“There’s someone in this town,” he continued, “who deserved better than I treated her. Someone kind. Someone patient. Someone wonderful.”
Her breath came shallow now, like she was bracing for impact.
“She’s the best person in Crystal Lake,” Luke said, voice raw, “and it’s not even close.”
The square was unnaturally still. Even the kids seemed to sense something important was happening.
Luke stepped closer to the front edge of the stage. The movement pulled at her—physical, undeniable—like an invisible thread tightening between them.
“This isn’t part of the festival,” he said. “This isn’t official. And it’s probably not the smartest way to do this.”
A nervous laugh flickered somewhere and died almost immediately.
“But I don’t care,” Luke went on. His eyes were locked on her, like the distance and the people standing between them didn’t exist. “I’m going to say this and I want everyone to hear it.”
The microphone hummed softly.
Her name, when he said it, seemed too loud. Too big. Like it didn’t belong to her anymore.
“Grace Hart.”
Heat flooded her face. She was suddenly, acutely aware of the people standing around her, their attention on her.
She was sitting behind a face-painting table, surrounded by parents and children and neighbors, her life laid open in the middle of the square.
Luke’s voice was steady now. “Will you have dinner with me?”
CHAPTER 40
Luke
The words were out.
Out into the open air of the square, swallowed by the crowd, by the sky, by the soft hum of the microphone still warm in his hand.
The silence stretched, thin and exposed. Luke could hear his own heartbeat, loud enough that it felt like it should be picked up by the microphone. Transmitted by loudspeaker to everyone standing there.
Luke kept his eyes locked on Grace.
She was frozen behind the face-painting table, brush still in her hand. Her eyes were wide. Shocked.
What if this was too late?
His parents were out there somewhere. His boss. People who had known him since he was a kid—who had watched him grow up, people who expected him to follow the path they had set for him.
They had just watched him crack himself open on a wooden stage with a borrowed microphone and no script.
And Grace—thirty feet away, with bodies and chairs and so much space between them—felt farther than she ever had.
He couldn’t read her face.
He knew her intimately. Knew signs to look for. Knew the small sounds she made when she was falling asleep, the look she got right before she came, the way her nose scrunched before she sneezed.
But right now?
Right now, with the whole town watching, he couldn’t tell if that look on her face was shock or anger or disbelief. He couldn’t tell if she was about to say yes—or turn and walk away.
He tightened his grip on the microphone, fingers curling around the metal.
