5. Kate
Chapter five
Kate
T he wind howls outside like it’s got a bone to pick with the roof.
I try to focus on the stack of art projects spread across my kitchen table, each one stiff with tempera paint and glued sequins that glint under the flickering overhead light.
I’m halfway through a rainbow landscape when thunder cracks loud enough to rattle my spine.
My marker slips, bleeding blue across a student’s sun.
Great .
I blow out a breath and set the paper down, pushing my chair back with a soft scrape. My nerves are shot. I’ve had one too many storms crash into my life, and this one should not stir something deep and unsteady in me.
But I can’t deny that I don’t do well with storms, not with the memory that comes with them. I shake my head, trying to divert my thoughts.
It’s been a week.
One long, strange, fluttery, steadying week.
I’m not sure how to explain the way it feels to have something good start to take root again.
With Parker beside me, laughing, running barefoot with Blaze like the world is new, waving at everyone in Porthaven, my lungs feel like they’ve finally learned how to breathe again.
The job’s been better than I expected. The kids are vibrant and weird, and bright in all the best ways. Lillian Monroe, head of the school and already dangerously close to honorary godmother territory, took an instant liking to me and Parker.
She even watches him during my classes until he joins his class on Monday, as though it’s no big deal. As if we’re already a part of this place.
I want to believe we are.
It may have seemed silly to others that I wanted Parker to come with me on Monday to give him enough time to get familiar with the school a little bit and not overwhelm him immediately, but Lillian understood perfectly.
I want to make it real. Make friends. Stay. And for some unexplainable reason, the person I believe should be my first friend… was Noah.
My neighbor with the storm cloud eyes and the way of observing like he’s waiting for something to go wrong.
He’s been distant, intentional or not; I can’t tell. But I see him. Standing at his window most mornings when I jog back up the path. Arms crossed over that broad chest, like he’s carved from the stillness. He doesn’t wave. Doesn’t smile. Just watches.
I should hate it. I don’t.
Noah Bennett is the first man I haven’t been able to charm, deflect, or disarm with a quick grin or an easy quip. And oddly, that makes me feel...safe.
Because whatever he sees when he studies me is not the polished version.
It’s not the girl who fled her old life in heels and lipstick.
Not Kate Sinclair. He sees this version.
Tired. Trying. Barely holding the corners of her world together with glue and good intentions. He’s seeing Kate Montgomery.
And he doesn’t shy away.
Earlier today, when he showed up at the fence to warn me about the storm, I caught something in his eyes, something raw. A memory he hadn’t made peace with? I knew that expression.
I see it in the mirror some mornings before Parker wakes up.
And if I’m being completely honest, the sight of him standing there in the wind, tall, serious, jaw clenched like he was fighting something invisible, I didn’t only want to comfort him. I wanted to reach for him. Touch his wrist. Tug him closer. See if that mouth tasted the way his voice sounded.
But I didn’t. Of course, I didn’t.
The storm picks up, and the light overhead flickers, making me draw an uneasy breath.
Parker’s scream shatters the moment a beat later, raw and sudden and sharp. My stomach free-falls. I shove back from the table and sprint toward his room as the storm slams into the side of the house with a force that makes the windows tremble in their frames.
I pause in the center of the living room, my heart thudding loudly in the stillness between thunderclaps.
The wind presses against the walls like a living thing trying to crawl inside.
My chest goes tight, not from the roar overhead but from what lives underneath it.
That cold sliver of memory that cuts deeper the harder it rains.
I swallow hard.
I hate this kind of storm, the sudden, snapping kind, wild wind, and black sky; it’s too familiar. The air feels the same as it did that night, the night I lost Ethan, Parker’s father. Thick. Heavy. Too quiet before the sound split open the sky.
Parker’s sobbing in the hallway, clutching his stuffed stegosaurus like it’ll keep the walls from caving in.
And I can’t breathe.
I see it, a flash, like lightning behind my eyes.
That night.
Parker was barely eighteen months old, bundled in the back seat with sticky hands and one shoe off. I remember the feel of my hand on the dash, bracing for impact. The wipers couldn’t keep up. Everything was blinding.
The sound, the scream of metal, the sudden jerk of the car spinning, the sickening silence when it stopped.
And Ethan? He was slumped over the wheel. The rain sheeting on the windshield made it hard to see anything else. I blink the memory away, but it clings. The storm outside is howling again, like it remembers, too.
