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She lifted her head slightly and although it was dark I could feel her eyes on me. “What if we didn’t have to give up anything? What if we told Jack and he was fine and we could all just be happy together.”

“I understand my fears are deeply rooted in my childhood,” I said carefully. “And that I may not be seeing all of this clearly. But one thing I know—I want you, Luci. For however long I can have you.”

“I don’t know if I can do this for the rest of the month and then walk away as if it never happened.” She rested her head back onto my chest. “I think I’m in love with you. I think I have been for years. And losing you is going to hurt so much.”

“Let’s just be here, in the moment. We’ll face whatever it is later. In the new year.”

“And we just hide the rest of the month?”

“Is it too much to ask?”

She was quiet for a moment. “Yes, it is. But I’ll do it anyway.”

The scent of coffee woke me the next morning. Luci was already awake, sitting in front of the fireplace as if there were flames but instead only ashes.

“Morning,” I said.

She turned, smiling, but I could see that she’d been crying, and I hated myself. “Want some coffee?”

“Yes, please.” I swung my legs out of the bed, reaching for my jeans that were rumpled on the floor.

She got up to bring me my shirt, which she’d lain over the back of one of the chairs, then poured two mugs of steaming coffee. She knelt to get a half and half from the small refrigerator.

“It’s freezing in here,” I said.

“The heat’s not working.”

“I’ll build us a fire.”

I put on my shirt and then used the kindling and paper left by the staff to tease some flames to life. Soon, I had it going and added a few logs. Luci brought me the coffee she’d poured earlier. She was dressed in jeans and a thick fisherman’s style sweater, her hair in a ponytail. She’d not put on makeup, but her skin glowed pink in the cold.

I took a sip. “Perfect,” I said.

“I know how you like your coffee,” Luci said, as if I’d asked. “One sugar. A dab of cream.”

“How did you know that?”

“I remembered it from before.”

“You like yours with just cream. Quite a bit of it.”

“That’s right.”

“And you always have one piece of toast in the morning. Butter and strawberry jam if it’s available. One egg—poached. Fruit on the side. You never eat your entire sandwich at lunch, more like three-quarters. In the evenings, it’s one glass of white before supper. A glass of red during the meal. You almost never have dessert but, if you do, it’s one or two bites.”

“Are you saying I’m a creature of habit?” Luci asked.

“No. I’m saying I watch you too.”

“I’ll play. You head to the ranch gym first thing,” Luci said. “An hour later, you return to your cabin. A half hour after that you come out, hair damp, and head to the restaurant for breakfast.”

“The buffet here is darn good,” I said as my stomach growled.

“Yes, and you never have the same thing for breakfast.”

“True. It’s because for the first eighteen years of my life I had the same thing. Whole rolled oats. Scrambled egg whites. That’s what my dad dictated, and I had no choice but to comply. Once I broke out of prison, I vowed to never eat the same thing more than two days in a row.”

“Maybe that’s why I always do. My childhood was so chaotic with my mom working all the time. Random shifts. Some months there was more money than others. I didn’t understand it when I was little, but growing up with so much change and nothing predictable made me crave it as an adult.”