Chapter 16
Owen
Three days.
Seventy-two hours since I walked out of Grace’s kitchen. Since I said the words I’d been carrying for years and watched her face go still. Since I packed my things from the carriage house and drove away without looking back.
I’d been looking back my whole life. I was done.
The station was quiet in the predawn dark. B-shift sleeping, the building settling into that particular silence between calls. I’d been awake for hours. Sleep came in fragments now—shallow and restless, broken by dreams I didn’t want to remember.
I grabbed my coffee and slipped out the back entrance, the way I had every morning since I got here.
The tailgate of my truck was cold through my jeans.
The coffee was bitter, the way I’d started making it since I stopped drinking Grace’s.
No point pretending I liked it sweet when the only reason I’d tolerated it was her.
The sky was just starting to lighten along the ridge. Purple bleeding into gray. The mountains were black shapes against it, familiar as my own hands.
I used to watch this sunrise from the B&B porch.
The thought came before I could stop it. Saturday mornings. Grace was beside me in the quiet before the guests woke up. The smell of cinnamon rolls drifted through the screen door. The easy silence of two people who’d known each other long enough that talking wasn’t required.
I missed her.
The admission sat heavily in my chest. I’d told myself I was done. That walking away was the right thing—the brave thing. The thing I should have done years ago instead of hovering on the edges of her life like some kind of ghost.
But missing her wasn’t something I could decide to stop.
I stared at the coffee going cold in my hands and asked myself the question I’d been avoiding.
Did I do the right thing?
I told her I loved her. Told her I couldn’t keep pretending. Told her that if she wanted me—really wanted me—she’d have to come find me.
She hadn’t.
Three days, and nothing. No call. No text. No Grace appearing in the station doorway with some excuse about a loose hinge or a broken step.
Maybe that was my answer. Maybe silence was its own kind of choice.
I thought about my father. The way he used to say that showing up was ninety percent of everything.
I’d built my whole life on that philosophy.
I was there for the crew, for the calls, for Grace.
I kept coming back, kept standing in the same places, until I’d worn a groove in the floor of my own wanting.
And where had it gotten me?
Sitting on a tailgate at five in the morning, alone, wondering if love was something you could earn—or just something that happened to other people.
Sarah’s voice echoed in my head. Too safe. Too predictable. Nothing could ever surprise you.
Maybe she was right. Maybe I was the kind of man women kept around until someone better came along. Reliable. Convenient. Easy to have—and easier to leave.
The sky lightened another shade. Somewhere behind me, the station was starting to stir. The day shift would be here soon. I’d have to go back inside, put on the face, pretend I wasn’t hollowed out.
I’d gotten good at pretending.
The crunch of gravel made me look up.
A car pulled into the lot. Not a truck I recognized. Not one of the crew. A small sedan, silver in the gray light, easing into the space beside mine.
My heart stopped.
Grace.
She was getting out of the car slowly, one hand braced on the door, the other pressed against her belly.
She looked up and saw me.
Neither of us moved.
She was wearing one of those loose maternity dresses, the kind that flowed over her belly—soft gray in the early light.
Her hair hung loose around her shoulders, not pulled back the way she usually wore it for work.
She looked like she’d gotten dressed in the dark.
Like she’d driven here before she could talk herself out of it.
She looked terrified.
I was off the tailgate before I could think. I met her at the edge of the pavement. My hand found her elbow, steadying her without pulling her closer.
“Careful,” I said. “The gravel’s uneven.”
Grace looked up at me. Her eyes were red-rimmed, shadowed underneath. She hadn’t slept either. Something about that made my chest ache.
“Owen.” My name on her mouth. Rough, like she’d been practicing what to say and forgotten all of it.
I didn’t fill the silence. I just kept my hand on her elbow, holding her steady.
“I gave Marcus eleven years,” she said. “And I never once looked at him the way I look at you.”
The words hit somewhere below my ribs. I didn’t move. Didn’t trust myself to.
She stepped closer. “I’m not choosing you because Marcus let me down. I’m not choosing you because you were there when I needed someone.” Her voice shook, but her eyes stayed locked on mine. “I’m choosing you because you’re the only one I want.”
“Grace—”
“Let me finish.” She lifted a hand, and I stopped. “Please. I need to say this.”
