The thought angered her—but it didn’t unravel her. Progress.
“Gracie.”
She looked up to find Eli leaning in the doorway, his shoulder braced casually against the frame. The bruise beneath his eye had faded to yellow at the edges. Healing. Like everything else.
“You okay?” he asked.
She nodded. “Yeah.”
He didn’t challenge it. Just crossed the room and pulled out the chair across from her, sitting backward in it, arms folded over the backrest. The same way he used to sit at the kitchen table when they were kids, waiting for her to finish her homework.
“You scared?” he asked.
Grace considered the question honestly.
“I was,” she said. “This morning.”
“And now?”
She took a sip of her tea. Set the mug down carefully. “Now I’m angry.”
Eli huffed a quiet laugh. “Good.”
They sat in silence for a moment, the hum of the refrigerator filling the space between them.
Grace’s mind drifted.
She thought of the way Luke had looked at her when she’d said she didn’t need his help. Like the ground had shifted beneath him without warning.
Good.
Grace stood, carrying her mug to the sink. She rinsed it, dried it, set it carefully in the cabinet like she did everything else in her life—with intention.
Tomorrow would come whether she was ready or not. The town would keep watching. Luke would continue to see her as only good enough for a secret affair. Trouble might knock again.
But tonight—tonight she had a locks on the windows, a board over the kitchen door, and the hard-won knowledge that she would not make herself smaller for a man.
No matter how good he made her feel.
Not if he made her feel small, too.
Grace feltthe attention the second she stepped into the teachers’ lounge.
Conversation didn’t stop. It shifted. Turned.
She knew that shift.
A uniformed police officer standing outside her classroom hadn’t gone unnoticed. The Hart name still carried weight in this town—just not always the good kind. If people thought she’d done something wrong, she wouldn’t blame them.
Grace braced herself against the inevitable and went straight for the coffee pot. She poured, added cream, stirred. The familiar ritual steadied her.
Behind her, the door swung open.
“So,” Mrs. Talbot said brightly, “are we just not going to talk about yesterday?”
Grace’s shoulders tensed despite herself. She took a careful sip. Too hot. Of course.
“Talk about what?” she asked mildly.
