Chapter 26
That morning, Jenna awoke early.
She lay still a moment in the unfamiliar guest room, staring at the ceiling while the gray light of early morning pressed against the curtains. The house was quiet other than the faint tick of a clock somewhere down the hall and the vague sound of birds starting up outside.
She hadn’t slept well, but at least she’d slept. That surprised her.
Finally, she forced herself to get up. She dressed quickly and found the bathroom down the hall.
After getting ready, she went downstairs. Good Boy and Hamilton greeted her, and she gave them a good head rub.
The kitchen was empty, but Naomi had left a note, instructing her to help herself. She and Caleb and Grace had gone into town to pick up some things.
She welcomed the moment alone.
Someone had already set the coffee maker to auto. The aroma of the brew filled the kitchen with a smell that felt almost unbearably normal.
Jenna poured herself a mug and stood by the window over the sink.
The property stretched out gray and quiet in the early light. Dew dotted the grass. A bird crossed low over the pond.
The morning looked like peace, which felt at odds with everything inside her.
Hamilton lifted his head.
He’d been sprawled on a rug, but he came up off the floor and crossed to the back door, hackles rising along his spine. A low sound started in his chest, too quiet to be a bark. He fixed on the tree line and held there, still as a pointer.
Jenna followed his stare.
The woods sat gray and motionless at the far edge of the yard. Nothing moved.
Then, low in the dark between two trunks, a point of light caught the dawn and threw it back—a flat, glassy wink, there and gone before she could place it.
Or probably just dew on a branch.
Nothing important.
Or a lens. A reflection off glasses or binoculars. Or—
She stopped and forced herself to breathe.
The dog stayed at the door a moment longer, ears forward, reading what she couldn’t. Then the growl wound down, and he let it go, turning back into the kitchen as if the morning had never held anything in it but coffee and quiet.
Jenna kept her eyes on the trees. Whatever had been there, she no longer saw it.
It had most likely been nothing. She was simply on edge and looking for danger where it didn’t exist.
She forced her lungs to loosen.
Then footsteps sounded on the stairs.
Small ones.
She set her mug down and turned.
Cora stood at the bottom of the stairs, her dark hair loose around her face and one hand still holding the stair rail. She blinked at Jenna with the solemn, slightly unfocused look of a child who’d just woken up.
Then a grin cracked her face. “You’re still here.”
“I’m still here.” Jenna kept her voice even, careful not to let the words catch in her throat. “Did you sleep okay?”
Cora padded across the kitchen floor in bare feet and climbed onto one of the stools at the island without answering. She studied Jenna, her chin resting in her hands.
“Your hair’s different than I remembered,” she finally said.
“It is. I used to keep it shorter.”
Cora considered this. “I like it longer.”
“Thank you.”
Cora frowned, looking as if she were trying to find the right words. “Do you know how to make pancakes?”
Jenna almost smiled. “I do.”
“Daddy usually burns the edges.”
“I won’t burn the edges.”
Cora slid off the stool and went to the pantry. She returned with a box of mix and set it on the counter in front of Jenna. “Then here. I’m sure Aunt Naomi won’t mind if you cook.”
Jenna took the box. With Cora’s help, she found a mixing bowl and griddle. She was measuring out the batter when Jonah appeared, trailing a stuffed rabbit by one ear.
He stopped in the middle of the kitchen and stared at her.
“She’s making pancakes,” Cora announced matter-of-factly.
“Yum.” Jonah climbed up on a barstool and watched.
Jenna kept her eyes on the griddle and her breathing steady. Memories flooded back to her—memories of making breakfast for her children in her own house, the one she’d built with Luke. She’d loved those slow, lazy mornings.
For a moment, all the time she’d lost with her children hit her. Those were years she’d never get back. She’d missed so much.
Moisture threatened to fill her eyes.
She poured the first round of batter and listened to it hiss against the heat.
She wouldn’t cry. Not now. Not in front of the kids.
Jenna had done enough damage without adding tears to the morning.
Ruby came down twenty minutes later, already dressed. She stopped in the doorway when she saw the children eating and Jenna cleaning up the kitchen.
An unreadable emotion traveled through her gaze.
“Good morning,” Jenna said as she plunged another plate into the soapy water of the sink.
“Good morning.” Ruby moved to the coffee maker and grabbed a mug from the cabinet.
“Grandma!” Cora ran and gave her a hug.