I nodded.
She took another step closer. Close enough now that I could smell her shampoo, something floral beneath the cold air.
“You never tried to make me smaller,” she said.
“In eleven years with Marcus, I shrank. I made myself quieter. More convenient. Easier to fit into his life. I forgot what it felt like to take up space.” Her voice cracked.
“But you never asked me to be less than I am. Not once. In sixteen years, you never made me feel like I had to earn your attention.”
All the Saturdays. All the mornings. All the small excuses I’d used just to stay close.
“You built a nursery for a baby that isn’t yours,” Grace continued.
“You remembered where my grandmother’s rocking chair used to sit.
You remembered I was afraid of the dark as a child, and you bought a nightlight shaped like the moon.
” Her eyes were bright now, tears threatening.
“You’ve been loving me with your hands for years, Owen. And I was too scared to see it.”
Her hand found my chest, right over my heart. I could feel the warmth of her palm through my shirt. Could feel my heartbeat slamming against her touch.
“When I think about Saturday mornings for the rest of my life,” she said, “I want them to be with you. When I think about what I want to teach this baby about love, I want to teach her that it’s a choice. It’s not settling, not an obligation. It’s about choosing.”
Her other hand came up to my face. Her fingers were cold against my jaw.
“You told me you wouldn’t be chosen out of convenience.
That you’d be chosen for who you are or you’d be alone.
” Her voice broke. “So I’m here. I’m choosing you for exactly who you are.
The man who shows up. The man who builds things.
The man who loved me enough to walk away rather than be half-wanted. ”
I let the words wash over me.
This was real. She was here. She was saying the things I’d stopped letting myself hope she’d ever say.
“If you’ll still have me,” Grace whispered.
She was looking at me not like a friend, but like someone who had finally decided what she wanted and wasn’t afraid to reach for it.
“You’re sure?” The question scraped out of me—the last wall. The one I needed her to break herself. “Because I can’t do this halfway, Grace. I love you too much to be something you settle for.”
“I’m sure.” No hesitation. “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”
I held her gaze for one more breath. Long enough to be certain this wasn’t fear talking. Long enough to know this was a choice.
Then I kissed her.
My hands found her face, cradling it the way I’d imagined a thousand times. Her skin was cold from the morning air. Her lips were warm. She tasted like cinnamon and something sweeter—something that was just Grace—and I poured sixteen years of wanting into that kiss.
Her arms wrapped around my neck. The baby kicked between us, hard enough that I felt it against my stomach, like she was insisting on being part of this.
I broke the kiss, laughing.
“She’s got opinions,” Grace said breathlessly.
“Good.” I pressed my forehead to hers. “She should.”
My hands slid to her shoulders, steadying her. Steadying myself. I could feel the tremor in my arms—the aftermath of holding myself so carefully for so long and finally letting go.
“I love you,” I said. The words came easier than I expected. Like they’d been waiting. “God, Grace. I love you so much.”
“I know.” Her hand found my cheek again, her thumb tracing my jaw. “I’m sorry it took me so long to see.”
“You see me now.” I turned my head and kissed her palm. “That’s all that matters.”
A wolf whistle cut through the quiet.
I looked up. Liam stood in the bay door, coffee in hand, not even pretending he hadn’t been watching. He raised his mug in a salute.
I flipped him off without letting go of Grace.
She laughed—a real laugh, surprised out of her—and the sound cracked something open in my chest. I’d missed that laugh. Missed making her laugh. Missed the way her whole face changed when she let herself be happy.
“The whole station is probably watching,” she said.
“Let them.”
She looked up at me, eyes wet, smiling. “Take me home?”
Home. The B&B. The place I thought I’d lost three days ago when I drove away.
“Yeah,” I said. “Let’s go home.”
“I’ll drive,” I added when we finally pulled apart. “You shouldn’t be behind the wheel right now.”
Grace didn’t argue. That told me everything about how exhausted she was. She handed me her keys and let me help her into the passenger seat.
“Your truck—”
“Liam’ll bring it by later. Or I’ll get it tomorrow.” I closed her door gently and walked around to the driver’s side. “It’s not going anywhere.”
I thought about my father again.
Showing up is ninety percent of everything.
He wasn’t wrong. But he wasn’t completely right either.