Chapter Thirty-Four Grace
Thirty-Four
Grace
Morning arrived like Grace’s credit card bill: unwelcome and full of reality checks she wasn’t ready for.
The fog had disappeared to wherever fog goes when it’s done being dramatic, leaving Solace Lake looking all innocent and picture-perfect.
Sunlight streamed through the tower window, exposing their little love nest in all its crusty-clothed, empty-plate glory.
They moved around each other like hungover teenagers trying not to wake their parents. Folding blankets. Collecting trash. Basically destroying the evidence of what happened when you lock two people desperate for connection in a tower and shook vigorously.
Their fingers touched reaching for the same water bottle. They froze and the look between them said everything their mouths wouldn’t. This was real. This mattered. This is so fucked.
“Grace! You better be decent up there!” Luke’s voice boomed from outside like God’s own cockblock. “We’re coming to move this tree!”
Grace peered out the window. Luke and Jake stood below with chainsaws and enough backup to film a “Hunky Firefighters of Solace Springs” calendar. My boys, Grace thought. Same idiots who’d helped her egg Travis Whitman’s car junior year when he cheated on her.
“You better have slept on that chaise longue in there, billionaire boy!” Jake hollered. “We’ve got chainsaws and we know how to make bodies disappear in these woods!”
Grace snorted despite herself.
“They protective of you?” Reese asked, coming up behind Grace.
“Always.”
“Good.” His lips found the back of her neck. “Same here.”
The emotion in his voice made her chest do something stupid and fluttery. They both knew what came next. Tree moves. Door opens. Cinderella’s carriage turns back into a pumpkin and Grace goes back to serving coffee to assholes who tip in spare change and “kind” advice.
His phone buzzed.
Then buzzed again.
Then basically had a seizure of notifications.
“Shit, looks like cell and wifi coverage is back,” Reese muttered, the screen lighting up. The outside world had found him and apparently it was pissed.
He answered his ringing phone, already pacing away. “Yep, the storm. Ah-huh—What? When?” His whole body went rigid. “How bad?”
Grace hugged herself, already feeling Reese pulling away even though he was still right there. Amazing how fast you could feel someone leave before they actually went.
“Get the jet ready; Sam can pick me up from here and take me to the airport. Yeah, I know, I’ll be there ASAP.” He put the phone down and glanced at Grace. “There’s been a fire at one of my properties.”
“Oh no. Is everyone okay?”
“As far as I know. But I need to be there.”
“Of course.”
Reality: 1. Grace’s Stupid Fantasy: 0.
Below, in the narrow corridor leading to the tower, the chainsaws roared into life. Grace and Reese jogged downstairs. Grace heard the tree shudder, groan, then fall away with a crack that probably registered on the Richter scale.
“Clear!” Luke shouted from outside.
The door flew open and suddenly her and Reese’s private little soiree was a public spectacle. Luke, Jake, half the volunteer fire department, all gawking at them like they were the season finale of The Bachelor: Billionaire Edition.
“Mom!” Zach pushed through the crowd of rubberneckers.
Grace caught him in a hug he immediately tried to escape. “Are you okay?” she asked him, checking his face.
“Mom, stop, everyone’s watching.” But he squeezed back for a second before pulling away, shooting Reese a look that screamed, I know what you did with my mother and I will be requiring therapy.
Did people know? She felt like they did. Was it written all over her face? Reese’s face?
They all headed to the inn’s dining room, which was a hive of activity: the guests who’d been trapped in the inn since Monday evening getting their stuff together…
including Ella, who looked particularly disorientated and exhausted, glasses askew.
She gave Grace a hug then whispered in her ear: “We’re so doing coffee after this.
I want all the details. I can tell from the look on your faces you’ve been having some fun up there in the tower. ”
“Is it that obvious?”
Ella grimaced and nodded. “You’re glowing like someone who just got pressed up against old stone walls by a gorgeous billionaire.”
Grace wanted the floor to open up and swallow her whole. “I’m going to die. I’m actually going to die right here.”
“You’re going to live, and you’re going to tell me and Sophie everything over coffee.” Ella squeezed her arm. “Also, for what it’s worth? Good for you. That man is ridiculously hot and you deserve some fun.”
Ella swept off to finish gathering her stuff, leaving Grace looking at Reese nearby—rumpled and gorgeous and catching her eye with a knowing smile. She realized she couldn’t quite bring herself to regret it.
Abe strolled over then, looking between Grace and Reese. “I’m putting my decision on hold. We’ll need to assess the structural damage to the corridor and tower door so you both have a clearer picture of the repairs needed before deciding to go forward.”
Margaret patted Grace’s arm. “You must be exhausted after all that activity, dear,” she said with a little eyebrow wiggle. “Let’s get you some real food.”
