Chapter 19
Grace
Grace saw him before she left the house.
Luke stood beside his car at the curb, one hand resting on the roof. He looked good.
Memory rose unbidden—the weight of him over her, the heat of his hands, the way he fit against her like he’d been made for it. On her. In her. The way her body had overruled her pride, time and again.
Annoyed at herself, she stepped out onto her porch and pulled the door shut behind her. She adjusted the strap of her bag on her shoulder and started down the steps.
“Grace,” he said when she reached the sidewalk.
She didn’t stop walking. “Luke.”
He straightened. “I’m driving you to school.”
She actually laughed—a short, incredulous sound. “No, you’re not.”
“I’m not asking,” he said. “I’m telling you.”
She stopped and turned, anger flaring hot and fast.
“You don’t get to tell me things,” she said. “You lost that privilege.”
His jaw flexed. “Someone got to you yesterday.”
“And I handled it,” she snapped. “Without you.”
Something flickered across his face—pain, maybe. Or frustration. She didn’t slow down long enough to decide.
She turned back toward the sidewalk and started walking again.
Luke fell into step beside her. Of course he did.
“I’m trying to keep you safe,” he said.
Grace let out a breath through her nose. “I didn’t think you cared that much.”
Silence stretched between them, broken only by the crunch of leaves under their feet. Her fingers curled around her bag strap. “You made it very clear what I was to you.”
“Grace—”
“I was your dirty little secret,” she said. “Something you could enjoy without it touching your precious reputation.”
“That’s not—”
“Because you think,” she cut in, finally turning her head, “that you are better than me. Better than a Hart.”
Luke stopped walking.
Grace didn’t.
“I wouldn’t want to tarnish your reputation,” she added coolly. “Being seen with me might give people ideas.”
A second later, his footsteps were back beside hers.
“Okay,” he said. “I won’t drive you. We’ll walk.”
She didn’t look at him.
She set her pace deliberately brisk, fueled by irritation and old hurt and the echo of a want she refused to acknowledge anymore.
Luke matched her easily. He stayed right there—quiet, steady, infuriatingly present.
Grace stared straight ahead, jaw tight.
She ignored him.
And he walked with her anyway.
The school came into view, threaded with the distant shriek of laughter and the scrape of sneakers on pavement. Kids clustered near the entrance, backpacks bouncing, parents calling reminders, the familiar morning chaos unfolding like it always did.
Luke hadn’t said a word for the last block, just walked beside her like a shadow she hadn’t asked for and couldn’t shake. Protective without touching. Present without overstepping.
Grace stopped at the curb. “This is far enough.”
Luke stopped too.
“I’m walking you to the door,” he said.
“No,” she replied immediately. “You’re not.”
There was a pause. His gaze slid past her—she watched him assess the street, entrance, the cluster of parents near the curb. A muscle in his jaw worked once before he nodded. “Okay.”
She glanced at him, suspicious.
“I’ll see you this afternoon,” he said.
Grace frowned. “What?”
“To walk you home,” he said.
“No,” she said again, sharper this time. “Absolutely not.”
He crossed his arms. “Grace—”
“What about my reputation?” she asked. “You already did enough damage showing up here the other day.”
Regret flickered across his face. “I’m sorry about that. I am. But you can’t walk home alone.”
“I don’t need you to protect me,” she said.
He studied her for a long moment, eyes steady, voice lower when he spoke again. “Someone waited for you outside your house.”
She blinked hard. “I can take care of myself. I’ve been doing it my whole life.”
“I know,” he said. “But you shouldn’t have to.”
Grace swallowed and looked away, focusing on the yellow paint of the crosswalk, the flutter of a paper leaf taped crookedly to the front window.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked quietly. “Why do you care?”
Luke flinched like her words had caused him physical pain. But Grace hadn’t meant them to hurt.
Silence stretched between them, taut and vibrating.
“I’ll be here when school lets out. You don’t have to talk to me. You don’t have to acknowledge me. But I’m not leaving you to walk home alone today.”
