Page 35

CORBIN

The scent of yeast and rising bread hangs thick in the air, earthy and comforting. Flour dusts the counter like snowfall, softening the edges of everything it touches. Some of it clings to Grace’s elbows and smudges her cheek. She doesn’t notice, or maybe she does and doesn’t care.

She hums under her breath in time with the soft, twangy old country song playing on the radio.

I don’t know how she knows it. Is she a country girl at heart, contained in the pristine shell of a city career girl?

The sound blends with the twins’ laughter at the table where they’re squishing colored dough into what looks like rainbow cattle.

Beau lies in the corner, chin on his paws, eyes half-lidded but alert.

The world feels right at this moment, like we’ve slipped into a photograph of the life I thought was behind me.

I step closer to Grace, palms bracketing hers as I guide her hands through the dough.

Push. Fold. Turn. Repeat. She asked me to teach her, and she’s stronger than she looks, but her movements are hesitant.

I let my weight rest gently against her back, curving over her smaller frame, to reassure her she’s doing it right.

Her body’s warm and soft in all the right places, and the feel of her curves against me stirs something deep and long-starved.

It isn’t only lust or shallow arousal. It’s something slower and older that’s been sitting buried under grief and guilt for so long that it almost feels like a betrayal to let it breathe.

But it’s not. I want to find life again. Like green shoots forming on bare branches, as winter turns to spring, Grace is warming our world.

Her laugh floats up as the dough springs back under her palms. She tilts her head to look up at me. “Like this?”

“Exactly like that.” My voice comes out rougher than I mean it to, so I clear my throat. “You’ve got the rhythm.”

She smiles over her shoulder in a pleased way that doesn’t feel smug.

I blink and look away, back at the dough, back at the kitchen that somehow feels full of heart again.

It’s natural, and that’s what hits me hardest. The way she moves around our kitchen. The way she tucks a piece of hair behind her ear and talks to the kids like she’s always been a part of their lives. The way she stands beside me, like she’s always had a place here.

I’ll never stop missing my wife. I don’t want to. But the ache changed shape over time. It’s less sharp, less consuming, and in its place is the space for hope to take root.

This isn’t about replacing what has been lost to the past. It’s about living again. At this moment, with Grace’s hands under mine and the smell of fresh bread in the air, I realize I want it. I’m allowed to want it.

The knock that interrupts us is sharp. Three raps with enough force to make us both jump.

Before I can call out, the door swings open, and Mark steps into the kitchen like he didn’t vanish after Sadie’s funeral and became a ghost for a year.

His eyes sweep the room over the twins at the table, and Grace still bent over the dough. Then they land on me. Hard .

The air shifts.

The kids go quiet and watchful like animals, sensing an earthquake before it takes hold and wracks the earth. Even their colored dough play pauses mid-squish.

Mark’s dressed in smart dark jeans and a button-down with the sleeves rolled to the elbows, always dressed like he’s on his way to something important. His mouth is tight, his lips pressed into a grim, unimpressed line, and when he speaks, the words drop like a boulder into still water.

“This her? The one replacing my sister?”

Grace flinches, and so do I. It’s a flicker in my jaw that I feel all the way down to my bones like a jolt of pain.

Mark doesn’t wait for an answer. He stalks further into the room like he’s got a right to it.

“Jesus, Corbin. A year. That’s all it took?

You bring some pretty stranger into the house to play mommy while the ground has barely settled over Sadie? ”

The twins stiffen. One of them drops a piece of blue dough, and it lands with a soft thud.

Grace steps back instinctively, eyes flicking to me. “I should give you two some privacy.”

“No.” My voice comes out steady, and I touch her wrist gently.

Mark snorts, disbelief carved into every line of his face. “This isn’t only about you, Corbin. This is about my sister. This is about her kids. And what you’re doing. This setup with eleven men and one woman? It’s insane. It’s—hell, it’s sick.”

I take a breath, deep and slow. “It isn’t sick, Mark.”

“Oh really? You’ve got kids in every room of this house; half of them call you Daddy, and now what? You’re auditioning for a bride like it’s reality TV?”

Grace shifts uncomfortably but I keep my hand steady on her wrist.

