Safer.
Better.
But more than that?—
He wanted to be the man who was expected to notice those things.
The man who got to fix them because this was his home too.
The man who came back here at the end of the day without knocking.
Who drank from her crooked mugs and listened to her talk about which student finally mastered their B’s.
Who stood beside her at the Fall Festival while she ran the face-painting booth and loved every second of it.
Luke closed his eyes briefly.
Yeah.
Okay.
He’d start with the sink.
The wind had pickedup by the time Luke parked along the curb outside Crystal Lake Elementary.
Leaves skittered across the pavement. A cluster of mothers stood near the gate, oversized sunglasses and travel mugs in hand, talking about soccer schedules and spelling tests. One of them laughed too loudly. Another checked her phone.
Luke joined them.
“Officer Bennett,” one of the women said, smiling. “Everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine,” he replied easily. “Just waiting to pick someone up.”
The dismissal bell rang, and the doors opened. Kids spilled out in a wave of noise and color. Backpacks thumping. Shoelaces untied. Chaos.
Luke’s gaze moved automatically, scanning?—
—and then he saw her.
Grace stood in the doorway, ushering students out with that patient, steady warmth that made something in his chest tighten every time. She bent to hear a child. Smiled. Smoothed down someone’s hair.
She loved this.
The town thought he was a hero for wearing a badge.
Grace Hart did more for this town before nine a.m. than he did in a full shift.
Luke drank her in, his pulse picking up.
“Miss Hart’s a saint,” one of the moms beside him murmured as her son ran past. “I don’t know how she does it.”
The fall festival would be this weekend. Main Street strung with orange lights, cider steaming in paper cups, kids in cheap costumes racing between booths.
He always worked it.
Crowd control. Beer garden. Parking.
This year, he didn’t want to work it.
