Page 91 of Grumpy Ex-Military Brewmaster’s Secret

"I know exactly what you're about to lose if you take one more step toward that porch." His voice doesn't crack, doesn't waver, steady as a held breath. "Stand down. Let it end here, tonight, the easy way."

I watch it from the window with both palms pressed flat against the sill, nine years of reading this exact man collapsing down into the next few seconds, every fight I ever managed alone in some kitchen or some parking lot narrowing into this one, except this time I'm not the one standing between him and the door. Someone else is, and he isn't flinching, and some old locked part of me that spent years believing I had to absorb every version of Derek's temper by myself finally, quietly, comes undone.

For one long second I actually think it's going to work, Derek's shoulders dropping a fraction, some of the fight draining out of his stance, and then red and blue light sweeps silently across the yard, sirens catching up a half second later, and Sheriff Cole's cruiser slides in behind Derek's rental with the kind of speed that says he's been driving flat out the whole way here.

"Hands where I can see them, Derek." Cole's out of the car fast, already moving, that same unshakable calm running underneath every word, no patience left in it tonight, none at all. "You're under arrest for violating a custody order."

"This is insane. I didn't touch anyone."

"You violated a direct court order the second you stepped onto this property outside a scheduled visit. Turn around." Cole's already got the cuffs out, moving with the kind of practiced efficiency that tells me he ran this exact scenario in his head the whole drive over, and Derek doesn't fight him, not really, just keeps talking, keeps shouting over his shoulder as Cole walks him back toward the cruiser.

"Jenna. This isn't over. You hear me? This isn't over."

I don't answer. I stand frozen at the window with both hands pressed flat against the glass, watching Cole fold Derek into the back seat, watching the door shut on whatever he's still shouting, muffled now, meaningless, four years since I last let a single word out of that man's mouth actually reach me, and I'm not about to start again tonight. The cruiser pulls out of the driveway with its lights still turning silently against the trees, and the yard goes quiet.

It's overwhelmingly, suddenly quiet.

Four years of small rooms and careful voices, four years of teaching my own children how to read a man's mood off his shoulders before he ever opens his mouth, and just like that, it's done. It isn't healed. It isn't forgotten. It's just done, the fear I've carried since the night I packed that bag finally behind me instead of always waiting up ahead.

Rafe stands alone in the middle of the yard for a second, both hands braced on his knees, chest heaving like the adrenaline just caught up to him all at once, and something about watching him need one second to recover too, instead of being the only steady thing left standing in this whole yard, undoes me faster than the sirens did.

I don't remember crossing the front room. I don't remember opening the door or crossing the porch or getting down the steps, but somehow I'm standing in the cold grass in nothing but socks and a thin shirt, and Rafe's turning toward me at the exact second I reach him, and then his arms are around me and mine are around him and neither of us manages a single sound, because there isn't a word yet that fits.

We stand there shaking, both of us, some adrenaline crash finally catching up all at once, his heartbeat slamming under my ear as hard as my own, his hands moving over my back and shoulders and hair like he needs to check for himself that every piece of me is still whole. Neither of us tries to talk yet. There isn't a version of tonight small enough to fit into words this soon, not with my pulse still hammering and his breath still ragged against the top of my head, and for a long moment the only sound in the whole yard is our own breathing evening out, slow, together, the porch light throwing both our shadows long across the grass while somewhere down the hall two kids wait behind a locked door for the one word that means it's finally safe to come out.

46

RAFE

Iwake up on Jenna's couch to the smell of coffee and two kids in the kitchen quietly disagreeing about whether cereal counts as a good breakfast the day after your dad got arrested in the driveway.

"It counts," Eli says, with the flat finality of someone who has already won this argument in his head. "Food is food."

"Mom said something with protein."

"Cereal has protein. It's on the box."

I lie still a second longer, working out where I am before I open my eyes all the way. My shoulders ache from a night folded onto a couch two sizes too short for me, the plain reminder that driving home last night was never a decision I was actually capable of making. Somewhere around three in the morning, after the twins finally fell back asleep and Jenna finally stopped shaking, I told her I wasn't going anywhere, and she didn't argue, and that was the whole conversation.

By the time I make it upright, Jenna's already dressed for the day, hair pulled back, moving through the kitchen with the brisk, careful efficiency of a woman running on adrenaline fumes and not much sleep. She catches me watching her and offers a small, tired smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes.

"There's coffee if you want it."

"Thank you."

"Josie, socks. Both feet. I can already see one bare one." She doesn't look away from the stove while she says it, some maternal radar clocking a missing sock from across the room, and Josie groans and disappears back down the hall. Jenna glances at me again, quick, assessing. "You didn't have to stay."

"I wanted to."

"I know. That's not what I said." She turns back to the stove, and I let the silence sit there instead of pushing into it, because I recognize the shape of it now, the same careful distance she kept most of last night even while I held her in that yard. She let me stay. She hasn't let me all the way back in, and given the last two weeks I gave her, I don't have any right to expect otherwise.

Maggie shows up twenty minutes later to walk the twins to school, no explanation needed, the kind of quiet mobilization a town does for its own after a night like the one this one just had. She doesn't ask questions either, just herds two backpacks and two kids toward the door with the practiced ease of a woman who's done this exact favor before, and gives Jenna's shoulder one firm squeeze on her way out.

"Call me if you need anything today. Anything at all."

"I will."

"You won't, but I appreciate the lie." Maggie's gone before Jenna can argue, the door clicking shut behind four sets of footsteps, and then it's only the two of us left standing in a kitchen that suddenly feels too quiet for how full it was five minutes ago.