“This isn’t about replacing your sister,” I say quietly. “No one could ever do that. This is about giving the kids a home that’s full of fun and warmth, that still has love in it, not just silence and grief and waiting. They deserve that. We all deserve that.”

Mark shakes his head, jaw tight. “It’s unstable.”

“It’s honest,” I counter. “There are no lies here. No pretending. These kids are surrounded by men who show up. EVERY DAY. We make meals. We wipe tears. We braid hair and patch knees and sit through math drills and bed-wetting and every damn thing that parenting requires. And we don’t quit.”

He folds his arms, eyes narrowing at Grace again. “So, she’s fine with this circus?”

“I didn’t come here to play as anyone’s replacement.” Grace swallows, visibly trying to hold her ground. Her voice is soft but clear. “I came to write a story.”

Mark laughs. “So, she’s a journalist? Isn’t it embarrassing enough that you placed that ad? Now you want to humiliate yourself in the papers, too? You think this is what my sister would’ve wanted?”

“I don’t think she’d want you shouting and scaring her kids.

She wouldn’t want you to disappear out of our lives when we needed your support.

She wouldn’t expect me to wallow in grief for the rest of my life, and she sure as hell would have wanted as many kind and loving people to be positive influences in her children’s lives. ”

I inhale a long breath while he glares at me, nostrils flaring. Quieter, I say, “I think she’d want the children to have more than a father hollowed out by grief. I loved her, Mark. I still do. But she’s gone, and I’m still here. So are the kids. And we deserve to keep loving and living.”

For a second, Mark doesn’t say anything. He’s braced, breathing hard, like he’s trying to wrestle his own grief and anger into submission.

Then, behind us, the screen door slams.

Heavy boots cross the floor, and Conway folds his arms across his massive chest, the room shrinking around his presence.

“You’ve had your say,” Conway says, voice low and calm. Deadly calm. “Now let me have mine. ”

Mark doesn’t respond, but his posture tightens like he knows what’s coming.

“You weren’t here, Mark. Not after the funeral. Not when the kids woke up screaming for their mom, night after night. You didn’t watch Corbin lose twenty pounds. Didn’t watch him dig fence posts with blistered hands because it was the only thing that kept him from falling apart.”

His voice is even, but the words land like hammer strikes.

“I did.” Conway turns his head, his gaze hard.

“We all did. And through all of it, he stayed present. He showed up. Every day. For his kids. For this family. For your sister’s memory.

You wanna be pissed? Fine. But don’t walk into this house and act like you’ve got the moral high ground because you share blood. ”

Mark opens his mouth, then shuts it again. His jaw flexes.

“And don’t,” Conway continues, “stand here and make assumptions about Grace. She might be here to do a job, but she’s become family. So, unless you’re ready to show up and help, you can take your judgment and walk it right back out the way you came.”

Mark glares at him. Then at me. Then Grace.

To her credit, she doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t even blink.

He looks at the twins one last time, gives them a stiff nod, then turns to the door.

“This isn’t over,” he mutters.

And then he’s gone, and the silence he leaves behind feels louder than the slam of the door.

Nash, who must have been waiting outside, appears in the doorway, his expression worried.

He takes one look at the kids, then at me and Grace.

Quickly crossing the room, he sits with them at the table and shows them how to make a horse shape out of their dough.

They’re quiet at first, but as soon as he makes a realistic neighing noise, they laugh and try to copy.

My heart is racing, and my hands balled into fists. Grace rests a floury palm on my arm, and I drop my gaze to the place where her warmth is seeping into my skin. Mark made a lot of assumptions about what we’re looking for, but none of them were correct.

It’s been a long time since I cried. After Sadie died, I allowed myself to grieve for a day, weeping while Conway held space for me and the others took care of my kids.

After that, I put my emotions in a box and got on with life.

But this… this insinuation that I’m doing something wrong by wanting to carry on living…

all those emotions come roaring back up.

I turn to walk out of the room before I lose control of myself and show Grace a load of weakness she won’t want to witness.

On the stairs, I catch the end of a hushed exchange between her and Conway, and louder voices as others begin returning for a dinner I don’t have the strength to prepare. I close myself inside my room and brace against the warm door, breathing hard as I flip between rage and sorrow.

