Chapter 21
Jenna sat on the edge of the bed and watched Jonah wiggle under the covers like a child with strong opinions about blanket placement.
Downstairs, he’d looked up at her with his wide brown eyes and asked, “Can you tuck us in?”
The room had gone still.
Without looking, Jenna had felt Luke’s eyes on her. She’d felt the weight of the question and everything underneath it—her two missing years, the children’s bedtime routines she’d been absent for, the ground she had no right to simply walk back onto.
Then Luke had said, “Sure, Bud.”
All of them had come upstairs together, the kids tumbling ahead of them down the hallway. All the kids would sleep in one room tonight. They’d jumped into their respective beds, clearly having done this before.
While Jenna tucked them in, Luke stood in the doorway, watching everything. She couldn’t blame him for being guarded, for wanting to protect the children. She’d expected nothing less.
Jenna sat on the edge of the bed and helped Jonah with his blanket and tried to memorize everything at once. She never wanted to forget the smell of the room, the way Cora hummed to herself while she arranged her things, and the sound of Liam’s quiet breathing as he settled against his pillow.
She’d missed so much of their lives.
She wouldn’t think about that right now. It would only make her more emotional.
Instead, she smoothed Jonah’s blanket one final time to his satisfaction. “Okay, is everything right?”
He solemnly inspected his covers. “Yes.”
“Good.” She looked across at Cora, who’d abandoned her stuffed animals and was watching Jenna with bright, unblinking eyes. “You ready?”
Cora crawled across the bed and wrapped both arms around Jenna’s waist. “I’m so glad you’re back. I always knew you’d be back. Can you French braid my hair?”
She hid a smile. “I’d love to do that—but tomorrow.”
Cora grinned. “Thanks, Mama.”
Jenna held her daughter and pressed her lips to the top of her head as she breathed her in. She’d dreamed about doing this for so long now. It seemed surreal that it was happening. That she was here.
But she had to remind herself that it might not be permanent.
An ache ripped through her heart at the thought.
“Mama,” Cora said into her side, muffled and certain.
“I’m here, baby.”
Cora held on another moment then pulled back and looked up at her. “Will you be here in the morning?”
Jenna looked at her daughter’s face—her own face, looking back at her, open and trusting and entirely without guile. Emotion clogged her throat until she could hardly breathe.
“Yes,” she said. “I’ll be here in the morning.”
Cora studied her a moment longer before laying her head against her pillow. “Yay! That makes me so happy, Mama.”
More emotion nearly choked her, but she held herself together.
Cora reached past Jenna and clicked on the small nightlight on the bedside table. Its soft, yellow glow spread across the wall.
“I need that on,” Cora said, her expression dead serious.
“I know.” Jenna tucked the blanket around her. “I remember.”
Surprise flashed through Cora’s gaze, but she didn’t say anything. She just looked at Jenna with those dark eyes before smiling.
Then Jenna turned to Liam, her heart aching at the distance he kept from her. She understood it—but the reaction still hurt. However, she knew this was all her own doing. The blame rested on her shoulders.
He lay on his back and stared at the ceiling, deliberately not looking at her. This was the hardest on him, Jenna realized. He was old enough to remember the pain of her abandonment.
She sat on the edge of his bed. “Hey.”
He quickly looked at her before shifting his gaze back at the ceiling. “Hey.”
She didn’t push. Instead, she sat with him in the soft glow of the nightlight and let the quiet be what it was.
After a moment, he shifted. The motion was barely perceptible, just a fraction of movement toward her rather than away.
She leaned down and kissed his forehead the way she used to when he was small, half expecting him to pull away.
He didn’t.
“Good night, Liam,” she murmured.
“Night.” He still looked at the ceiling, but his voice had lost its careful flatness.
She stood and looked at all three of her children. They were all breathing and warm and real, their faces soft in the nightlight’s glow. Luke had done a wonderful job holding the family together while she’d been gone. She hadn’t doubted he would.
Her gaze drifted to the window across the room. It had gone black, the nightlight nowhere near reaching it, and it pulled at her the way dark glass always did.
She didn’t walk toward it. A lit room behind black glass meant anyone out in the yard could see her plainly while she saw nothing at all—she’d learned that the hard way. She was always the one in the light.
Out there was the yard, the woods, and anyone could be hiding there and looking in.
Nothing was out there, she told herself. Almost certainly nothing was out there.
Just like the smell earlier—the one that reminded her of Roderick’s cologne. That had just been her imagination and nothing more.
The cold along her arms didn’t believe it.
Right now, she didn’t trust herself to say anything else.
Instead, she crossed to the door, feeling like this was the most wonderful and awful day of her life.
As Luke watched Jenna cross the room toward him, something shifted in his chest—something he hadn’t been prepared for.
He’d been standing in the doorway for the better part of twenty minutes. He’d told himself he was there to supervise—to make sure the kids were okay.
That was partly true.
The rest of it was that he hadn’t been able to make himself leave.
He’d watched Jenna sit on the edge of Jonah’s bed and negotiate blankets with her same unmistakable patience. He’d watched her hold Cora—Cora, who hadn’t let go of her mother since the moment she’d seen Jenna.
He’d watched Jenna sit beside Liam.
That had been the hardest part.
He knew his son. He knew what that careful ceiling-staring posture meant.
It meant he was hurting.
Luke’s eyes stung at the thought. He averted his gaze to the nightlight instead.
Cora had turned it on with her matter-of-fact authority. He’d always loved her feistiness—though it also drove him crazy at times. It reminded him of Jenna. Jenna could be quiet, but beneath the quiet she had a lot of spirit.
Something in his chest had loosened at the thought.
He didn’t want the tension to loosen, but it had happened anyway, without his permission. There didn’t appear to be anything he could do to stop it.
Jenna reached the doorway and paused beside him.
They both looked back at the room again. Cora was already still, one hand curled under her cheek. Jonah had pulled the blanket up to his chin with evident satisfaction. Liam lay with his eyes closed now, still and unmoving.
The nightlight glowed.
Luke pulled the door partway closed and turned toward the hallway.
Jenna stood beside him, her arms folded across her chest, her eyes still on the door. He sensed the effort it was taking her to hold herself together. He recognized it because he was doing the same thing.
He looked at her.
She looked at him.
Neither of them said anything. There wasn’t anything to say that would fit in a hallway outside a room where their children were falling asleep.
Instead, he exhaled slowly before murmuring, “Come on. It’s time to talk to my family.”