Chapter 9: Keir's POV

Keir's POV

I woke before she did.

I lay still and took inventory, as I had every morning for four months.

Chest, arms, hands, all there.

The left hip had a dull weight in it.

The left thigh, a faint heat.

The right side was silent.

Lena was asleep against my shoulder with her dark hair across my arm.

She slept with her mouth a little open and one hand curled on my chest.

I did not move for a long time.

I had not been touched like that since the Skyway.

Everyone else flinched, or pitied me, or handled me with the care you give a loan.

She had put her mouth on me and meant it.

She woke slowly, and her eyes found mine, and she smiled for about a second before she remembered who I was.

"Morning, Mrs. Kincaid," I said.

"Don't call me that."

"Why not? It's on the license."

"A signature, not a bed," she said.

She said it in a flat, clinical tone and watched my face.

"I amended it."

"Did you initial the change?"

"I'll have my lawyers draft something."

She laughed into the pillow.

It was a good sound. I filed it.

At breakfast she sat across from me at the long table in my grey sweater, with coffee and toast and a rehab plan on her phone.

I let her get through half a slice before I said it.

"Did you know what the contract was when you signed it?"

She put the phone down.

"I told you. I thought it was a trust."

"My father drew that contract with Adelaide in his own study, and you were in the house that day."

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