A giggle escaped. It was not lost on her that she hadn’t smiled, laughed or giggled as much in the past five years as she had in the past few days with Jack.
She nodded.
“Yeah, we should open it together.”
A small smile.
“Besides, you did all the talking. Seems fair you get to at least participate in the opening.”
That earned a quiet huff of amusement from him. “Fair enough.”
As if reluctant to let her go, Jack dropped his arms and reached for the package, picking it up and turning it carefully in his hands.
The symbols flickered faintly across its surface, reacting to the movement.
Madelaine leaned in, watching.
Close enough that her shoulder brushed his, he said, “Let’s sit.”
“Good idea.”
They sat side by side, her leg resting against his beneath the table. She wanted the contact.
He set the package down.
Madelaine blinked. “Wait—aren’t you going to—?”
But he didn’t answer.
Not with words.
His hand came up, gentle, brushing a strand of her hair back from her face. He kissed her once more. Slow. Careful. Real in a way nothing on that terrible planet had been.
The gesture told Madelaine that she wasn’t silent. Wasn’t unseen. Wasn’t erased.
She was his. And he was hers. When they pulled back, it was slow. Reluctant.
“Okay,” she murmured. “Now we can open it.”
Jack let out a quiet laugh. “Yeah,” he said. “Now we can.”
Chapter Fifteen
The Secret Keeper had a full day ahead of him with a seemingly endless amount of paperwork. He decided it was best just to plow through and keep going until it was complete.
He told Chester in advance of sequestering himself in his office that he might not even take a lunch break and asked his assistant to bring him something he could eat at his desk. His untouched lunch dishes were still on the sideboard.
He was just finishing up a particularly arduous batch of paperwork involving a land dispute between neighbors on the edge of Suspicion that had miraculously rectified itself when one of the complainants had become ill and accepted the other neighbor’s offer to avoid court.
The Secret Keeper realized that the door to his office must be ajar, because he heard voices raised in anger from the direction of Chester’s desk.
“I demand to see the Secret Keeper. Now!” a man shouted.
Chester countered with, “The Secret Keeper is busy and you don’t have an appointment.”
“I don’t need an appointment.”
“You do need one— Hey! Where do you think you’re going?”
