Chapter Thirty-Three Reese
Thirty-Three
Reese
Dawn bled in slow over the lake, turning the fog from steel to milk.
The tower room smelled like damp stone and candle wax and them.
Reese should’ve felt clear-headed with the weather looking like it was breaking.
But his stomach sat wrong, like he’d eaten bad camp rations on a mining site and still had a full shift to run.
Too much wine, not enough sleep and way too many truths circling with nowhere to land.
He’d spent the past hour awake, trying to figure out what came next.
He wanted to let Grace have the inn. But something inside was making him hesitate now he was sober.
If he gave the inn to Grace, would she even let him search for his family’s legacy?
Would she understand why he might need to tear into walls, pull up floorboards, excavate the foundation if that was what it took to learn more about his dad’s state of mind before he died?
About the Spencer side of the family? Or would she see it as him destroying the very thing she was fighting to preserve?
The sun coming up didn’t help. It just showed the mess in better light.
Grace lay beside him, hair a pink-tipped snarl on his pillow, mouth kiss-swollen, the blanket pulled to her collarbone.
He wanted coffee. He wanted a do-over. Mostly he wanted the rolling feeling in his gut to quit.
He’d managed boardrooms in Jakarta on no sleep and worse odds; this—one woman, one island, one decision—was what made him queasy. Hell of a thing.
Movement caught Reese’s eye on the balcony outside. Something big. He turned…and froze. A bald eagle stood there like it owned the place, white head bright against the fog-thick morning, staring out at the lake with a cold judgment only apex predators could pull off.
“Christ,” he murmured, already moving toward the balcony door.
Grace woke with a yawn then looked outside, eyes widening. “Doris!”
Up close, the female eagle was magnificent. Wings half-fanned, feathers ruffled from the storm, a small streak of blood marking one wingtip. Reese’s trained eye caught it instantly, the way the bird kept her right wing slightly tucked.
“See that?” he said, crouching low. “Clipped it on something, probably a branch when the wind hit. Just a graze, but it’ll smart.”
Grace’s hand went to her mouth. “Oh no. Can we help her?”
“She doesn’t need much help,” he said. “Just a check and a patch. She’s still strong.”
It wasn’t his first time doing this. He’d seen worse. An osprey tangled in wire near his Andalusian ranch, a kestrel that flew straight into a warehouse window in Alberta. But this one was lucky. Just shaken.
When they eased the balcony door open, cold air poured in with the fog. Doris turned her head toward them, yellow eyes sharp, unafraid.
“Hey there, girl,” Reese said quietly, crouching close. His tone shifted automatically, that low, coaxing rhythm he used with wild creatures and skittish investors alike. “We’re just gonna take a look, all right?”
He moved slowly, checking the wing, the feathers, the tiny cut near the bone. “It’s not deep,” he murmured. “She must’ve hit a branch and kept going. Tough girl.”
Grace passed him a towel and he dabbed away the blood, steady hands brushing the surface of the feathers. “You’ll be fine, sweetheart. Storm didn’t beat you.”
When he was done, he stepped back. “Let’s see if she’s good to fly.”
They both moved away from the doorway, giving the eagle space.
Doris stood still for a moment, lifting her head high like she was considering them.
Then she spread her wings, the span vast and breathtaking in the early light.
One hard beat and she lifted, catching an updraft that carried her over the fog-slick lake until she vanished into the rising sun.
Grace exhaled softly. “She’s okay.”
Reese kept watching the sky long after she disappeared. Reminded him of where he grew up—Lake Superior mornings, watching gulls wheel above the old docks.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “She’s more than okay.”
He didn’t know if he meant the bird or the woman beside him.
Then movement caught his eye on the lake. Two boats, cutting white wakes across the surface. One bright red, the fire crew from the mainland. The other smaller, familiar. The boat Grace and Zach had come in on.
His gut twisted.
That was it, then. Their strange, suspended little world was about to dissolve. No more storm. No more isolation. No more pretending that what happened here existed outside of everything else.
He swallowed hard, watching the boats close the distance. Soon there’d be people everywhere. Questions, noise, reality.
And Grace, walking away with that determined chin and that soft, stubborn mouth, back to her life on the shore.