Grace felt the familiar pull—the urge to argue, to push, to reassert ground she’d fought hard to claim.
And beneath it, the unwanted truth: She wanted to feel safe. She wanted the guard at her back. And worst of all, she wanted that guardian to be him.
“We’re over,” she said, reminding herself as much as him.
“I know.”
“This doesn’t change that.”
“I know that too.”
She held his gaze another beat, then nodded once. Sharp. Controlled.
“Fine,” she said.
Grace turned and crossed the street before he could say anything else.
She didn’t look back.
But as she walked toward the doors—toward her students, her classroom, the life she’d built—she felt it.
The knowledge that when the final bell rang, he would be there.
Grace stood at the whiteboard with a blue marker in her hand and wrote BEGINNING in careful block letters.
“Okay, friends,” she said, turning back to the room, past the rows of small desks and swinging feet. “Every story starts somewhere. Who remembers what the beginning is for?”
Hands shot up. A chorus of voices followed.
Grace smiled automatically. Genuinely.
This—this was easy. Familiar. Safe.
She moved through the first half of the morning on instinct. Reading circles. Gentle corrections. Praise offered exactly where it was needed. She knelt beside a desk to help with a stubborn letter B, laughed when someone announced they’d lost their pencil for the third time already.
The kids didn’t look at her differently.
They never did.
To them, she wasn’t a Hart kid. They were too young to remember a time when her parents were still in town, causing trouble and getting arrested every other week.
She was just Miss Hart.
Trusted. Respected. Liked.
That knowledge settled something tight in her chest—even as her thoughts refused to stay put.
Grace guided her class into silent reading and moved to her desk, lowering herself into the chair. She picked up a stack of worksheets and tried to scan them. Instead her mind replayed everything she’d been holding at bay.
The porch. The footsteps. The way his fingers had brushed her hair.
Her stomach clenched.
She took a deep breath, forced her shoulders to relax. She kept her expression neutral as she drifted through the aisles like she always did. A gentle presence. A constant.
When a book slipped from a desk and hit the floor, she startled.
Just slightly.
“I’ve got it,” she said quickly, bending to pick it up before the student could. “Gravity’s being dramatic today.”
A few kids giggled.
The moment passed. But the vigilance stayed. She was cataloging exits, noticing sounds she usually tuned out—the hum of the lights, the scrape of a chair, footsteps in the hallway outside.
And threaded through it, irritatingly persistent, was Luke.
Luke standing by his car that morning like he had a claim. Luke walking beside her like he hadn’t spent months insisting she exist only in shadows. Luke deciding—without asking—that he would protect her.
She adjusted a stack of books that didn’t need adjusting.
Last night he’d been more honest. You have a houseguest. A criminal.
It had been a reminder of what he thought of her and her family.
Grace pressed her palm flat against her desk and breathed in slowly through her nose.
She didn’t need him deciding which parts of her life were acceptable.
She didn’t need him protecting her from the consequences of a family he’d already decided defined her.
And she didn’t need his concern if it came bundled with judgment.
“Miss Hart?”
She looked up. A small face peered at her, earnest and unconcerned.
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“Can you help me sound this word out?”
Grace smiled and knelt beside the desk. “Of course.”
She worked through the letters with him, patient and steady, until his face lit up with understanding. When he beamed at her, pride bright and uncomplicated, something in her chest loosened.
This was real.
This was earned.
Whatever trouble Eli was in. Whatever threat had followed him here. Whatever Luke thought he was doing—
This room was hers. This town was hers.
Grace straightened and moved back to the front of the room, clapping her hands once to gather attention.
“Alright, friends,” she said, voice warm and sure. “Who’s ready to talk about the middle of a story?”
Hands flew up again.
Grace smiled wider.
Whatever fear waited outside these walls—whatever men thought they knew about her—
In this room, she was exactly who she had always been.
And she wasn’t letting anyone take that from her.