Chapter 16
Luke
Luke drove.
He passed Main Street. The hardware store. Morton’s Grocery, lights glowing warm behind the windows, the handwritten sign still taped up advertising the fall festival fundraiser.
Grace had helped with that fundraiser. She’d told him about it, in the afterglow, as she lay in his arms.
Luke tightened his grip on the steering wheel.
What Grace Hart did in Crystal Lake was not his business.
Not his responsibility. Not his to check on. Not his to protect.
Not his.
The words rang hollow, sharp-edged and useless.
He slowed automatically as he passed the elementary school. The parking lot was empty now, the building quiet, but he could picture it anyway—Grace’s classroom.
Everyone loved her. The students, the parents, the teachers.
Luke blew out a breath and rolled his shoulders, trying to shake the tension buzzing under his skin.
The grocery store replayed in his head on a loop. The way she’d walked away from him. Like he didn’t know exactly how to make her come undone. Like he didn’t know the taste of her.
Like he couldn’t still feel the echo of her under his hands, his mouth, his body. Like he hadn’t worked at her until she reached her climax—again and again—soft and breathless and trusting.
God. He shifted in his seat.
He swore under his breath and turned down Maple, then Elm, then another side street.
The sex had been good. That was the point.
She’d wanted him. He knew that. He’d felt it—felt her body respond, felt the way she’d clutched at him like he was exactly where she needed him to be.
You don’t end something like that, he told himself, jaw clenching, unless something else is going on.
Unless she’d met someone else.
The thought sparked hot and ugly in his gut.
Luke gripped the wheel harder.
He shouldn’t even care. They weren’t exclusive. They weren’t anything.
He didn’t want complications. Didn’t want questions. Didn’t want to deal with the town’s bullshit.
Grace had always understood exactly what Luke needed. And she’d always given it to him.
So why hadn’t she this time?
Luke replayed her words from the grocery store, each one landing like a bruise.
There is just my life. And I decide who has access to it.
It shouldn’t have rattled him.
He’d assumed his access to her was permanent. That whatever arrangement they’d fallen into would always be there when he reached for it.
Luke dragged a hand down his face, exhaustion settling deep in his bones.
He didn’t miss her.
He missed the sex.
The release. The familiarity. The way everything else went quiet when he was inside her orbit.
That was all.
He turned down Lakeview Road.
He didn’t miss the way her laugh would loosen something he kept wound too tight. Didn’t miss the way she’d curl against him, warm and content, fitting perfectly by his side. He didn’t miss the way she’d look at him. Didn’t miss the way her eyes would find him in any room.
So why did the thought of her being with someone else make his chest feel tight?
Why did it matter who fixed her door?
Why had his hands itched to touch her in the produce aisle?
Luke pulled over near the lake, gravel crunching under his tires.
He shut off the engine and sat there in the dark, staring out at the water. Across the lake, lights from houses glimmered.
She wasn’t his.
She’d made that clear.
She’d asked for more than he could give, and when he’d told her how it needed to be, she’d just… ended things.
Who the hell ends something that good?
Grace—Grace was just—
All at once, his chest felt too tight.
Luke leaned forward, resting his forehead against the steering wheel.
She wasn’t his to care for. She wasn’t his to protect. She wasn’t his.
So why did it feel like he’d just lost something that had been woven through this town—and through him—long before he’d noticed?
Luke arrived at his parents’ house ten minutes late. The porch light was already on, casting a familiar yellow glow over the neat hedges and freshly swept steps. Everything about the place was orderly. Predictable. Safe. His mother’s idea of a proper home—no surprises, no loose ends.
He let himself in without knocking.
“Luke?” his mother called from the kitchen. “That you?”
“Yeah,” he said, hanging his jacket by the door. The smell of pot roast and onions hit him immediately, warm and heavy.
His dad was reading the paper, glasses perched low on his nose. He looked up as Luke came in, nodding once in greeting.
“You look tired,” his mother said. “Long day?”
“Something like that.”
Luke poured himself a glass of water and leaned against the counter, letting the familiar domestic noise wash over him. His parents moving around each other with the ease of people who’d never had to question where they stood.
He should’ve felt calmer here.
Instead, his jaw stayed tight.
They sat down to eat, the table set exactly the way it had been his entire life.
His dad cleared his throat. “Saw Mercer today.”
Luke’s grip tightened on his fork. “Yeah?”
“Mentioned he handled some vandalism over on Maple Street. Hart place.”
Luke kept his expression neutral. “Probably just some kids throwing rocks.”
His mother sniffed. “It’s always something with that family.”
He looked up sharply.
“I’m just saying,” she continued, unfazed. “You can dress things up all you want, but trouble has a way of finding people who invite it. That name’s been tied to one mess after another since before you were born.”
His dad snorted.
Luke pushed a piece of carrot around his plate. “Grace Hart’s a teacher. She’s lived on that street for years without incident.”
His mother paused mid-bite, eyes flicking up. “You sound awfully…informed about Grace Hart’s life.”
He shrugged. “It’s a small town.”
“Mm,” she said, unconvinced. “Well, I just hope you’re keeping your distance. You’ve worked too hard to get where you are to let someone else’s baggage weigh you down.”
The same justification he’d been feeding himself all day, now coming from someone else’s mouth. It should have felt validating.
It didn’t.
His dad folded his napkin. “People notice who you associate with, Luke. Always have. Especially in a town like this. You’re a Bennett. The name means something. Your grandfather sat on the town council for twenty years. You have a legacy to protect. You don't throw that away.”
Luke swallowed. He knew that. Had grown up knowing it. Every expectation, every unspoken rule etched into him from the start.
He thought of Grace, calm and resolute, shutting her door in his face.
“She didn’t ask for any of it,” he said before he could stop himself.
His mother frowned. “Ask for what?”
“The reputation,” he said. “The assumptions.”
His dad studied him for a moment. “Son,” he said carefully, “you don’t build a life on exceptions. You build it on expectations.”
Luke looked down at his plate, appetite gone.
Expectations. He’d believed in them his whole life. Trusted them. Built everything he had around staying inside the lines they drew.
Now those expectations felt less like a promise and more like a cage.
His mother reached across the table and patted his hand. “We just want what’s best for you.”
Luke nodded, because that was what he’d always done.
But as he sat there, surrounded by certainty and quiet judgment, one thought pressed insistently at the back of his mind:
The Hart’s name came with baggage.
But so did Luke’s.
And tonight he wasn’t sure which one weighed more.