Page 68 of Tracking Safety

His eyes moved from Ruby to the stove to Jenna.

Jenna shrugged. “Naomi left a note telling me to make myself at home. So I did. There’s coffee. And I made extra pancakes. Cora requested them. She also mentioned something about burnt edges when you make them at home.”

A grin tugged at his lips. “I’ve had trouble with the griddle temp.”

“I used medium-low. Seems to help.”

He moved to the coffee maker and poured his cup without hurrying.

As Jenna stood near, she was entirely too aware of his presence.

He sat down at the island with his coffee and didn’t speak.

The silence wasn’t comfortable. But it wasn’t broken, either.

It was, she thought, a beginning.

Then Luke set his mug down.

“There’s something I need to tell you.” His voice was quiet, careful. “Micah called last night. A young woman was found behind Ember & Oak. Unconscious. She’s in the hospital.”

Jenna went still.

“They don’t know yet who did it or why. But she worked at the restaurant. Her name is Emily.” He watched her face. “I thought you should know.”

Ember & Oak.

The name landed like a stone dropping through water.

I’m Emily. Just flag me if you need anything.

She’d been kind. She’d brought chamomile tea because Jenna had looked like she’d had a bad day. She’d pointed her toward the back hallway without being asked.

Jenna set down the dish towel. “She was our server. When Wes and I had lunch there.”

Luke’s expression told her he’d already considered that.

“Someone must have seen us.” The words came out flat. “Seen us whispering, maybe. Thought she knew something.” Jenna’s jaw tightened. “She didn’t know anything. She just brought me tea.”

She pressed her hand against the counter.

She’d been back in her family’s life for less than a week, and already someone had paid a price for being kind to her.

CHAPTER 27

Luke finished eating and knew he needed to leave.

Not because Jenna had done anything wrong. But watching her jump back into her old roles had done something to his chest that he wasn’t ready to examine.

He carried his plate to the sink and stood there a moment longer than he needed to.

The Emily situation hadn’t left him since Micah’s call. The young woman had done nothing more than show up to work, wait on a table, and maybe exchange a few words with the wrong person. Now she was in a hospital bed, and no one could say yet what the damage was.

That was what this was. That was what had followed Jenna home.

He didn’t blame her. He knew, in the part of him that was still thinking clearly, that she hadn’t chosen any of this. But knowing that and feeling it were two different things, and right now the gap between them was wide enough to swallow him whole.

He thought about the kids on the screened porch. About Ruby upstairs last night, not knowing the lights going out hadn’t been a storm. About Naomi, who’d opened this house without hesitation the moment Jenna needed it.