She deleted it without responding, but the words stayed with her.
Letting your guard down.
As if that was something she could afford to do. As if the moment she relaxed, everything wouldn't fall apart. As if she could trust someone she'd known for three weeks to catch her if she fell.
Through the wall, she could hear Pop moving around in his room, probably confused about the time. She should go check on him, but she could hear Amy talking to him now. Someone else was responsible for his care.
The thought should have been freeing. Instead, it left her feeling untethered, floating without purpose, a boat whose anchor had been cut.
Maybe that's what Ben represented, not safety, but drift. The terrifying possibility of letting go, of trusting the current to take her somewhere new.
But Kate had been anchored too long to start drifting now. Tomorrow she'd rebuild her walls, reinforce her boundaries, make it clear to Ben that one dinner didn't mean anything.
Tomorrow she'd go back to being the Kate everyone expected: steady, responsible, unavailable.
Tonight, though, she lay in bed and let herself remember the feeling of his hand on hers, the way he'd saidbeautifullike it was just fact, the momentary glimpse of what it might be like to let someone see her, really see her, and not run away.
It was a dangerous thought, and she buried it deep. But like all buried things, it would eventually find a way to surface.
CHAPTER 12
Kate woke to the sound of laughter drifting up through the old inn's floorboards, genuine, easy laughter that seemed to fill the spaces between the walls in a way they hadn't in years. She looked at her clock: 7:15 a.m. Gray morning light filtered through her curtains, promising rain later.
She threw on yesterday's jeans and a sweater that had seen better days, not bothering with the mirror. The laughter grew louder as she descended the narrow back stairs, their familiar creaks masked by the voices echoing from the kitchen.
“… and then the whole system crashed,” James was saying as she reached the doorway. “Three million dollars in trades, just frozen.”
Ben's laugh rumbled warm and deep. “That's why I stick to wood and nails. They don't crash.”
Kate stopped short. Ben sat in Pop's usual chair—the one with the burn mark from when James had tried to make pancakes at age ten. His work jacket hung on the back like he lived here. Tom leaned toward him, pointing at something on James's laptop screen, all three of their heads bent together like old friends planning mischief.
“The algorithm should have caught it,” Tom said, reaching across Ben to tap the screen. “See? Right there.”
“Unless someone coded the exception wrong,” Ben offered, and James groaned.
“Don't remind me. That was my code.”
Dani perched on the counter, legs swinging, her coffee mug, the one she'd painted in third grade, dangling from her fingers. She spotted Kate first.
“Morning, Katie.”
Kate moved to the coffee pot, her back to them. The conversation continued behind her, but the easy flow had stuttered.
“Ben, you're here early.” Her voice came out sharper than intended.
“Wanted to get started before the rain comes in.” She heard his chair shift, probably turning to look at her. “Your brothers were asking about the renovation timeline.”
Tom jumped in quickly. “We were thinking we could help. I could handle the permit applications, and James…”
“I can update the inn's website,” James interrupted. “Ben was just showing us what needs to be done first.”
Kate turned, gripping her mug, the chipped one nobody else used. They'd rearranged themselves, she noticed. Tom had straightened in his chair, his lawyer posture sliding into place. James's eager expression had dimmed slightly. Ben had pulled back from the table just an inch or two, creating distance.
“Since when do lawyers and tech executives do manual labor?”
“Since…” James started, then stopped, glancing at Tom.
“Since we realized we should be more involved,” Tom finished smoothly, but again his thumb rubbed where his wedding ring used to be.
