Jake crossed to the couch.
"Good morning," he said.
She turned. The smile was already there, wide and unguarded, carrying the warmth of a woman who'd been comfortable for a while and wasn't performing surprise at being found that way.
"Hey."
He opened his mouth. The speech was right there, the one he'd been composing since he was twenty-seven years old, the explanation, the here's-what-you-need-to-know, the disclosure that functioned as a preemptive apology for being human.
"Jake," she said, before he could start. Her eyes found his with the precision of a woman who'd spent her career reading the space between what people said and what they meant. "Something has to be done about those curtains in the bedroom."
Then she turned back to the television.
Curtains. She'd lain awake in his bed, watched him at his most exposed, held him through the aftermath, and her morning assessment was that his curtains were inadequate.
Not we need to talk. Not are you okay. Not maybe you should see someone.
Curtains.
He stood there, holding the absence of everything he'd expected to feel, and in its place found ground. Solid, level, load-bearing ground.
She wasn't going anywhere. She'd moved past it like she moved past everything that tried to slow her down, with efficiency and clarity and zero tolerance for unnecessary drama.The curtains were the message. I'm here, I'm staying, and I care about the light in our room.
Jake bent down and kissed the top of her head. Felt her lean into it, the smallest pressure, an answer to a question he hadn't needed to ask.
"Breakfast?"
She looked up at him. The smile went warm, the kind of warm that had nothing to do with temperature, and she nodded.
He walked to the kitchen. Found the coffee she'd already made, the pot still half full, a mug set out next to it. Of course she'd made coffee. Of course she'd set out his mug.
He poured a cup. Stood at the counter. Looked at the living room, at the woman on his couch and the dog who'd given up his post and the television flickering with a show that was older than both of them.
Ranger was going to have to share the job.
That was the thought. Clear and simple and true. For four years it had been the two of them, Jake and Ranger, the dark and the drill and the morning after. Ranger on his chest, bringing him back. The only witness to the cost of remembering.
Now there were two.
He drank his coffee and started pulling things from the refrigerator. Eggs. The good bacon from the butcher Gator had told him about. Bread for toast. The orange juice she liked, the kind with pulp that he personally found disgusting but kept stocked because she'd mentioned it once and he'd never forgotten.
From the living room, Emily laughed again. Ranger groaned, the sound of a dog being asked to accommodate someone else's entertainment preferences.
Jake cracked eggs into a pan and let the morning be exactly what it was.
CHAPTER 27
Emily stood at the prosecution table, Claire beside her, both of them in the navy suits they'd coordinated without discussing it. The gallery behind them was sparse for a case this size, but the people who mattered were there. Ray in the third row, his expression the practiced neutrality of a man who'd learned not to celebrate until the ink was dry. And Jake, two seats down, watching her with the attention he brought to everything that mattered.
She didn't look at him. Not yet. She'd look at him after.
Dominic Vance stood at the defense table, flanked by the two attorneys who'd billed enough hours on this case to fund a small island nation. He was wearing the same tailored suit he'd worn to every appearance, the armor of a man who'd always believed presentation could outweigh evidence. It couldn't.
"Mr. Vance," Judge Harrington said, "you've had sufficient time to review the plea agreement with your counsel?"
"Yes, Your Honor." Vance's voice was flat. Emptied of the arrogance that had defined him in every previous appearance, every deposition when he'd looked at Emily like she was an obstacle he'd eventually remove.
"And you understand that by entering this plea, you're waiving your right to a trial by jury?"
