Chapter Ten: The Storm Beneath

For the first time since arriving in Dalton, Ellie felt like she belonged to something. Not just to a place, but to a feeling—an intimacy she hadn't tasted in years. Her mornings began with coffee in Jack's kitchen, where the scent of toast and motor oil mingled in a strangely comforting way. Her days wandered through town with her camera, capturing the slow elegance of small-town life. Her nights—well, her nights were still filled with silence and possibility.

Jack had changed too. He no longer closed the garage at five on the dot. He lingered. Laughed. Sometimes he even whistled—a rough, tuneless thing that made the other mechanics raise eyebrows and smile behind their hands. People noticed. Especially Clara, the waitress from the diner, who had spent years dropping hints like sugar packets at Jack's table.

"You've got that look, Lawson," she said one morning as she poured his coffee. "Like you're walking in a dream. Hope she's worth waking up for."

Jack didn't answer. He just looked out the window, where Ellie stood across the street, photographing a rusted mailbox covered in honeysuckle.

But love, as always, didn't come without its tremors.

That Friday, Jack got a call. A name he hadn't heard in years.

"Marianne."

His voice said it flat, no emotion. But the way his fingers tightened around the phone cord gave him away.

She was passing through. She wanted to see him.

When he hung up, Ellie noticed the change. Jack didn't say much that evening. He barely looked at her. And though they sat side by side on the porch swing, their hands didn't find each other like they usually did.

"What's going on?" she asked softly.

He hesitated. "Something from before. I'll handle it."

Ellie studied him. "You don't have to protect me from your past, Jack."

He shook his head. "That's not it. I just don't want it to ruin... this."

Saturday came gray and heavy, like the clouds were echoing Jack's nerves. When Marianne finally arrived, she stepped out of a rental car like she still owned every room she entered. Blonde. Beautiful. The kind of woman who looked like she'd aged in luxury.

Jack met her outside the diner. Ellie watched from the other side of the street, camera in hand but not clicking.

They talked. Fifteen minutes, maybe twenty. No yelling. Just low, intense conversation. Marianne placed a hand on Jack's arm once. He didn't flinch, but he didn't move toward her either.

When it was over, she drove off.

Ellie was waiting at the auto shop when he returned. Jack walked in, slow and deliberate, wiping his hands on a rag though they weren't dirty.

"I told her goodbye," he said.

"I know," Ellie replied.

He looked at her. "How?"

"Because you came back to me with both feet still here."

Jack stepped closer. "She wanted to talk about what we lost. But with you, I just want to talk about what we could build."

This time, when they kissed, it wasn't tentative. It was claiming. It was the full exhale of a heart that had held its breath too long.

Outside, the storm that had been threatening all day finally broke. Rain slammed against the roof. Thunder rolled over the hills. But inside Lawson Auto, there was only warmth. Only Ellie and Jack, holding each other like the past couldn't reach them anymore.

And for the first time, it didn't matter that they'd both been broken once. Because love wasn't asking them to forget—it was asking them to begin.