Raf’s voice as well as his gaze drops.“Even when he was hurting.”
Maddox’s knife scratches the plate before stilling, like a fault line shifting beneath the table.
“Hurting?”The word slips out before I can think better of it.
No one looks at me, almost as if they hope my question didn’t exist.
Chapter21
Grace
Meredith lightly grips the table’s edge, almost as if to steady herself.“He had a terrible accident in the shop.An engine malfunctioned, and a piece flew loose and hit him in the back.”Her breath wavers, but she steadies it.“He survived, but the pain never left.”
Katie sets down her water glass.“His doctor had him on medication to manage the pain, and he did everything right, kept to the dose, followed the schedule.”Her thumb tracing the rim of her glass in slow, careful circles.“One night, about four months in, he took a little too much.We suppose he thought it would knock him out for a few hours of peace.”The last word barely makes it out.“He didn’t wake up.”
Silence folds over the table, and Maddox’s eyes fix somewhere far beyond what’s in front of him.
My chest tightens with the familiar ache of loss or regret for opening my mouth.“The anniversary next weekend, it’s to honor him?”
Raf nods.“Whole town comes out.We’ve done one, five years ago.The actual date of his passing usually falls around Thanksgiving, but we move it to the first weekend in December.”He shakes his head and smiles.“Truth is, it doesn’t matter when we hold it, the town shows up.He was good people.”
I glance toward Maddox, the desire for him to look at me fierce.
“What do you do?”The question comes out softer than I intend, gentle in a way I hope he doesn’t mistake for pity.
His shoulders lift in the slightest shrug.“I let them run it.”
“That’s not the same as not being part of it.”
A faint huff leaves him, humorless and tired.“It’s what I can manage.I wasn’t even here for the last one.”
The words hang there, simple but weighted with everything he isn’t saying.The grief.The fact that while an entire town gathered to honor the man who built this house, this family, this life, he was most likely continents away, his racing career taking off.And he’s been carrying that ever since, regardless of distance or how much time has passed.
I study him—the tension in his shoulders, the way his fingers curl around his fork like he needs the anchor, the shadow that moves through his expression when he blinks.I file it away, another piece of the puzzle that is Maddox Hartley.
Not for the article.
For me.
That distinction is new, and it unsettles me more than I want to admit.I came here with a clear purpose—find the story, tell it well, and move on.I know how to do that.I’ve always known how to keep the work separate from the person, to treat every subject like a question waiting to be answered rather than a human being waiting to be known.
But something has shifted.
I’m not sure when it happened.
Somewhere between the racetrack and this dinner table, between his careful silences and the way he looks at me like he’s still deciding how much to give…
I stopped seeing him as a story.
The pull is immediate and physical, a low heat stirring under my ribs, tightening when his gaze lifts to find me watching him.
I want more than his answers.I want his attention.His focus.I want to see what happens if I stop pretending my interest ends with my work.
There are still so many questions he hasn’t answered.Still so much I need for the feature.Raymond Hartley is just the latest addition to the growing pile, and for the first time since I arrived in Winslow Grove, I’m not sure the article is the thing I want most.
Blane breaks the quiet with a theatrical sigh.“A tragic hero.No wonder readers eat this stuff up.”
Meredith gasps, and everyone around the table stops, some heads swinging his way.Everything in Maddox coils tight and still, except for the growl he doesn’t hold back.