Chapter 32 Luke
Luke
The locksmith wasn’t much for small talk, which suited Luke just fine.
Luke leaned against the wall in Grace’s narrow hallway, arms crossed, watching as the man installed the last of the new deadbolts.
Front door reinforced. Back door reinforced. Window locks replaced.
Grace was never going to feel unsafe in her home again. Never lie in bed listening for footsteps. Never wonder if a sound on the porch meant someone was coming for her.
Not on his watch.
The house felt… lived in.
Not staged. Not careful. Not curated for appearances.
Her bookshelf held rows of children’s books, a small stack of adult novels in pile by the couch. A throw blanket was draped over the armrest like she’d tossed it there without thinking.
There were pictures in the hallway.
He’d been in this house before.
He’d just never looked at it.
Now it was all he could see.
A magnet on the fridge held a crayon drawing—lopsided sun, purple stick figure, crooked letters: Miss Hart is the best!
Luke stared at it longer than he meant to.
Grace was the best. The kids had figured it out before he had.
He’d treated her like something temporary. Something contained. Something he could visit in the dark and walk away from.
And meanwhile she’d been building a life without him.
In chipped paint and soft blankets and secondhand books.
He didn’t just want to install new locks.
He wanted to fix every creaky hinge. Replace the peeling weather seal. Sand down the porch railing. Touch up the paint where it had chipped near the baseboards. Stop the slow drip in her kitchen sink.
He wanted to make this place stronger.
Safer.
Better.
But more than that—
He wanted to be the man who was expected to notice those things.
The man who got to fix them because this was his home too.
The man who came back here at the end of the day without knocking.
Who drank from her crooked mugs and listened to her talk about which student finally mastered their B’s.
Who stood beside her at the Fall Festival while she ran the face-painting booth and loved every second of it.
Luke closed his eyes briefly.
Yeah.
Okay.
He’d start with the sink.
The wind had picked up by the time Luke parked along the curb outside Crystal Lake Elementary.
Leaves skittered across the pavement. A cluster of mothers stood near the gate, oversized sunglasses and travel mugs in hand, talking about soccer schedules and spelling tests. One of them laughed too loudly. Another checked her phone.
Luke joined them.
“Officer Bennett,” one of the women said, smiling. “Everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine,” he replied easily. “Just waiting to pick someone up.”
The dismissal bell rang, and the doors opened. Kids spilled out in a wave of noise and color. Backpacks thumping. Shoelaces untied. Chaos.
Luke’s gaze moved automatically, scanning—
—and then he saw her.
Grace stood in the doorway, ushering students out with that patient, steady warmth that made something in his chest tighten every time. She bent to hear a child. Smiled. Smoothed down someone’s hair.
She loved this.
The town thought he was a hero for wearing a badge.
Grace Hart did more for this town before nine a.m. than he did in a full shift.
Luke drank her in, his pulse picking up.
“Miss Hart’s a saint,” one of the moms beside him murmured as her son ran past. “I don’t know how she does it.”
The fall festival would be this weekend. Main Street strung with orange lights, cider steaming in paper cups, kids in cheap costumes racing between booths.
He always worked it.
Crowd control. Beer garden. Parking.
This year, he didn’t want to work it.
He wanted to take her.
Hand in hand down Main Street. Leaves crunching underfoot. Kettle corn grease on his fingers. Her laugh warm against his collar when he pulled her close against the cold.
He wanted to lean down and kiss her under the garlands of lights without caring who saw.
He wanted the town to know.
This is her. She’s mine. I’m hers.
Not secret. Not hidden. Not contained.
A life.
And she had asked him for exactly that.
Dinner on Main Street. His hand in hers. Daylight.
She hadn’t demanded forever. She hadn’t asked for a ring. She’d just asked not to be hidden.
And he had weighed up everything she was offering him and turned her down. Like a fucking idiot.
Grace looked up then.
Her eyes found him immediately.
For a split second, something flashed across her face—surprise, warmth, followed by a moment of hurt she quickly buried. A memory of his rejection.
Luke didn’t look away.
He didn’t step back.
He stood there with the school moms and the minivans and the wind kicking leaves across the pavement and let himself want something he had once been too afraid to claim.
He was ready.
God, he was so ready.
Because Grace Hart wasn’t just someone he wanted to protect.
She was someone he wanted to build a life with.