21. Grace
Grace
Meredith lightly grips the table’s edge, almost as if to steady herself. “He had a terrible accident in the shop. An engine malfunctioned, and a piece flew loose and hit him in the back.” Her breath wavers, but she steadies it. “He survived, but the pain never left.”
Katie sets down her water glass. “His doctor had him on medication to manage the pain, and he did everything right, kept to the dose, followed the schedule.” Her thumb tracing the rim of her glass in slow, careful circles.
“One night, about four months in, he took a little too much. We suppose he thought it would knock him out for a few hours of peace.” The last word barely makes it out. “He didn’t wake up.”
Silence folds over the table, and Maddox’s eyes fix somewhere far beyond what’s in front of him.
My chest tightens with the familiar ache of loss or regret for opening my mouth. “The anniversary next weekend, it’s to honor him?”
Raf nods. “Whole town comes out. We’ve done one, five years ago. The actual date of his passing usually falls around Thanksgiving, but we move it to the first weekend in December.” He shakes his head and smiles. “Truth is, it doesn’t matter when we hold it, the town shows up. He was good people.”
I glance toward Maddox, the desire for him to look at me fierce.
“What do you do?” The question comes out softer than I intend, gentle in a way I hope he doesn’t mistake for pity.
His shoulders lift in the slightest shrug. “I let them run it.”
“That’s not the same as not being part of it.”
A faint huff leaves him, humorless and tired. “It’s what I can manage. I wasn’t even here for the last one.”
The words hang there, simple but weighted with everything he isn’t saying.
The grief. The fact that while an entire town gathered to honor the man who built this house, this family, this life, he was most likely continents away, his racing career taking off.
And he’s been carrying that ever since, regardless of distance or how much time has passed.
I study him—the tension in his shoulders, the way his fingers curl around his fork like he needs the anchor, the shadow that moves through his expression when he blinks. I file it away, another piece of the puzzle that is Maddox Hartley.
Not for the article.
For me.
That distinction is new, and it unsettles me more than I want to admit.
I came here with a clear purpose—find the story, tell it well, and move on.
I know how to do that. I’ve always known how to keep the work separate from the person, to treat every subject like a question waiting to be answered rather than a human being waiting to be known.
But something has shifted.
I’m not sure when it happened.
Somewhere between the racetrack and this dinner table, between his careful silences and the way he looks at me like he’s still deciding how much to give…
I stopped seeing him as a story.
The pull is immediate and physical, a low heat stirring under my ribs, tightening when his gaze lifts to find me watching him.
I want more than his answers. I want his attention. His focus. I want to see what happens if I stop pretending my interest ends with my work.
There are still so many questions he hasn’t answered. Still so much I need for the feature. Raymond Hartley is just the latest addition to the growing pile, and for the first time since I arrived in Winslow Grove, I’m not sure the article is the thing I want most.
Blane breaks the quiet with a theatrical sigh. “A tragic hero. No wonder readers eat this stuff up.”
Meredith gasps, and everyone around the table stops, some heads swinging his way. Everything in Maddox coils tight and still, except for the growl he doesn’t hold back.
I shoot Blane a look sharp enough to cut bone. “Not everything is a headline.”
He blinks, surprised I’d snap. “I wasn’t saying—”
“Yes, you were.” I pounce, not willing to let him keep talking. “And it’s gross. So maybe keep it to yourself.”
Meredith’s eyes widen a fraction—approval, unmistakable. Maddox’s gaze flickers to me, something new and warm and too intense burning through it. Blane clears his throat and becomes interested in his napkin.
The subject changes after that. Patsy starts a story about Ray teaching half the town to change a flat tire, and then Katie recalls a memory about a Thanksgiving when the oven died, and he grilled the turkey in the driveway. Slowly, the table fills again with laughter.
But Maddox doesn’t quite rejoin the conversation. He keeps stealing glances at me, and shamelessly, I keep stealing them back.
After dinner, I help Meredith clean up in the kitchen. She saunters into the dining room with clean serving platters, and Maddox reaches above me to put the plates away.
His arm brushes mine—warm, strong, bare to the elbow—and conscious of what his proximity does to me, I step aside too quickly, the movement awkward.
