With Mila beside me, the ground beneath my life felt steady, and the future didn’t feel like something waiting to collapse. It felt like something we were finally allowed to build. Together.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
MILA
The first thing I noticed when Luke and I arrived at the inn was the stillness. Not the strained quiet Blackwood had worn while rumors crawled through the halls and everyone watched each other too carefully.
This was different.
The ocean moved steadily beyond the low bluff behind the building, waves folding into the dark sand in long, patient rhythms that seemed completely uninterested in anything happening beyond the shoreline.
Luke parked beside a row of wind-bent cypress trees and cut the engine.
Neither of us moved. The headlights faded, leaving the small coastal town wrapped in soft amber streetlights and the distant glow of the harbor.
“And no one knows where we are?” I asked. Mom did. What I meant was our friends. I wanted him to myself this weekend. If they knew, there was a good chance someone would show up tomorrow.
Luke glanced toward the ocean before answering. “I needed somewhere no one would bother us.”
The words warmed my chest.
The past few weeks had moved quickly—federal charges surfacing against Lorne, Dunn’s name beginning to circulate in places it never had before.
For months, everything in our lives had felt like a storm building. Now the pressure had finally broken.
Luke stepped out of the SUV and came around to my side before I could reach the handle.
The inn itself looked weathered but welcoming, blue siding faded by decades of salt air. A soft porch light illuminated the wooden railing wrapping the second floor.
His hand came to rest at my waist as we walked toward the narrow staircase leading up to the small room he’d rented overlooking the water.
When Luke pushed open the door to the room, the first thing I noticed was the window. The entire wall opened toward the ocean. Moonlight spilled across the water in a silver path that stretched toward the horizon. For several seconds, I simply stood there taking it in.
“No one watching,” Luke murmured behind me.
His voice carried a quiet relief I recognized immediately. No rumors. No whispers. No eyes following us through the halls of Blackwood. Just the ocean.
I stepped onto the balcony outside the room, wrapping my arms around myself as the mild air moved across my skin.
Luke joined me a second later. For a while, we simply watched the tide.
“I think this is the first time I’ve exhaled in months,” I admitted.
His hand slipped into mine. “I noticed.”
I glanced toward him. “You did?”
“You stopped scanning every room you walk into.”
A small laugh escaped me. “Old habits.”
“They kept you alive.”
The truth of that lingered quietly between us.
For years, my life had revolved around running—from the night Darren died, from the people who might have wanted my mother silent, from the secrets that chased us out of Blackwood.
Standing there beside Luke, it was the first time it felt like we were finally running toward something instead.
