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“Katie never cries.”
Ellen thought she probably would have cried.
“Did anybody die? From the bomb?”
“Yes.” He didn’t elaborate, but she heard what he wasn’t telling her. That he’d seen diabolical things. He’d lost people he cared about. She wasn’t going to ask him. Not tonight.
He didn’t need to tell her he was a good man. The best, bravest kind of man. She knew. She just knew.
“Will you kiss me again?”
This time, she slid her fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck and closed her eyes, imagining herself as the woman this soldier had come home to.
“You’re not going back.”
“No. I’m here for good.”
And as he moved inside her, she wondered for an instant if when he said “here,” he meant here, in her bed, in her body, in her life.
Strangely, the thought didn’t scare her. Much.
Later, they took a shower together, and Caleb dried her off and got her dirty again bent over the corner of the bed. He pulled back the covers and spooned her against him, untangling her hair with his fingers.
After a while, Ellen leaned over to grab the remote and put the movie on. It was way past her bedtime, and she didn’t know if they’d stay awake for it, but it hardly mattered—she just wanted to pile one indulgence on top of another. The Big Sleep on her TV and the hottest guy in the Midwest in her bed. Bacall should be so lucky.
When Philip Marlowe met General Sternwood among the orchids, she craned around to admire Caleb’s face. Such an absurdly gorgeous man. “Did they tease you in the army for being so good-looking?”
Caleb smiled. “You think I’m good-looking?”
“Don’t be smug. It’s unbecoming.”
He kissed her forehead. “You never said I was good-looking. I thought you were just putting up with my ugly face so you could get your hands on my body.”
She smoothed one hand over his back. “I’ve never really been a beefcake kind of girl.” Her fingers slipped down his side to trail over his hard stomach.
He chuckled and trapped her hands. “No? You like your men short and flabby?”
“Yep,” she agreed, resting her head on his shoulder. “And pale, with pimples on their backs. That way, I know they’ll never throw me over for somebody more exciting.”
He went taut, and then he took a deep breath and let it out slowly, his muscles relaxing again.
“You heard,” she said. “About Richard.”
“Yeah.”
It was inevitable, she supposed. In the early days after the divorce, she’d gone around town feeling like she had a big “S” for “Sucker” written on her forehead. As soon as she’d kicked Richard out, everyone from her hairstylist to the guy behind the counter at the deli had begun offering her evidence of her husband’s bad behavior, as if she’d be anxious now to store up knowledge of every awful thing he’d ever done behind her back.
There were rather a lot of them. Some were even over twenty-one.
“Can I ask you about him?”
She owed Caleb two more questions. It would have been three, since he’d had one left over from the chocolate-sauce round, but it had expired. Or it was about to, anyway. She was willing to fudge the timeline if it meant she didn’t have to answer three questions about Richard.
“Maybe,” she said.
“What’s up with the leather vest?”
Surprised, she looked up, and the mischief in