His hand shoots to my waist, steadying me, and I wrap my hand around his forearm as my breath stalls. He doesn’t move his hand right away, and neither do I.
Our kiss pushes its way into my mind, the memory sharp and uninvited. The way he’s holding me now is so like last night. I start to lean into him when Patsy appears in the doorway to say her goodbyes, and the moment shatters.
He steps back first, and I can breathe again. Barely.
Patsy leaves in a flurry of hugs and cold air, then Raf and Katie are talking about heading out too when Maddox’s phone buzzes against the counter.
Once. Twice.
I don’t look, though every part of me wants to. The third buzz lights the screen anyway—bright enough to catch my eye without permission.
Marcos flashes clear as day.
Maddox snatches the phone and double presses the side button before shoving it into his shirt pocket like it’s contraband, or like this is a call he won’t take in front of an audience.
I’m not surprised Marcos Madrigal is calling, but Maddox’s reaction is something else entirely.
Another buzz vibrates against his chest, and his pocket glows, but still, he doesn’t reach for it.
“Excuse me.” He heads for the back door, jaw granite, shoulders square.
He slips outside, pulling the door behind him, but it doesn’t quite click shut.
“Guess we’re waiting.” Katie sighs, glancing after her brother.
Conversation picks up around me, but I don’t follow it. My attention fixes on the window—Maddox on the porch, the motion-sensor light flickering to life above him. His silhouette sharpens, broad shoulders pulled tight, head angled down, as he finally draws the phone from his pocket.
He hesitates for a beat before answering.
I can’t make out the words, only the cadence, muted through the sliver of open door. His voice drops low, steadier than before, but strained at the edges.
His free hand scrubs the back of his neck, a gesture I’m starting to recognize as something he does when uncomfortable or bracing for impact.
He paces a fixed loop near the railing. And the cold air slips through the crack of the door, carrying the faint murmur of a conversation he clearly doesn’t want to be having at all.
The reporter in me leans in when Katie slides beside me and drops her voice. “The retirement went smoothly enough, but Marcos was never happy about it.”
“And Maddox?” I keep my eyes on the window. “Is he?”
“I think so.” She pauses. “But Marcos has never quite let him off the hook.”
Before I can ask what that means, Raf appears at her shoulder. “We should go. Mad will understand.” He presses a kiss to her temple. “I need sleep.”
Out on the porch, Maddox turns slightly, shoulders rounding against the wind, and a strand of hair crosses his forehead. He doesn’t brush it away.
Whatever Marcos is saying, it’s carving into him—I can see it in the stillness, the way his body absorbs the words without flinching.
What does Marcos want? Does he want Maddox back on the team? Or is it the other way around? I saw first-hand how alive he was on the track today, how, even if he won’t admit it, racing is in his blood. I wouldn’t be surprised if he wanted back on the team. Maybe that’s what he’s hiding?
The call ends abruptly, but he doesn’t come inside. Both hands grip the railing, head bowed, like the cold might numb whatever he’s still holding.
Katie and Raf say their goodbyes and slip out, and then Meri heads to bed with a quiet kiss to my cheek. I want to wait, want to be the one still here when he comes back through that door.
Instead, Blane materializes at my elbow, talking about nothing and everything. The man could blather to an empty room and not notice he’d lost his audience.
When Maddox finally comes inside, he moves through the kitchen like someone trying not to disturb anything. Shoulders set too straight. Face too composed. The kind of calm that looks practiced not genuine.
“Goodnight.” He doesn’t look at me directly, but his gaze snags on mine as he passes, quick, unsettled, stripped of whatever armor he took outside with him.
Whatever happened on that porch didn’t stay there. It followed him back in, settled into his shoulders, and pulled his attention somewhere I can’t reach.
I shouldn’t want to go after him, shouldn’t want to ask if he’s okay or be the person he reaches for when something cracks open, but heaven help me, I do.
And that’s exactly the problem—because I can’t tell anymore where the reporter ends and the rest of me begins. Both want the same thing. Both want in.
One of them has a job to do.
The other is starting to forget why that matters.