Chapter 49 — Ask Hallie

By midmorning, Hallie stopped noticing who was looking for Grant first. Because they weren’t. She was crossing the yard with the current work board tucked against her side when the older resident who had argued about the meal limit stepped into her path.

“Hallie.”

He held two work slips.

“Which one waits?”

The question came without preamble or a glance toward Grant, who was across the yard speaking with Caleb.

Hallie took the slips.

One was for a roof repair. The other was for the lower wall of the common room. Both requested the same remaining bundle of cut boards.

She looked toward stores. The wolf who couldn’t shift was already coming out with a count sheet.

“We have one bundle ready,” he said. “Another can be cut this afternoon if the saw crew stays on schedule.”

The older resident nodded at him.

“That’s what he told me.”

He offered neither pity nor an explanation for why the wolf was working there.

Just information. Hallie looked back at the slips.

“I can tell you which job affects the current work board,” she said. “I can’t make stores release material it doesn’t have.”

“Fine.”

“The roof goes first.”

“Why?”

“The wall crew can keep clearing the damaged section without new boards for another two hours. The roof crew stops now if they don’t get them.”

He looked at the board. Hallie turned it so he could see.

“If anything here changed, tell me.”

He read the lines. Nothing in his face said he enjoyed agreeing with her.

“Roof first,” he said.

“Yes.”

He handed one slip back to the wolf.

“Give it to them.”

The wolf took it. “I’ll keep the other request open.”

“And flag it if the saw crew falls behind,” Hallie said.

“Already marked.”

The older resident gave Hallie a dry look.

“Looks like he didn’t need that part.”

“Apparently not.”

He walked away to find the roof crew. The wolf returned to stores. That was all.

Hallie stood in the yard holding a board no one had asked Grant to interpret. A woman carrying folded cloth passed her.

“Hallie, do you know whether the common room needs these now or after the meal?”

“Ask the people clearing it. They know when they’ll need them better than I do.”

The woman nodded and changed direction. Another resident called from near the tool shed.

“Hallie, are we still moving the afternoon repair?”

“If you’re asking about the order, yes. If you’re asking whether your crew can spare someone, that’s your call.”

“Order,” he said. “Thanks.”

He left before she could think about the exchange. That, more than anything, unsettled her: no one had paused to decide whether she had the right to answer.

They were deciding whether she was the person who knew. Sometimes she was. Sometimes she wasn’t.

And saying so had not made them trust her less. By late afternoon, Hallie heard it from across the yard. A worker came out of stores with a question about the next supply check.

Someone beside him said, “Ask Hallie. She has the board.”

The words were casual.

The shift was neither title nor declaration.

Hallie looked down at the page in her hands before anyone could see how deeply they landed.

For weeks, she had been careful not to become what Cedar Draw feared. She had corrected people who tried to send every decision through her. She had refused to let Grant’s name stand behind her answers.

But this was not a place anyone had assigned her. People had built the habit themselves. The worker reached her.

“Do you have a minute?”

“Yes.”

He showed her the question. Hallie answered what she could and sent the rest back to stores, and the moment passed without ceremony.

By evening, the quiet of her room should have felt like relief. It didn’t. Hallie sat on the edge of her bed and stared at the opposite wall.

Her room was still hers. Grant had promised that before the marriage changed anything else. You can keep your room.

And if I want to change that later? You tell me. Tonight the words felt less like permission and more like a door she had not chosen to open.

Hallie stood. Grant’s room was quiet when she reached it. She knocked.

A moment later, the door opened.

Grant had taken off his boots. His sleeves were rolled to his forearms. He looked at her once, and whatever he saw sharpened his attention.

“Something wrong?”

“No.”

He waited.

“Can I come in?”

Grant stepped back.

“Yes.”

She crossed the threshold. He closed the door but stayed beside it. Hallie turned toward him.

“I don’t want to go back to my room tonight.”

Grant went very still. Heat rose into her face.

“I mean I want to sleep here.”

His gaze held hers.

“With me?”

“Yes.”

“In the bed?”

Hallie nodded.

“Yes.”

He stayed where he was rather than making the choice larger than she had made it.

“All right.”

The quiet certainty in his answer loosened something inside her. They prepared for sleep without pretending the moment was ordinary and without turning it into something else. When Hallie lay down, Grant took the other side and left a careful space between them.

Too careful. Hallie stared into the dark for several breaths. Then she moved her hand across the sheet until her fingers touched his.

Grant did not close the distance. He only turned his hand palm up. Hallie threaded her fingers through his.

That was enough.

Grant added neither demand nor expectation. The mate bond elsewhere in Hallie’s life remained unresolved and real.

This was different because nothing compelled it. Hallie had crossed the threshold herself. Grant’s breathing slowly evened beside her.

For the first time since their marriage, Hallie chose not only to stay in Cedar Draw. She chose where, and beside whom, she would sleep.