He dropped his hand. Took a step back. The space between them reset, measured and impersonal.
Like they were nothing.
The cut was clean. She felt it slice her. A sharp, precise wound straight through her chest.
Luke cleared his throat. “Grace, I?—”
“Who helps me now is not your business,” she repeated, voice calm despite the hollow opening beneath her ribs.
Luke’s expression shifted—hurt flickering beneath control. “Grace, I’m trying to protect you.”
She adjusted the strap of her bag on her shoulder. “I was nothing to you. You didn’t want to be seen with me. You didn’t want to be with a Hart.”
His mouth opened. Closed.
“And now,” she continued, “you want details about who’s in my house? Who helps me fix things? Who shows up when something breaks?”
Luke’s voice dropped. “I showed up.” His voice sounded raw, wounded almost.
“You were too late,” Grace said. She felt so tired. “And you expected to be welcomed anyway.”
Luke scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “So this guy?—”
She cut him off. “Stop.”
The word was louder than she meant it to be.
Grace stepped closer.
“There is no ‘guy’ you get to measure yourself against,” she said. “There is just my life. And I decide who has access to it.”
Luke stared at her.
“And for the record,” she added, softer but no less firm, “he fixed the door because I asked him for help. I didn’t even for a moment think about askingyou.”
For a moment, something cracked in his expression.
She stepped back.
“Have a good night, Officer Bennett,” she said.
Luke hesitated, like he might argue again.
He didn’t.
He turned and walked away, boots echoing.
CHAPTER 16
Luke
Luke drove.
He passed Main Street. The hardware store. Morton’s Grocery, lights glowing warm behind the windows, the handwritten sign still taped up advertising the fall festival fundraiser.
Grace had helped with that fundraiser. She’d told him about it, in the afterglow, as she lay in his arms.
Luke tightened his grip on the steering wheel.
