Her frustration sparks instantly—pink rising in her cheeks. “You don’t have to talk to me like that.”
I look at her then. Really look.
She’s scared, and trying not to be. Trying to hold herself together after a man came to her home and threatened the fragile stability she’s fought for.
I let out a breath, step closer, and lower my voice.
“Roxanne.”
She meets my gaze reluctantly.
“I will keep you safe,” I say. “You and Andrea. Whatever this man thinks he can do—it stops now.”
Her lips part. In relief.
Just a flicker, but I see it. Feel it. Something loosens in her posture, like I removed a weight she’d been hiding under her clothes.
“You promise?” she asks softly.
“Yes,” I say. “I promise.”
Her eyes dart briefly to my mouth, then away. She nods, swallowing whatever emotion is trying to rise in her. The air between us pulls tight again, a thread we’ve been tugging at for weeks.
But I break it first.
“I’ll be out in an hour,” I say, turning toward the door. She steps back, hands curling at her sides, the summer sunlight warming her hair into copper. Vadim is close behind, watching her. He gives me a nod; a promise.
I pause just long enough to look at her one more time. Then I walk inside, letting the door close behind me.
Chapter 21
Roxy
Morning arrives the way it always does at the cottage—slowly, gently, as if the day itself is stretching awake. Pale sunlight filters through the curtains in long golden strips, painting the floorboards and the quilt at the foot of my bed in soft, dappled warmth. The river murmurs outside the open window, steady and familiar, a sound that has already braided itself around my sense of home.
I blink into the brightness, momentarily unsure what time it is. My body still feels heavy from last night, a mix of exhaustion and the lingering glow of having someone I love most in the world sleeping under the same roof again.
Then light footsteps eagerly pad across the hallway.
“Mama!” Andi bursts through the crack in the door, her curls wild and her pajamas crooked. “She’s still here!”
I laugh, pushing up onto my elbows. “Grandma?”
Andi nods so vigorously her cowlicks and curls bounce around her cheeks. I see the same curls almost every day in Mak’s hair, though he keeps his short. The thought of him growing it out, that luxurious metal-gray look, makes my fingers itch to run through it.
“I thought maybe it was a dream, but she’s real. She’s in the kitchen making coffee, and she said I could help stir the sugar.”
Her excitement sparks something warm in my chest. These are the moments I’ve wanted for her. The little joys that don’t depend on anything complicated or painful, just the simplicity of having family who show up. It makes me even more determined to talk Mom into moving up here, away from Kat’s exhausting orbit.
“Alright, alright,” I say, stretching. “Let me put on a robe.”
But she tugs my hand before I can stand. “Hurry!”
The cottage smells like brewed coffee, toasted bread, and the faint citrus scent from the candle Mom brought as a housewarming gift from Cambridge—along with our favorite pie and a bottle of wine for us to share. When Andi and I step into the kitchen, my mother is standing at the stove, stirring something in a small pot she found in my cabinets.
“Good morning, sweetheart,” she says, smiling over her shoulder. She looks rested in a way I haven’t seen in years, as if the quiet near the river shook something loose inside her that had been clenched too long.
“Morning,” I say, grabbing two mugs from the counter. “How’d you sleep?”
