Chapter 10: Not Until the Stone

Corbin was standing at the study window with his back to me when I came in at ten.

I shut the door and turned the lock behind me. I did not examine why.

Poppy was asleep in the north wing with Hester snoring in the next bed. The house was quiet.

"You said there was something I had to hear."

"There is." He didn't turn around. "You had my daughter for five years and you never told me."

"I told you in a hallway I was carrying a prescription. You weren't listening."

"You never told me, Rhiannon." Now he turned, and his gold eyes were hard and bright.

"I would have found you, and I would have crawled."

"You would have said you didn't know us."

"I said it once."

"It only takes once."

"I know." He crossed the room in three strides and stopped close enough that I felt his heat.

"I've spent five years knowing it."

"Then you know why I didn't tell you."

"No. I know why you left. I don't know why you stayed gone." His voice shook.

"She smells like you. She laughs like you."

"She's got my mother's chin, and I missed every day of it."

"You missed them because you didn't want to know me."

"I never stopped knowing you."

"You didn't know me at all." I said it calmly. "That's what you said."

"I know you." He was nearly shouting now, low and fierce.

"I know you take your coffee with a spoon of honey."

"I know you hum when you cook, and you stop when you hear me coming."

"I know you sleep on the left side, curled up, with your hand under your cheek."

"I know where you're ticklish and where you're not."

His jaw clenched.

"I know exactly how you sound when I'm inside you."

My own words, thrown back across a room.

"That's not knowing someone," I said, and my voice cracked. "That's knowing a body."

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