The bag was in the closet.
"You bought a truck," she said. Quietly.
"I bought a truck."
"You hate owning things."
"I know."
"Trucks need oil changes. And insurance. And a place to park."
"I'm aware."
Something cracked in her expression. Not broke — cracked. The way ice cracks in spring. Not all at once, not dramatically, just a shift in the structure that lets the warmth underneath start seeping through.
"If you leave again," she said, "I will not come get you. I will not drive to Belfast. I will not chase you."
"I know."
"And I will let Maeve make good on her threat."
"The body-disposal one?"
"That's the one."
"Understood."
Clara stood there, arms still crossed, hair still wild, still wearing his flannel, still barefoot on the cold stone of the gallery. The morning light was catching her now — copper and gold, the same way it caught her every morning, the same way it would catch her tomorrow and the day after that if he was lucky enough to be here to see it.
She uncrossed her arms.
That was it. Not a grand gesture. Not a tearful embrace. Just Clara Hawkins uncrossing her arms — lowering the barrier she'd been holding between them, one small, deliberate act of trust from a woman who'd earned the right to keep her walls up forever.
Jack stepped forward. Slowly. Giving her time to change her mind, to recross, to tell him to stop. She didn't.
He put his hands on her face. Gently. Sawdust and cable grease and all. She let him.
"Hi," he said.
"Hi."
He kissed her.
This was the kiss of a man who had walked away and come back and understood the difference between the two. Clara's hands found his shirt — gripped the fabric, then relaxed, then gripped again, like she was arguing with herself about how much to let him in.
She let him in.
Her arms went around his neck. His went around her waist. They stood on the gallery in the early morning light with the ocean below and the railing half-finished beside them and kissed until the coffee went cold in the blue mug on the railing.
They made it to the bedroom this time.
Clara clasped her hand in his, leading him through the main room past her drafting table — the panel of Marina sailing toward the storm still pinned under the lamp — past the kitchen where two mugs sat on the shelf like a pair, down the short hallway to the bedroom where the quilt was rumpled and the plaster cracks made their familiar map on the ceiling.
Clara turned to face him. Still in his flannel, the one that was too big for her, the sleeves rolled to her elbows. She looked up at him with an expression he'd never seen before — not guarded, not unguarded.Something between the two. A woman deciding, in real time, how much to risk.
"I need a second," she said.
"Take as many as you want."