“Good morning, Bug. How’d you sleep?”
“Good—especially now that Mom’s back!”
Ruby smiled tentatively and glanced at Jenna.
“Can we go play on the screened porch?” Cora asked her grandma then Jenna.
“Of course, sweetie,” Ruby told her before rubbing her head.
The kids hurried outside, letting the door bang behind them.
The kitchen went quiet.
Ruby stood beside Jenna a moment, and Jenna felt the older woman assessing the scene.
“Liam’s not up yet,” Jenna said, as if she needed to account for his absence.
“He sleeps later than the other two.” Ruby poured herself a cup of coffee. “He always has, hasn’t he? Even as a baby, he was never a morning person.”
“It’s true.” Jenna turned her pancake. “He gets that from Luke.”
“He does.” Ruby smiled. “He also gets the part where, once he decides he trusts you, there’s nothing in the world he won’t do for you.” She paused. “But he has to decide it himself. Nobody can talk him into it.”
Jenna understood she wasn’t only talking about Liam.
She rinsed the last dish and turned to face Luke’s mom. “Ruby—”
“You don’t have to explain yourself to me.” Ruby offered another soft smile. “I mean that. I’m not saying it because I want you to feel better. I’m saying it because it’s true.”
“But . . .” Jenna didn’t even know what to say—only that she felt like she should object, that she should still pay some type of penance.
“I know you, Jenna,” Ruby continued. “I’ve known you since you were a young woman trying very hard not to need anybody. You’ve been carrying your grief and guilt for entirely too long now.”
Jenna looked at the counter, trying to hold herself together.
“I’m not saying it wasn’t hard for the kids. It was. It was the hardest thing they’ve been through, and that’s the truth.” Ruby’s voice didn’t soften or sharpen. “But hard things don’t always mean the person who caused them is without reason. And pain doesn’t always mean the story is over.”
Jenna pressed her lips together and said nothing.
“Give Luke time.” Ruby picked up her mug again.
“I know that’s not easy to hear. But he’s been through an emotional firestorm, him and those kids too.
What you’ve been through—that’s its own kind of fire.
Healing just doesn’t happen on a schedule.
Luke is stubborn. He comes by it honestly.
But he loves deeply, and that doesn’t just turn off because something broke. ”
Footsteps sounded on the stairs.
Ruby glanced toward the doorway, and her expression shifted. “That’s him.”
Sure enough, a moment later, Luke appeared in the doorway.
He was dressed in jeans and a work shirt, his hair still damp from a shower.
Something about the sight of him like that caused a knot to form in her throat. It made Jenna want to scoot closer. To remember the feeling of his arms around her. To smell his cologne.
All things she’d lost the right to do.
But the desire was still there, and it was so strong it made her bones ache.
His eyes moved from Ruby to the stove to Jenna.
Jenna shrugged. “Naomi left a note telling me to make myself at home. So I did. There’s coffee. And I made extra pancakes. Cora requested them. She also mentioned something about burnt edges when you make them at home.”
A grin tugged at his lips. “I’ve had trouble with the griddle temp.”
“I used medium-low. Seems to help.”
He moved to the coffee maker and poured his cup without hurrying.
As Jenna stood near, she was entirely too aware of his presence.
He sat down at the island with his coffee and didn’t speak.
The silence wasn’t comfortable. But it wasn’t broken, either.
It was, she thought, a beginning.
Then Luke set his mug down.
“There’s something I need to tell you.” His voice was quiet, careful. “Micah called last night. A young woman was found behind Ember & Oak. Unconscious. She’s in the hospital.”
Jenna went still.
“They don’t know yet who did it or why. But she worked at the restaurant. Her name is Emily.” He watched her face. “I thought you should know.”
Ember & Oak.
The name landed like a stone dropping through water.
I’m Emily. Just flag me if you need anything.
She’d been kind. She’d brought chamomile tea because Jenna had looked like she’d had a bad day. She’d pointed her toward the back hallway without being asked.
Jenna set down the dish towel. “She was our server. When Wes and I had lunch there.”
Luke’s expression told her he’d already considered that.
“Someone must have seen us.” The words came out flat. “Seen us whispering, maybe. Thought she knew something.” Jenna’s jaw tightened. “She didn’t know anything. She just brought me tea.”
She pressed her hand against the counter.
She’d been back in her family’s life for less than a week, and already someone had paid a price for being kind to her.