway.”
Luke scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “So this guy—”
She cut him off. “Stop.”
The word was louder than she meant it to be.
Grace stepped closer.
“There is no ‘guy’ you get to measure yourself against,” she said. “There is just my life. And I decide who has access to it.”
Luke stared at her.
“And for the record,” she added, softer but no less firm, “he fixed the door because I asked him for help. I didn’t even for a moment think about asking you.”
For a moment, something cracked in his expression.
She stepped back.
“Have a good night, Officer Bennett,” she said.
Luke hesitated, like he might argue again.
He didn’t.
He turned and walked away, boots echoing.