“She was,” I said. “The good kind. Mostly.” The smile softened, then slid away. “Her name was Marissa.”
I swallowed, tracing an invisible line on his chest with my fingertip. “She wore red lipstick every single day, even to the grocery store. She kept a jar of sand from every beach she’d ever visited—little glass jars with masking-tape labels in her handwriting. And she smelled like coconut lotion and coffee and the kind of perfume you buy because it reminds you of being twenty, not because it’s fancy.”
He stayed quiet, listening. The kind of quiet that invited more.
“She used to dance in the kitchen when she was happy,” I said, voice softer now. “No music sometimes. She’d just hum and twirl a wooden spoon like a microphone. I remember thinking she looked like the happiest person in the world. I think that’s what I miss most. The way she could make a small space feel like sunlight.”
His thumb brushed under my eye, catching a tear I hadn’t realized had fallen there. “She’d be proud of you,” he said simply.
I wanted to believe that. So, I let myself, just for a moment. Then I tucked myself closer until there was no room between us for sorrow to wedge itself in.
We drifted. Sleep came back wary, then easier. The second time, it didn’t try to drown me.
Dawn arrived with her salt-silver light, sliding fingers across the floorboards and up the foot of the bed, warm as a hand on my ankle.
I woke with my face tucked into the curve where his shoulder met his chest, my leg thrown over his hips like my body had made executive decisions while I was gone. He was already awake, but he hadn’t moved, hadn’t dislodged me. His palm drew slow lines down my back, messages written in a language my muscles understood better than my head did: safe, steady, stay.
“You with me?” he asked, voice still sleep-rough.
“I am.” My voice worked. My chest felt less tight. The dream lingered—present, but losing its shape.
He kissed my hair. “How’s your head?”
“Like it could use coffee,” I said, and he smiled into me.
“Coffee’s a plan.”
I stretched, cat-slow, and the stretch brushed all the places we’d used each other last night. Gratitude hit me so hard I had toclose my eyes for a second. We lay there and listened to morning together. Something in me that had been braced for years … unbraced by degrees.
Eventually, the day tugged at me. The list rose like land under tide. West room leak. Shutters. Dock. Paint.
“I should go see Burl again,” I said, rolling to my back and blinking up at the ceiling crack that had become a landmark. “We burned through half the screws and I want a different grit of sandpaper. Maybe a paint sample.”
“I’ll come,” he said, already pushing up on one elbow, hair a wreck, eyes intent in a way that threatened my ability to do anything except drag him back under the sheet.
I touched his chest, flattened my palm there for a second longer than necessary. “Thank you,” I said. “But I think the drive alone might help clear my head.” I offered him a rueful smile. “Reset the morning.”
He studied me—saw more than I said, like always—then nodded once, the acceptance easy. “I’ll start measuring trim out back,” he said. “And make coffee, if Maude hasn’t already.”
I laughed, then slid out of bed, gathered my clothes, and let the floor cool my bare feet while the day arranged itself around us.
I showered, dressed, kissed him once at the door, and headed down the stairs. I locked up behind me and stepped into the bright marsh morning, pointed the little rental toward Johns Island, and drove to Burl’s.
15
GIDEON
The morning settled into work the way mornings should—quiet purpose, clean lines, the satisfaction of wood yielding to measurement and blade.
I'd grabbed coffee from Maude in the kitchen, where she'd been pulling a batch of blueberry muffins from the oven, the smell alone enough to make a man believe in divine providence. She'd promised to bring me two when they cooled, her eyes twinkling with the kind of knowing that came from watching people fall in love under her roof.
"You look happy," she'd said, handing me the mug.
"I am," I'd admitted, because lying to Maude felt impossible.
She'd patted my arm. "Good. That girl needs someone who shows up."
The words had landed heavier than she probably meant them to. Someone who shows up. I was good at showing up for missions, for orders, for the brief and brutal work of eliminating threats. Showing up for a person, day after day, with no end date and no extraction plan—that was different territory.
