Chapter 22: Open Door

That night Lachlan stood on the porch of the ranger cabin and did not come in.

He stood at the bottom step with his hands at his sides, exactly where she had put him the first night.

Rowena opened the door and looked at him over the lamp.

"Twenty yards," she said. "You've closed it to six feet."

"I'm waiting to be asked."

"The terms are done. Nothing pulls you here now."

"I know," he said. "That's why I'm standing here."

Her throat tightened.

For three days a hook in her chest had decided every step she took.

Now it was gone, and the cabin was quiet.

A man was standing in the cold because he wanted to be asked.

"Come in," she said.

He came up the steps slowly. He shut the door behind him and did not touch her.

"Rowena. May I?"

"Ask properly."

"I want to take you to bed. Not because of the moon or the bond. Because it's you."

"If you say no, I'll sleep in the truck, and that will be fine."

"It wouldn't be fine."

"No," he admitted. "But I'd do it."

She put the lamp down and crossed the room to him.

"Yes," she said. "Slowly. I want slowly."

He lifted a hand and brushed a strand of hair behind her ear.

His fingers were not steady, and that undid her more than anything he could have said.

He kissed her then.

It was nothing like the stone or the truck. It was warm and unhurried, and he took his time with her lower lip.

She sighed into his mouth.

Her hands slid up under his shirt, over the new scar on his shoulder where the silver had been, and he shivered.

"Does it hurt?"

"Only when you stop touching it."

She laughed, and pulled the shirt over his head, and kissed the scar.

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