Chapter 28
Micah stood in front of the second cottage and studied the split frame.
Caleb and Naomi had arrived back at Refuge Cove from their errands around the same time. Caleb joined them, laptop in hand so he could review the damage.
He sat at a makeshift desk—plywood over two sawhorses—inside a cottage and reviewed security footage on his computer. He’d said very little since Luke had walked him through the damage. Luke knew what that meant. He was angry.
The new cameras Wes had installed last month had better resolution than the old system. Luke had been grateful for that upgrade approximately once before today. He was significantly more grateful for it now.
“I’ve got something.” Caleb turned the laptop toward them.
They gathered around it. The footage was from the camera mounted at the back corner of the main house—the widest angle of the property, covering the yard and the beginning of the tree line. The timestamp read 2:47 a.m.
The image was grainy at the edges but clear enough in the center.
A figure moved along the tree line at the far left of the frame. He wore a dark jacket and a ball cap pulled low—just like the person who’d cut the power last night. The man stayed close to the trees, moving like someone who knew exactly where the cameras were and how far their reach extended.
Micah studied the screen. “Can you pull a still on that frame?”
Caleb tapped a key. The image froze and sharpened slightly—the figure caught mid-stride, face angled down and away from the camera. It wasn’t enough for a positive ID. But the build was right to match Travis.
“It’s Travis,” Caleb announced.
“It’s consistent with Travis.” Micah straightened. “When I leave here, I’m going to head to the Hendersons to have another conversation.”
Luke looked at the frozen image on Caleb’s screen—the figure in the woods.
Enough was enough.
They just couldn’t sit by idly and let someone destroy this place.
Liam came downstairs at eleven.
Jenna was in the sitting room with Cora and Jonah, who’d both migrated from the screened porch and were now engaged in something involving rearranging couch cushions and a set of increasingly complicated rules.
Jenna heard his footsteps on the stairs—heavier than the younger two and more deliberate—and she looked up.
He stopped in the doorway.
He was tall for eight, with Luke’s coloring. Something in his expression was entirely his own—a careful, watchful quality that didn’t belong on a child’s face.
His eyes moved from Cora to Jonah to Jenna. When they reached Jenna, he didn’t look away. Instead, he stared at her the same way his father did when he was deciding something.
“Good morning,” Jenna said.
“Morning.” He moved to the kitchen without stopping.
She listened to him pour himself a glass of juice. Then he opened the pantry and closed it again. He took some cereal to the breakfast bar and ate alone. As he did, Jenna stayed where she was, reminding herself not to push.
The morning arranged itself around her in small, ordinary ways. Jonah knocked over his cushion tower and rebuilt it. Cora revised the rules in her favor. Ruby was doing some laundry, and Naomi was taking care of Grace.
Everything almost felt normal.
At least, it felt like a performance of normal.
The Lab had come in sometime during the morning. Freya. Jenna had heard the name from Ruby, along with the warning that came attached to it—she doesn’t take to people, so don’t take it personally.
She wasn’t one of the dogs Jenna had met—not Hamilton with his husky swagger, not Naomi’s golden, not Wyatt’s search and rescue dog.
This one was a chocolate Lab, her coat the deep brown of turned earth, her ears soft and folded against her head. She held herself like a dog who’d learned not to trust—a little lean, a little too still, watching the world the way a person watched it when they’d stopped expecting it to be kind.
She lay along the far wall now, head on her paws, watching the children rearrange the couch cushions. Jenna didn’t reach for her. She’d learned a long time ago what it cost to be reached for before you were ready.
So she let the dog be. She stayed where she was.
When she looked up again, Freya had moved. Not close. Just a few feet nearer than before, settled into a new spot with her eyes half-open.
Jenna didn’t make anything of it out loud. But she noticed.
Jenna folded a blanket someone had left on the armchair and set it on the back of the couch. She tried not to look at the window every thirty seconds.
She prayed without closing her eyes.
Please, Lord . . . let coming back have been the right thing. Let it not make things worse for them. Let me not have brought something here that destroys what they’ve built.
The back door opened, and Luke stepped inside.
“As you may have realized by now, the cottages were vandalized.” His voice sounded even and careful around the children.
She held his gaze. “I’m sorry.”
“I just wanted to give you an update. I need to head back out. The damage has set us back, and I want to get ahead of it before the end of the day.”
She stood there in the kitchen a moment after Luke left, then she turned to where Liam had settled near the window with a book. She needed to do something to occupy herself—and baking had always been one of her standbys. She was certain no one would mind if she worked in the kitchen.
“Liam.” She kept her voice light. “Do you want to come help me make some cookies?”
He looked up from his book, his expression unchanged. “No.”
She nodded once, even though he wasn’t looking at her. “Okay then. But I’d love your help.”
His eyes narrowed. “You’re not my mom. I didn’t want you to come back! I was doing just fine without you!”
An ache split her heart in two. “Liam . . .”
But he didn’t look at her. His gaze went to his book, and it was clear he didn’t want to talk.
Time, she reminded herself. She just needed to give him time. But even with that realization, her heart still hurt.