Page 88 of Grumpy Ex-Military Brewmaster’s Secret

Derek's jaw tightens, just barely, the smile costing him more effort by the second, and he takes one step closer to the bottom of the stairs before headlights sweep across the driveway and Sheriff Cole's cruiser pulls in fast enough to spray gravel against the side of Derek's car.

"Derek." Cole's out of the vehicle before it's fully stopped, already moving, already reading the whole scene in about two seconds flat, the way he does. "Step back from the porch."

"I'm not doing anything wrong, Cole. I'm talking to my own kids."

"You're twenty minutes early to a supervised visit with no monitor present, and I've got a call on record of a mother reporting exactly that. Step back." His voice doesn't raise, doesn't need to, carrying the same flat authority I remember from the night at the fundraiser months ago. "Now, Derek."

Derek steps back, hands up in a show of compliance that doesn't reach his eyes, and something in my knees finally gives out enough that I have to lock them to stay standing. Carol's sedan pulls in a full three minutes later, and by then Cole's already got Derek talked down to the far side of the driveway, voice low, words I can't quite hear but can guess the shape of.

The visit happens anyway, technically compliant, Derek sitting a careful distance from the twins in lawn chairs I set out weeks ago, Carol taking notes on a clipboard, and it's the longest thirty minutes I've ever sat through. I stand at the window the entire time, arms wrapped around myself, watching a man smile and wave at his own children like the last twenty minutes never happened.

Cole finds me on the porch after Derek's car finally pulls out of the driveway, Carol's not far behind him, and I'm shaking hard enough that I have to sit down on the top step before my legs make the decision for me, shaking in a way I haven't done since the last morning I ever spent under the same roof as Derek, back when I still measured every hour by how carefully I could keep him calm.

"You did everything right," he says, crouching down to my level, the same steady patience I remember him using on frightened witnesses back when I still thought courtrooms were something that happened to other people. "You didn't let them in the car. You called it in fast. That matters, Jenna. That goes in the file."

"He didn't even raise his voice."

"He didn't have to. That's what I need you to understand. Men like Derek don't need volume to be dangerous. That's exactly why the order exists." Cole's quiet for a second, watching me carefully. "I'm filing this as a violation. It might not be enough to end visitation outright, but it's enough to tighten the leash considerably. You did the right thing today."

I nod, because I don't trust my voice yet, and he stays another few minutes before he has to go, promising to call if anything else comes up, and then it's just me and the twins and a house that feels too quiet after that much fear moved through it.

The twins ask about it at lunch, careful, circling the subject the way they've learned to circle anything that scares them. Josie wants to know if Dad's in trouble now. Eli wants to know if Cole's going to arrest him, and when I tell him probably not, just a mark against him in the court's eyes, something in his face closes off, like he wanted a cleaner answer than the one the real world's willing to give him. I don't have a better one to offer. I've spent nine years learning that men like Derek rarely get the ending they deserve, only smaller and smaller rooms to be dangerous in, and I'm not about to lie to my own son about which kind of story we're living in.

I think about calling Rafe twice that afternoon, my thumb actually hovering over his name in my phone both times, old habit reaching for him before the rest of me catches up and remembers he already tried once, a few nights ago, standing on my porch with a speech he never got past the first two words of before I told him it was too late for that particular kind of brave. There's no version of us left to call. I put the phone down both times. I get through dinner and baths and two extra chapters of the book Eli's currently obsessed with, mostly because neither of them wants to go to sleep tonight, and I don't blame them for it.

It's well past their bedtime when I finally get them down, Josie curled around her stuffed dog, the one she insisted on naming after the real Biscuit within a week of meeting him, Eli quiet in the way that means he's still turning the morning over even with his eyes closed. I check the locks twice, front door and back, something I haven't done out of real fear in months, and pour myself a glass of wine I don't actually want, just to have something to hold onto while my hands stop shaking.

I'm rinsing the glass a while later when I notice it through the kitchen window, a shape near the tree line at the edge of the property that doesn't belong there, low and dark against the darker trees behind it. I go still, dish towel forgotten in my hand, and watch it long enough to be sure I'm not imagining things.

A car sits parked just off the gravel where the drive curves toward the road, close enough to the tree line that I wouldn't have seen it at all if the moon weren't doing me the small favor of breaking through the clouds right at that moment.

It hasn't moved in the two or three minutes I've been standing here, and by the settled look of it against the tree line, it's been there a while, like it's working up to something or waiting for someone to notice.

I go check on the twins first, some old instinct louder than curiosity, and find them both asleep, Josie's breathing even, Eli's hand still curled loose around the corner of his blanket. I stand in their doorway a long moment before I make myself go back to the window.

The car's still there, headlights off, engine idling low enough that the sound barely carries, just a faint vibration against the glass I have to hold my breath to catch.

I don't have my phone in my hand. I don't have Rafe's number pulled up, don't have Cole's direct line memorized the way I probably should by now, and I don't have any way of telling, not from this distance, not in this dark, whether the man behind that wheel drove out here to finish something that started in my driveway this morning, or whether it's nothing at all, a stranger who took a wrong turn and hasn't noticed yet.

I stand at the window with two frightened kids asleep down the hall and an idling engine I can't identify sitting fifty yards from my door, headlights off, going nowhere, and I don't have the first idea what happens next.

44

RAFE

I'm barely off the brewery lot when my phone rings through the truck's speakers, Cole's name lighting up the dash, and something in my gut drops before he's even said a word.

"Cole. What's wrong?" The question comes out clipped and hard, already braced for the worst before he's given me a single reason to be.

"Nothing to panic about now. Wanted you to hear it from me before it made the rounds some other way." A pause, the particular one he uses when he's deciding how much detail a civilian actually needs. "Derek showed up twenty minutes early to his supervised visit this morning. No monitor present. He tried to get the twins in his car."

My hands tighten on the wheel hard enough that my knuckles go pale in the dashboard light, some old current running fast and cold up through my arms before I've even decided to be afraid. "Is Jenna all right? Are the kids all right?"

"Everybody's fine. I got there in time. Derek's looking at a formal violation, which tightens things up considerably on his end." Another pause. "I'm only telling you because I know you've been keeping your distance lately, and I figured you'd want to know regardless of whatever's going on between you two."

"Thank you for calling."

"Don't thank me yet. Just drive safe." The line goes dead before I can ask anything else, and I sit at the stop sign at the end of the lot longer than the empty intersection actually requires, letting what he just told me finish landing.