“Stay,”he says into my hair.
“I was going to.”
“Stay.”
“I’m staying, Sullivan.”
He breathes out slowly andkisses the top of my head.I hear thevibrationof his wordsin his chest beforehe speaks.“I haven’t slept like that in five years.”
I kiss his chest.
“I’m not going to be good at this.”
“You’re alreadygood at this.”
“Tess—”
“It’s true. You just don’t know it yet.”
His laugh is rustyat the edges. Hedoesn’tsay anything else.
He doesn’t need to.
We doze. The cabinwarms backup when he gets uptofeed the stove. He brings meone of hist-shirtsthat comes down to mymid-thigh and a pair of his wool socks that fall off my feet.Wesit at his kitchen table and eat scrambled eggs out of the same pan with two forks because, in his words,“Ihaven’tdone dishes in threedays,and I’mnotabout to start now.”
I watch him at the stove with a fork in his hand and the smallest curl at the corner of his mouth, and Ithink,he’sgoing to spook. Tomorrow, or the next day, or by the end of the week. He is going to look around inside himself andrealizethat he held me througha night.He’llremember that hecamehere to be alone, andhe’sgoing to spook.
And I refuse to budge.
I’vespent twenty-fouryears moving for the convenience of other people.I’mnot going to moveso thisman can stay alone.
Isitwith that for a long time. Long enough to ask myself whether Sullivan Mercer is a man I love or a projectI’veadopted along with the house.
And yet,here’sa man who mademeagrilled cheesesandwichin the middle of the night because my stomach growled. He does things for me without making it about himself.
I can’t tell him I’ve fallen in love with him. He’s not ready. Not yet.
But he held me through a night, andI’mgoing to hold him through what comesnext.
Chapter 9
Sullivan
The cabin is a worse mess in daylight than in the dark.
The pine that took out the back wallwasa forty-foot widow-makerthat should have been dropped a year ago. Halfthebranchesarestill attached, the trunk a foot in diameter whereitpunchedthrough the kitchen and into what used to be Tess’s mudroom. The kitchen is open to the sky. Miraculously, the stand mixer is on the floor, three feet from where it was last night, with a dent inthesideandthebowl rolled into a corner, but otherwise intact.
Tess laughs when she sees it, the laugh of a woman who’s been carrying tension for twelve hours and somebody finally cracked the lid.
“My stand mixer,” she says, her hand over her mouth.
“I see it.”
“Sullivan, my stand mixer survived a tree.”
I look at the tree.“We’re going to need a chainsaw.”
“I have one.”