“Mommy,” Parker’s voice breaks, high and panicked.
I move quickly to scoop him up into my arms as the thunder crashes directly overhead. The sound splits the air open. Parker’s face presses into my neck, hot and damp, and I can feel him trembling all the way through.
“It’s okay,” I whisper, even though it feels like a lie. My arms tighten around him. I shift our weight from foot to foot, rocking gently as if the motion alone can protect us. “I’ve got you, baby. I’ve got you.”
A groan comes from above, the rafters shifting under the force of the wind. The house creaks again, a long, aching sound like it’s holding itself together with willpower alone.
The lights flicker once.
Twice.
Then everything goes dark.
I flinch. Parker clutches me harder.
I force my feet to move, feeling my way across the room, my heart pounding like a drum.
I find the flashlight on the entry shelf by instinct and flick it on.
The weak beam cuts through the black like a lifeline, dancing shadows across the walls, making them stretch and twist like they’re watching us.
Parker’s crying harder now. Full-bodied sobs that shake him against me.
“We’re okay,” I say again, softer this time, kneeling down behind the couch with him in my lap. “It’s just the storm. We’ve got each other, yeah?”
He nods against my collarbone, fingers still curled in the fabric of my shirt.
I hold him until his breathing slows a little. Then I carry him to the hallway, the most protected part of the house, and nestle him onto a pile of pillows and blankets I threw together after the weather warning. I tuck the stuffed stegosaurus into his arms. He clings to it like it’s made of armor.
“I’m right here,” I whisper, brushing his soft curls back from his forehead.
A moment passes, and I hear the unmistakable crunch of boots on the porch; my head snaps towards the door in time to hear the knock. Once and hard.
My bare feet whisper across the wood floor as I approach the door. The wind is shrieking again, tearing through the trees like it wants to rip the whole world loose.
I reach for the doorknob with a shaky breath, unlock the deadbolt, and ease the door open.
And there he is.
Noah.
Soaked through in a gray hoodie that clings to every hard line of his chest and arms, rainwater dripping from the hood he hasn’t bothered to pull up. His jeans are dark with water, work boots are slick with mud.
In one hand, he holds a lantern casting soft gold light across his face—sharp jaw, soaked lashes, those eyes that always seem like they’re holding something back.
He doesn’t say anything at first. Just stares at me.
And for a second, I forget about the wind howling and the fear gripping my heart.
“Noah?” I call out softly, mostly to reassure myself it’s really him.
“You okay?” His eyes study my face, and something shifts. Concern flickers across his expression, subtle but there, as if I don’t appear as calm as I hoped I did.
“I see the lights went out,” he says again when I don’t reply. “Thought you and the little guy might need a backup.”
He raises the lantern, offering it.
My fingers curl around the door. I realize they’re trembling. My whole body’s still buzzing with leftover adrenaline. My throat feels too tight to speak.
His gaze lingers a beat longer. Then he clears his throat.
“I don’t know how well the cottage’s gonna hold in a storm like this. No one’s lived in it during bad weather, wasn’t even wired for it ‘til last year. If you’re not comfortable staying put...”
He shifts from foot to foot, tilting to one side as if he’s not sure how it’ll sound to me.
“You’re welcome to come to my place. If you want. I figured I’d at least offer.”
For a moment, I stand there, staring at him like I don’t comprehend what he’s saying.
Because what?
This man, gruff, private, allergic to unnecessary words, just offered shelter. To me. At nearly midnight. In a storm. After days of him avoiding eye contact and staying away from us?
The wind roars behind me again, rattling the windows.
And suddenly, I don’t care that we’ve hardly spoken since I moved in. I don’t care that he’s been distant and that I don’t really understand him yet.
Because the cottage feels like it’s shaking in its bones. Parker is curled up alone in the hallway. And the idea of spending the night listening to that storm claw at the walls without a backup plan makes something tighten in my chest all over again.
“I’ll get Parker,” I whisper.
He nods once.
The wind practically slaps me as I run back to grab Parker, bundled now in a blanket with his dinosaur tucked under one arm. Thankfully, he’s dozing off again; he stirs a little as I carry him, but doesn’t wake fully. The second I come back to the door, Noah’s already stepping in, reaching out.
“I’ll carry him,” he says, gentler this time.