Chapter 24: Filed by Prentiss

I woke up on the left side of a very big bed, and this time he was in it.

His arm was heavy across my waist.

Grey light came through the curtains of the room at the end of the upstairs hall.

It had been his for ten years, and by a vote of two to zero it was now ours.

On the floor beside the bed lay a brindle puppy with one ear up.

He had curled himself into a donut-shaped dog bed with a worn spot in the middle.

Duck opened one eye and thumped his tail against the wall.

"He moved the bed," I whispered.

"Deborah moved the bed," said Silvan, into my hair. "I helped her carry it. She says the hall is for people."

"Are you all right with that?"

"I'm better than all right."

He didn't say anything for a while.

Then he said, quietly, "I cried in the shower. Don't tell Lydia."

"I'll tell Lydia."

"She will put it on a mug."

I laughed and turned over to face him.

He looked younger in the morning light, with the grey at his temples and his eyes still soft.

I put my hand on the side of his face, and he turned his mouth into my palm.

"Ask me," I said.

"May I kiss you good morning, Mrs. Hallam?"

"Prentiss-Hallam, if the clinic has to reprint the name tag."

"Anything you want."

He kissed me, slow and thorough, with his hand sliding up under my shirt to the small of my back.

I pulled him closer by the collar of his T-shirt.

Duck groaned loudly and rolled over, and we both started laughing against each other's mouths.

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