I laughed before I could stop it.
"Get in the truck, Matthews."
"I am in the truck."
"Stay in the truck."
She pulled the fleece back on over the thermal. I went around to the driver's side and got in.
I cranked the heat to full and put it in drive.
I drove us home with a woman in my passenger seat dressed entirely in my clothes, and something in my chest I wasn't prepared to do anything with yet. About a mile from Maple, she let her head go back against the headrest and closed her eyes. The shaking had stopped. I put my hand on her knee without thinking. She put her hand over mine and left it there.
I'd been a firefighter for twelve years. I'd seen people move in a crisis—probies freezing on their first real call, seasoned guyswith twenty years on the job hesitating at the wrong second. I did it myself, a few times, the kind of hesitation a man learns to be honest with himself about because lying about it would get somebody killed.
I'd seen a lot of people move under pressure.
I'd never seen anyone move like her.
CHAPTER 10
Astrid
Tuesday evening. I was at the kitchen table with the contractor's punch list in front of me and a glass of wine I'd barely touched. The inspector cleared the space on Monday morning. I should have been celebrating. I wasn't. I was reading the same line on the punch list for the third time.
Replace flooring transition strip, exam room two to corridor.
The thermal was the problem.
I washed it on Sunday with the rest of his things and folded the stack on my dresser. I told myself I'd walk them back across the street on Tuesday. It was Tuesday. The stack was on my dresser. The thermal was on my body because the house was cold when I came out of the shower an hour ago, and the thermal was right there at the top of the pile. I'd reached for it without thinking. I'd stood in front of my closet in it and known I was lying to myself.
I read the punch list line again.
My hand was on my own knee. The same spot, the same pressure I'd carried home from the drive on Saturday. He put his hand on my thigh on Route 23, and neither of us said a word about it. I wanted him to do it again. I wanted more than a handon my thigh. I knew exactly what shape this was taking, and I did not stop.
Moose was at my feet. The kettle had given up on itself. I got up to turn it off and caught my reflection in the dark window above the sink. Hair in a knot. A man's thermal pulled down past my thumbs.
I turned the burner off and went back to the table. I read the punch list line a fourth time and didn't get any further into it than I had the first three.
The knock came at the front door.
I knew his knock by now. Two even raps a beat apart, a knock with manners and muscle memory built into it. This knock was three short. Wrong rhythm. I was halfway across the kitchen before I knew why I'd gone tight in the shoulders.
I looked through the peephole.
He was in full uniform. Heavy coat unbuttoned at the throat. Blond hair pushed back off his forehead. The porch light caught the cut at his temple a beat before I saw the rest of him.
He was holding something inside his jacket against his chest with his forearm. Something that was moving.
I had the door open before my hand registered turning the deadbolt.
"Kitchen."
He came in. He didn't say anything. I knew the look on his face—I'd worn it the first six months I had a license. Someone who'd done the right thing and would now very much like somebody else to take the wheel.
I went down the hall ahead of him. Moose got out of the way without being asked.
"Set him on the table."
