‘‘Yes.’’ And she understood it now. ‘‘It was bad, very bad, but he pretended it wasn’t. He told me not to worry and brushed it off. So I didn’t think any more about it. Then.’’ Thoughtfully, she rubbed a faint bruise on her thigh that she’d given herself bumping into a table at Shiney’s.

‘‘The next day I decided if I sat around waiting for Ethan to do the asking, I’d have gray hair on my wedding day. Ethan doesn’t exactly rush through life.’’

‘‘No, he doesn’t. He gets things done in his own time, and gets them done well. But he could sure use a poke now and then.’’

‘‘He does, doesn’t he?’’ She couldn’t stop the warm, wistful smile. ‘‘Sometimes he just thinks things to death. And I thought this was going to be one of those times, so I made up my mind to do the asking myself.’’

‘‘You asked Ethan to marry you?’’ Anna chuckled, leaned back on the steps. ‘‘Atta girl, Grace.’’

‘‘I had it all worked out. Everything I wanted to say and how to say it. I thought, on the water where he’s most content, so I asked him to take me out for an evening sail. It was so lovely, with the sun setting and the sails bright and full of wind. And I asked him.’’

Anna slipped a hand over Grace’s. ‘‘I gather he turned you down. But—’’

‘‘It was more than that. If you’d seen his face . . . He went so cold. He said he’d explain things to me when we got back. And he did. I don’t feel right telling you, Anna, because it’s Ethan’s business. But he said he can’t marry me, won’t marry me or anyone. Ever.’’

Anna didn’t speak for a moment. She was Seth’s caseworker, which meant she’d had full access to the files on the three men who would stand as his guardians. She knew their pasts nearly as well as they did. ‘‘Is it because of what happened to him as a child?’’

Grace’s gaze flickered, then she stared straight ahead. ‘‘He told you?’’

‘‘No, but I know about it, most of it. It’s part of my job.’’

‘‘You know . . . what his mother—that woman—did to him, let other people do to him? He was only a little boy.’’

‘‘I know that she forced him to have sex with clients for several years before she abandoned him. There are still copies of the medical reports in his file. I know that he was raped and beaten before Stella Quinn found him in the hospital. And I know what that kind of trauma, that kind of consistent abuse can do. Ethan could very well have become an abuser himself. It’s a miserably common cycle.’’

‘‘But he didn’t.’’