Grace’s mouth dropped open as Reese shook his head, smiling as he looked down at the floor.
Then the sound of helicopter blades had everyone scrambling to the windows like kids hearing the ice-cream truck.
A black helicopter descended onto the clearing behind the inn, looking about as natural in Solace Springs as a stripper at a church picnic.
Reese’s phone rang. He sighed and put it to his ear. “Erika?”
Even from across the room, Grace could hear his assistant’s shrill panic. The helicopter door opened and out stepped the same woman who Grace had seen at the event on Sunday, looking like she could murder someone with her stilettos and consider it cardio.
Hurricane Erika burst in, all corporate fury and terrifying efficiency.
“Mr. Spencer, we really need to leave now,” she said, handing Reese a clean and ironed white shirt.
“The Cuban authorities are waiting, the insurance adjusters are having aneurysms, and the board wants an emergency call in”—she checked her watch—“forty minutes.”
Reese turned to Grace as he buttoned up his shirt, clearly aware of every eye in the room watching them like this was the season finale of their favorite drama. He cleared his throat, shifted his weight. “I have to go.”
“Of course. Go!”
Look at me being all mature and not showing he’d been inside me just a few hours ago.
“It’s been great getting to know you.” He paused, ran a hand through his already wrecked hair. “Really great. We should…swap numbers.”
Swap numbers. Like they were college kids who’d hooked up at a party, not two people who’d spent over thirty-two hours stripping each other down to their bones—metaphorically and literally.
Grace tried for casual, failed spectacularly.
“Sure!” Her voice came out too bright. She fumbled for her phone, nearly dropped it, caught it, then couldn’t remember her own passcode for a mortifying second.
Everyone was watching, Tressa giving her a sympathetic look.
Luke had his arms crossed like a disapproving dad.
Zach looked like he wanted to disappear into the floor. Ella was practically taking notes.
“I’m…my phone’s being weird,” Grace muttered, finally getting it unlocked. “What’s your number?”
He pressed his phone against hers. “Just shared it with you.”
Their eyes met over their phones. The room, the crowd, everything else faded for just a second. “I’ll call you,” he said, and it sounded like a promise and a goodbye all at once.
“Yeah, go, go!” Grace waved him off, going for breezy and landing somewhere around manic. “Cuba’s waiting. Fire and brimstone and insurance adjusters, oh my!”
He walked toward the door where Erika stood tapping her foot. Then he stopped. Turned back. The whole room held its breath. “Come with me, Grace.”
“This is so much BETTER than Elizabeth Gaskell could have written!” Ella declared, practically swooning.
“What?” Grace said. “I can’t just—”
“I mean you and Zach. Both of you,” he said, looking over at Zach. “Come with me.” He moved closer, all intensity and terrible ideas. “Figure I’ll need to be there for three, four days tops. There’s this amazing hotel in Havana. Zach would love it—snorkeling, historical tours—”
“That sounds lovely,” Grace said, cutting him off. “But back here in reality, my mother’s been running the café solo for two days. She’s probably ready to commit justifiable homicide. And Zach returns to school tomorrow. I can’t just drop everything.”
“Sure you can,” Reese said. God, the way he said it. Like it was that simple. Like everyone had a spare life lying around. “I’ll hire help for your mother. A tutor for Zach. He can study from Cuba. The hotel has this excellent—”
“No, Reese.” The words came out sharp. “It’s not possible.”
He looked at Grace like she’d started speaking Klingon. Of course he did. In Billionaire Land, you just threw money at problems until they went away. Hire a mom-replacement! Pack your kid in carry-on! Who needs responsibilities when you have a black AmEx?
But in her world—the real world—you showed up. You did your shift. You made sure your kid got to school with matching shoes and at least one vegetable in his lunch.
“Reese.” Erika tapped her foot like she was sending Morse code for “I will destroy this waitress if she delays you even more. We really must go.”
He hesitated, and for a second Grace thought he might kiss her goodbye. But instead, he just nodded, then strode out.
Grace stood there, watching him walk across the lawn. Though his hair was still mussed from her fingers, his shoulders were already straightening, his phone already glued to his ear, his mind already conquering whatever corporate disaster awaited.
He paused at the helicopter door, looked back. Their eyes met across the lawn, across the universe-sized gap between his life and hers. Then he climbed in, the door closed and the helicopter lifted off in a windstorm that sent leaves scattering.
“Mom,” Zach said, “you did not just turn down a free vacation for us in a Cuban hotel, did you?”
She put her arm around him, watched the helicopter shrink to nothing against the sky. “Yeah, baby. I did.”
Because truth was, real life didn’t come with helicopters and happily-ever-afters. It came with double shifts and grocery-store wine and the knowledge that some towers you just visit.
You don’t get to stay.