Fuck.

A soft knock on the door makes me pause. I should be downstairs making sure the kids are okay, not wallowing alone in my room.

“Corbin.”

Grace’s voice is soft, and I look up at the ceiling, willing myself to hold it together.

“I’m fine. I just need a minute.”

“Let me in,” she says, and I blow out a frustrated breath.

When I open the door, she looks up at me with wide eyes and worry pouring from her.

She’s washed the flour from her hands and somehow seems smaller, framed by my doorway.

Without thinking, I step into her space and press my lips to hers in a bruising kiss.

Her hands grip my shoulders with surprise, but she doesn’t push me away.

Instead, her lips move softly against mine, and I groan, the burning of tears in my throat making everything raw and desperate.

My arms wrap around her, clutching her close as the comfort of her soft body reminds me of everything I’ve missed.

Jesus.

I pull back, breathing hard, pressing my forehead to hers while I try to sort the mess of thoughts and emotions barreling through me. Her hands cup my stubbled cheeks. “It’s okay, Corbin,” she whispers. “You’re okay.”

I’m not. I’m really not.

“I’ll always love her,” I blurt. “That’s never going away, but with you… life feels possible again. You remind me that there’s still something left to feel… to build. And that it’s okay to want it.”

Her eyes search mine, and she swallows audibly as my words have landed hard. Her hand brushes mine, light as a whisper. “There are many ways to build something new.”

I don’t flinch, more determined in the face of her hesitation. I kiss her again, deeper this time, and she lets me haul her into my room and press her into the wall with my big, urgent body, needing to show her how much her being here brings me solace.

Grace is eager and responsive, gasping when I slide my hand beneath her shirt across her warm skin until I’m cupping her full breast and groaning. She brings her leg high around my hip, pressing her core to where I’m hard and straining against the zipper of my jeans.

Footsteps ascend the stairs, but I can’t bring myself to stop.

She tastes too sweet, and the need thickening my cock is too urgent.

Conway clears his throat; the sound is so familiar that I don’t even have to look up to know it’s him.

I draw back, panting, resentful. After everything, can’t I claim a little something for myself?

“What?” I grind out.

“Mark left,” Conway says. “Levi followed him until he was off our land, but he’ll be back.”

“Fuck him,” I hiss, grinding against Grace, my anger blooming. “He hasn’t done shit for any of us, and now he wants to turn up spouting judgment. I won’t fucking have it. He didn’t even want to visit with the kids he says he’s so worried about. All of this is about the fucking optics.”

Grace’s hand strokes my neck, calming my anger before it takes over.

“Brody’s making dinner,” Conway says, his eyes drifting over us both.

Even though I’m mired in emotions left from Mark’s visit and the air is tense, I groan. Brody is the least capable when it comes to the culinary arts. Our only hope is that he might want Grace to consider his efforts edible.

“You take some time,” Conway says, tipping his hat at the front like he’s saying goodbye.

“Stay,” Grace says, surprising us both. Conway’s arm freezes mid-air.

I cup her jaw, tipping her face to mine and brushing my thumb across her bottom lip. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” She turns her face into my palm, kissing it softly. “I’m sure.”

If I was in any position to think, I’d spend time mired in the reasons for this offer to share her body.

Is it motivated by her own desires or because she’s worried about me and wants to know I’m surrounded by support right now?

And what about her heart? I have so much to give, bubbling below the surface, waiting for the right time and the right person, but does she?

I turn to Conway, searching his expression for acceptance or rejection of Grace’s offer.

Will he want this? Hesitation ripples through the room, but then Conway lifts his hat and places it on the top of my dresser and closes the door, locking it with a sharp crack that punctuates the decision for all of us.

This won’t be the first woman I’ve shared with another man, but Conway’s always been a lone ranger.

I’m glad that he’s taking this opportunity while it’s offered.

As much as I want to hope that Grace wants more than to share her body, none of us knows her intentions.

I lift her easily and bring her legs around my waist so that I can carry her to my bed.

And when she’s spread out on my comforter, hair a dark halo, eyes brighter than the sun, I say a silent prayer that this won’t be another ending, but a beginning.

Because even in something new, there’s an opportunity for a second chance.