Chapter 41
Luke met the inspector at the cottages, and he knew the man hadn’t come to inspect anything.
“I thought you were coming Monday,” Luke said.
“I’m working weekends—lots of new buildings going up in the area,” Fenn said. “Hope you don’t mind.”
“A heads-up would have been nice.”
“That header’s undersized.” Fenn tapped a doorway, acting as if he hadn’t heard what Luke said.
“It’s a doubled two-by-ten spanning six feet. It’s code in every county in the state, and you passed it Wednesday.”
“Codes get reviewed.” Fenn made a note. “I’m taking a closer look this time.”
He flagged the next one too, and the one after that—things that had never been violations. The man barely looked at the work. He glanced, he wrote, he moved on, wearing a patient, regretful expression that never came within a mile of his eyes.
Luke knew the difference between a man examining something and a man performing the motions of it. This was the motions.
“You want to tell me what this is really about?” Luke’s hands went to his hips.
“Just doing my job, Mr. King.” Fenn clicked his pen. “Though I’ll say—with everything that’s been going on out here lately, all that trouble and calls to the police—a man in my position has to be thorough. You understand.”
Luke went still.
A building inspector had no reason on earth to know how many times the sheriff had been to Refuge Cove. No reason to care. The fact that Fenn had brought it up at all confirmed to Luke where his marching orders were coming from.
He didn’t say so. There was nothing to gain arguing with a man who’d been paid not to listen.
When Fenn finally left, Luke stood near the cottages, his jaw aching.
The inspector’s truck rolled back down the drive and out the gate.
Luke watched it go, then turned for the house. Caleb fell into step beside him from the direction of the cottages, where he’d hung back within earshot the whole time.
Of course, he had. Caleb never let Luke take a meeting like that alone.
Neither of them said anything until the kitchen door shut behind them.
“So that’s how it’s going to be.” Caleb leaned against the counter, arms crossed. “He didn’t come here to inspect anything. He came to start a paper trail.”
“I know.” Luke set his copy of the Wednesday sign-off on the counter.
He wanted to believe the worst of the day was behind them.
But he’d wanted to believe that yesterday too.
The truth was—this was all far from being over.
By the time the supper dishes were done, the sun had dropped behind the western ridge and the light had gone soft across the property.
Luke found Jenna on the porch, and the words were out before he’d decided to say them. “Walk down to the pond with me? Before the light goes?”
He heard himself and almost wished he could take the offer back—not because he hadn’t meant it, but because he had.
That was the problem. All week he’d held a careful distance between them, telling himself his guardedness was for the kids, for his own sake, for the trust Jenna still had to earn back.
But he was tired of careful. He’d been careful since Jenna left, and it hadn’t kept a single thing from hurting.
“I’d like that,” Jenna murmured.
So they walked. Not far—he kept the house in sight the whole way.
The pond sat at the bottom of the front yard, still and silver in the dusk, far enough from the windows to feel like somewhere they could talk. Freya trailed them, keeping Jenna in her sights. The dog certainly had taken to Jenna.
They stopped at the water’s edge. A few early peepers had started up in the reeds, and the surface held the last of the color leaking out of the sky.
For a while neither of them spoke. It was the first easy quiet he could remember having with Jenna since she came back, and he didn’t want to be the one to break it.
Then his eyes went to her arm.
She’d pushed her sleeves up against the warmth of the kitchen and hadn’t pulled them down. In the fading light he saw the scar—a pale, raised line across the inside of her forearm.
He’d noticed it days ago when he’d cleaned the cut on her forehead after the shooting. A scar that hadn’t been there in all the years he’d known her. He’d asked. She’d called it a long story and looked like she’d rather face anything than tell it.
“How did you get this scar?” he said.
She turned her arm over and studied the mark like it belonged to someone else.
“You don’t have to tell me,” he said. “But I’d like to know.”
For a long moment he thought she’d deflect again. Then she drew a breath.
“Last year, I took a job working in a restaurant kitchen. Prep line. The place paid cash and didn’t ask too many questions.” She offered a faint, tired smile. “I was good at it, actually. You learn to make yourself invisible, and a prep cook is about as invisible as a person gets.”
Whatever Luke had braced himself for, it hadn’t been that.
“One of the slicers caught me. The blade went deep.” She traced the line with one finger., then shrugged as if it were nothing. “I butterflied it shut myself. It healed crooked. That’s all this is.”
That’s all this is.
Luke didn’t trust himself to speak.
He hadn’t imagined this. The smallness of it undid him in a way a knife in the dark never could have.
“How many times did they have to move you?” His voice sounded gravelly, even to his own ears.
“Over the past two years? Four. It was so lonely that . . . well, honestly there were days I didn’t even want to go on. Only my faith kept me going. I missed my family so much that it hurt. I felt . . . hopeless. And that’s a really bad place to be.”
He looked out at the dark water as something twisted hard in his chest—grief and fury and a tenderness so sharp it hurt. “I’m sorry.”
She tilted her head and gazed up at him with questions in her eyes. “For what?”
“That you were alone for all of it. I was sure I’d gotten the worst of it.” He shook his head. “I didn’t know the half of what you were dealing with.”
“You weren’t supposed to. That was the whole point.” She looked at him. “Dealing with it alone was the one thing I could still do for you.”
Then her gaze dropped to his left hand.
He saw it happen—saw her notice the bare finger where his wedding band used to be, saw something flicker and close in her eyes before she looked away.
She thought she knew what it meant. Of course, he’d taken his ring off. Of course, he’d let go, the way a sensible man would have.
“I don’t wear it,” he whispered.
“You don’t have to explain. I left. You had every right—”
“Jenna.” He reached into his pocket.
He’d carried this since she’d left. He’d told himself a dozen reasons over the months, and not one of them had been the real one. The real one was that he hadn’t been able to set it down.
He opened his hand.
Two rings sat in his palm. His.
And hers.
Jenna went still.
“You left yours on the nightstand,” he said. “The morning I woke up and you were gone, it was sitting there by the lamp. I figured it was supposed to tell me something. That you weren’t coming back. That I should let go.”
She stared at the rings like they might not be real.
“I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t wear mine—it hurt too much to look at. And I couldn’t get rid of either one because that felt like agreeing with you that it was over.” He closed his hand around them. “So I’ve carried them both.”
“Luke.” Her eyes filled with moisture.
“We never divorced. I never filed. I told everyone I hadn’t gotten around to it.” His throat clenched. “That was a lie. I didn’t file because some part of me never stopped believing you’d walk back through that door.”
Jenna looked at him, grief breaking open behind her eyes.
He should put the rings away. He should step back and rebuild the careful distance between them and remember every reason this was complicated.
Despite his logic, he didn’t move.