Chapter 24: Linden Street

The lake was open again, and the first light came across it in long gray strips.

Kit's quilt was back on the narrow bed, washed twice and smelling of cedar.

Daniel lay on his side with his arm over my waist, awake, watching me.

"You're thinking," he said.

"I'm thinking you're not wearing your cord."

"I haven't worn it in four months."

"I noticed."

He smiled.

It was a plain, tired smile, the one he had now, and I had learned to wait for it.

He had pleaded in January, in a borrowed suit, and said every word of it aloud.

Now he had probation, three years without a license and a job unloading flour trucks at five in the morning.

He had never once asked me to say it was forgiven.

I turned in his arm and kissed him.

He kissed me back slowly, and his hand came up under the hem of my shirt and spread flat across my ribs.

"Mara."

"Say it again."

"Mara."

I pushed him onto his back and pulled the shirt over my head.

He looked up at me with his hair in his eyes, and I saw the thing in his face that I had once been afraid to name.

I took my time with him this morning.

I kissed his chest and the white scar through his eyebrow.

I kissed the soft place under his jaw, and he said my name through his teeth.

His hands were on my hips.

He rolled us over, and I let him, and he settled between my thighs with his mouth against my throat.

"Is this all right?" he said.

"If you stop I'll leave you here and go open a bakery."

He laughed against my skin.

He slid inside me slowly, and we both went still.

I wrapped my arms around his neck.