I climb the steps, open the screen door and step into the warm yellow light of her kitchen.
She's at the counter with her back to me.
Ashy blonde hair twisted up in a low knot, flour on her right forearm to the elbow, the green dish towel I bought her three weeks ago slung over her shoulder.
She's wearing jeans that fit her better than they did when she got here—she's been eating better, sleeping better, putting some of the weight back on—and a t-shirt that's seen better days but does her no harm.
I don't look at the way the t-shirt sits across her hips.
Okay, I’m lying straight through my teeth. Iamlooking, and I'm not gonna pretend I don't.
"Mornin', Hadley."
She turns at the sound of my voice, and her face does the thing it does every morning—the small, surprised, settled smile that tells me she heard me come in and hasn't decided yet whether she heard me come in.
"Mornin', Rogue."
"Coffee?"
"Already poured."
She lifts the mug she's set on the counter for me.
Black, no sugar, the way I take it.
The mug is one of the chipped ones from the bunkhouse cabinet because she said the first week that she wasn't gonna waste a good mug on a man who didn't ask for one.
I cross the kitchen and take it from her.
Her fingers don't touch mine. They haven't, not once, in two months.
She's careful about that.
I'm careful too, but for different reasons.
"How'd Nash sleep?" I ask.
"Through the night, finally. First time in a few weeks."
"Good."
"He's been having those dreams again."
I take a sip of the coffee. "About his daddy?"
"About falling. He doesn't say it's about Garrett, but I think it is."
She turns back to the biscuit dough. Her hands move the way they always do when she's working—fast, sure, like she's done this a million times.
I lean against the counter beside her with the coffee in my hand.
Not close enough to crowd her. Close enough that if she leaned a little, the back of her shoulder would touch the front of mine.
She doesn't lean and I don't either.
Unlike many others, I'm a patient man.
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