Chapter 13: The Rule

I asked Luther to drive me to Dayton Street, and he did not ask why.

Shanna had gone to bed in her scrubs with the records printout under her pillow.

The house was a narrow bungalow with a porch light that someone had left on for me.

"You don't have to," Luther said, when I held out my hand for the key.

"I know."

I put the green-capped key in the lock myself and turned it.

The door opened on a warm hall that smelled of cedar and soup.

There was a kitchen at the back, finished and plain, with one pot on the stove.

Luther stood in the doorway behind me with his keys still in his hand.

"Say what you came to say," he said. "I'll stand here."

"He signed as my spouse."

"I heard Shanna."

"For four years, Christian has been my husband when it was useful on a form," I said. "Tonight it isn't useful to me."

I turned around.

"My rule was that nothing happens until I'm not his wife on paper."

"It was a good rule," Luther said carefully.

"It was his rule. I just put my name on it."

He looked at me for a long moment, and I watched him decide not to be gentle.

"Last week you made me promise," he said. "You looked me in the eye. Now you've got a key and a bad day and you're breaking it already?"

"Yes."

"Seems like a lot to ask of a man, Carrow. Make him promise, then tear it up the first bad night."

"You said nobody counts in your kitchen."

"I did."

"So nobody's counting," I said. "Not days, not rules. Not what I'm allowed."

He put his keys down on the counter very slowly.

Then he crossed the floor and kissed me, and nothing about it was careful.

I had my hands in his flannel before the door had finished swinging shut.

He backed me down the hall without looking where we were going, and I laughed against his mouth when my shoulder hit the frame.

"Sorry," he said.

"Don't be."

"I'm going to be a lot of sorry in a minute."

"Good."

There was a bedroom with a low lamp and a quilt in plain brown squares.

He sat me on the edge of the bed and knelt in front of me.

He unlaced my boots one at a time and set them side by side.

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