Chapter 12: Nothing But the Plan

Bennett was out of the back door before the second flash faded.

I slid off the counter and went to the window with my hands full of his sweater.

A figure in a dark coat ran across the side garden with a camera banging against his chest.

Bennett went over the low wall after him in one jump.

I stood there in the warm kitchen with my mouth stinging and my pulse all over the place.

Two minutes later, Bennett came back in alone, breathing hard, with a small black card in his fist.

"He dropped the bag," he said. "He kept the camera."

"Bennett."

"I caught his sleeve, and the memory card came out in my hand."

He set it on the counter between the gingerbread and the tin.

For a moment we both looked at it.

Then he looked at me, and the whole kitchen shifted.

"You said nothing but the plan," he said.

His voice was rough, and his eyes went to my mouth.

"I did."

"I'm going to throw that back at you for the next fifty years."

"Fifty," I said. "That's optimistic."

"I'm very stubborn."

"Then take me upstairs," I said, "before the cook comes in."

He did not ask twice.

We went up the back stairs in the half-dark, one hand locked in his, and my other hand on the rail.

His bedroom was at the end of the hall, large and plain and cold, with a desk by the window and a bed made tight.

He shut the door and pressed me against it.

His hands went to my face first, thumbs under my jaw, and he kissed me slowly.

I had forgotten what it was like to be kissed by a man who wanted to be there.

When he pulled back, he was breathing as hard as I was.

"The doctor," he said.

"Said no stairs and no standing. I climbed the stairs."

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