Chapter 27
ANNA
I shot out of bed, my heart pounding as I stumbled into the hallway. “What accident? What happened?”
Last night had been wonderful. Knowing that Luke was in the room next to mine made it hard to fall asleep.
Every sound, every creak of the house, seemed charged with an energy I couldn’t ignore.
I couldn’t stop replaying the evening in my mind, the laughter we shared, the moments when the tension between us felt almost tangible.
Excitement buzzed under my skin, keeping sleep just out of reach.
When I finally drifted off, it felt like minutes before I was jolted awake by the housekeeper Joan’s voice, trembling with urgency.
She was standing in the hall with three men I’d never seen before. Her face filled with relief as she spotted me. “Oh, honey, I’m so glad you stayed here last night. A tree destroyed the cottage. If you’d been there, you could’ve been killed.”
Her words hit me like a brick. Without thinking, I bolted past her, my feet barely touching the stairs as I flew down them. When I reached the front door, I froze. The massive limb of a neighboring oak had crushed the roof of the cottage.
Luke was close behind me. Our eyes met, and a shared realization passed between us. Madame Aphrodite’s eerie warning about a falling tree echoed in my mind, her words now hauntingly prophetic.
Before I could act, Luke’s hands gripped my shoulders, stopping my instinctive dash toward the wreckage. “All my stuff,” I blurted, my heart racing. Across the driveway, drenched clothes, books, and personal journals lay scattered and ruined, their sodden forms tiny casualties of the storm.
Thankfully, my laptop was safe in the mansion.
“My sons got here as soon as I called them about the tree,” Joan said, her voice tinged with pride as she motioned to the three guys behind her.
They huddled together, arguing over the best way to use a rusty old saw they’d dug out of someone’s garage.
It didn’t take a professional eye to see that this trio wasn’t exactly licensed.
Just a family doing their best to help out in a pinch.
One of her sons wiped his brow. “We moved out what we could save, but don’t go in yet. The bedroom took the worst hit. There was a lot of paper in there.”
Paper. My chest tightened. My ninety-nine rejection letters, each one a symbol of my resilience, all gone. I swallowed hard, trying to find a way to feel relieved. Shouldn’t this be freeing? A fresh start? But instead, it felt like a punch to the gut.
I crouched near the soggy remains of what used to be my life.
A warped notebook sat on top of the pile, its pages swollen and curling like they were giving up.
My clothes were soaked through, and the colors had started to bleed, seams unraveling.
Everything felt precarious, on the verge of disintegrating, like one more gust of wind could scatter it all down the block.
I moved closer to the sodden pile of belongings, and I sank to my knees, struggling to process what this setback meant for me.
“Anna, breathe,” Joan said, her voice comforting. “We’ll help with whatever you need. Your clothes from yesterday? All cleaned and waiting inside. Wear those for now.”
I nodded, my voice caught in my throat. “Thank you, Joan.”
Luke’s voice was low but sure. “The most important thing is that you’re okay. Everything else? Just stuff.”
Joan chimed in optimistically, “The homeowner’s insurance might cover some of it.”
I appreciated her attempt to soften the blow, but I knew how long insurance claims could take to process.
“Where will you stay while they’re fixing things up?” Joan asked.
“With my aunt and uncle,” I said.
But Luke was already shaking his head. “What do you mean? You’ll stay here.”
My eyes flicked to his. “It’s okay. My family lives close by. They’ll have me.”
Luke wasn’t backing down. “You can stay here,” he insisted, his tone half-playful, half-serious. “Think of all the space you’ll have to write.” Then, more earnestly, “Please, stay.”
The words hung in the air, and for a moment, I considered staying.
But then the familiar knot of fear tightened in my chest. Fear of rejection.
Fear of stepping into something that might only hurt me in the end.
What if I stayed, and it ended up being more about convenience for him than anything real?
I shook my head, trying to steady my voice. “I can’t. My aunt and uncle have plenty of room.”
It was safer this way. Safer to walk away than to risk hearing him say later that I’d overstayed my welcome.
A flicker of disappointment crossed his face, gone so quickly I wondered if I’d imagined it. He masked it with humor. “Right, now that you mention it, the place might be a bit cramped.”
My phone buzzed.
“It’s my aunt.” I turned away to answer. “Aunt Delores, a tree destroyed the cottage.”
“What? That’s terrible. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, but I need a place to stay. Can I stay with you until I find another place?”
Her hesitation was thick with guilt. “We’ve got the Gibson family staying with us. Their house was destroyed. They’ve got six kids, and the bedrooms are full. But you’re always welcome here. You can crash on the couch.”
My chest tightened. I hated being a burden. For a moment, I longed for the comfort of my mom—the one person who’d have made me feel safe and cared for.
Forcing my voice to stay light, I backtracked. “No problem. I’ll figure something out. Don’t worry about it, okay?” I hung up before she could respond, ignoring her call when she tried again.
Taking a deep breath, I turned back to Luke. “The guest room at my aunt’s house is full. She said I could stay on the couch.”
Luke frowned, his gaze intense. “You shouldn’t have to sleep on a couch, especially after this.” He gestured toward the debris. His voice softened. “Stay here. You can have your own room. Or twelve.”
I hesitated, the knot in my chest tightening. But then I swallowed hard, forcing myself to push through it. “Are you sure? I don’t want to get in the way.”
He stepped closer, his voice earnest. “Right now, the only thing that matters to me is making sure you’re okay. We’ll figure the rest out.”
My chest tightened for a different reason this time, tears threatening to spill. But I couldn’t cry. Not now. Not in front of him again. I looked around at the wreckage, at the chaos that mirrored the mess in my head. “Okay,” I murmured, almost like I was testing the word. “Thank you.”
Luke nodded, a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “Good. You’ll see, it’s the right call.”
I didn’t know why he was doing this, but it didn’t matter. I was grateful it was Luke standing there, offering me more than just a roof over my head. Somehow, of all people, he made me feel like maybe I wasn’t as alone as I thought.