Page 48 of What Remains of Grace

Jenna had been in Georgia drafting floor plans while her sister held an entire world together. Grace had lost Manny, lost the bakery’s footing, lost everything except Emmie.

The shame hit hard. Jenna’s own grief for Brooks had consumed her, but Grace had endured blow after blow: Grandma Hart, Manny, Brooks, and the slow collapse of her own life, and she’d done it completely alone.

She looked down at her reflection in the water, hair falling loose from her clip, her face drawn and tired. “You were still here,” she whispered, voice cracking. “And I wasn’t.”

A single pelican glided low across the surface, breaking the silence. She watched it until it disappeared, then wiped her eyes and headed back toward home. Grace’s home. Now her home.

Hours later, Jenna was showered with her hair pulled back, and the heat of embarrassment was finally fading, but she found the bakery was nearly empty. Most of the crew had gone. The counters were spotless. The paint had been cleaned.

And in the corner, propped against the wall near the back door, was the chalkboard.

Someone had cleaned the frame, not the writing. Grace’s chalk still curved across the surface, faded but untouched. A new screw gleamed on one side where the wood had split, holding it steady again.

Cole was outside, on a ladder, checking the fascia. He saw her through the window and climbed down.

“Hey,” he said, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. “Feeling better?”

She nodded, “I, um, I lost it.”

“You had a moment.”

“A big one,” jenna confessed, avoiding eye contact.

“Yeah. But you didn’t scare anybody.”

“You’re not scared of me?”

“I didn’t say that,” he said with a grin.

Desperate to change the subject, her eyes flicked to the chalkboard. “You found it.”

“Didn’t let it get far,” he said. “Figured you weren’t done with it yet.”

“I’m not,” she said quietly.

“Then we keep it.”

She looked at him for a long second, grateful and a little undone. “Thank you. I’m so sorry.”

He shrugged, “It’s nothing. I’ve had worse days on a site.”

He wiped his hands on a rag, nodding toward the water. “You ever paddleboard?”

The question caught her off guard. “What?”

“Paddleboard,” he said again. “I go out sometimes early, up near Caladesi. Good for stress. Good for remembering you’re small.”

She smirked. “Says the guy who has to duck through every doorway in Pinellas County?”

That earned her a laugh. “Fair point.”

She shook her head, still smiling, unsure why her chest felt lighter.

“Saturday,” he said. “I’ll bring an extra board.”

She nodded before she even realized she’d agreed.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to go, she did, but the question itself left her off balance. Cole had spent the week keeping his distance, polite and professional, all business. She’d started to believe she’d imagined the moments between them.