Chapter 16
On my first proper morning as Mrs Reeves, I nearly cremated breakfast.
The toast came out black at the edges. The eggs were salvageable only by generous standards.
I stood in the vast kitchen staring at my failure when Alexander entered in uniform.
His gaze moved from me to the plate.
“I made breakfast,” I said before he could ask.
He sat.
And ate it.
Without hesitation.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“Do what?”
“Pretend charcoal is food.”
He took another bite. “You made it.”
Ethan arrived mid-meal, stopped beside the island, and examined the toast as if reviewing evidence.
“General, with respect, consumption appears to violate basic health protocols.”
“Dismissed, Colonel.”
“Yes, sir.” Ethan looked at me. “Madam, please preserve his digestive tract in future.”
“Ethan.”
He escaped before I could throw a dish towel at him.
Eleanor, Richard, and Dad entered soon afterwards
Dad was holding his phone with both hands.
His expression made my smile fade.
“Alexander,” he said.
The room quieted.
“The hospital contacted me. My records were transferred to the military cardiology wing. They said my past bills have been cleared. Future treatment too.”
I looked at Alexander.
He set down his coffee.
“The civilian facility was not sufficient for your condition.”
“But the cost—”
“You are my father-in-law.”
Alexander’s voice was calm, almost blunt.
“Your care is my responsibility. It is handled.”
Dad’s eyes filled.
So did mine.
I walked around the island and caught Alexander’s sleeve because I did not trust myself to hug him in front of everyone.
“Thank you.”
He looked down at my hand.
Then covered it with his own.
“Stop crying, Grace. I take care of my family.”
No romance. No grand declaration.
Yet the sentence lodged somewhere painfully tender.
That afternoon, Eleanor and I sat in the garden.
“He has always been like this,” she said. “Do not wait for poetry from Alexander. If he loves someone, he removes the things that can hurt them.”
Love.
I did not let myself hold onto the word.
Alexander returned near midnight after an emergency military assignment.
I was on the master-suite sofa with a book open in my lap.
He stopped when he saw me.
His tie was loose, shirt open at the collar, exhaustion cutting through the usual control in his face.
“I told you not to wait up.”
“I was reading.”
His eyes dropped to the book, which was upside down.
I quietly turned it around.
“Long day?”
“Complicated.”
He removed his watch and moved toward the study.
At the door, he stopped.
For a long moment he simply looked at me.
There was something in his expression I did not know how to name—not softness, exactly, but the exhaustion of holding something back.
“Go to sleep, Grace.”
His voice was rougher than usual.
The study door closed.
I lay awake in a bed that smelled faintly of cedar and told myself I was curious about my husband.
Curiosity was safe.
Anything deeper would be foolish.
I was beginning to suspect foolishness had already moved in.
