CHAPTER 17 #3
Nothing about it was polished. The bed gave a small complaint beneath them.
Her knee knocked the quilt to the floor.
Colt laughed once against her mouth when she muttered an apology to Sudie's furniture, and that laugh opened something in the room that heat alone could not.
They found each other through whispered checks, through Wren's hand pressing at his lower back when she wanted more and at his chest when she needed slower.
He listened to every one.
Pleasure built in her like weather over dry land, pressure and light and the promise of breaking open.
Colt's mouth stayed near hers, his breath uneven, his voice rough when he said her name.
She answered because she could, because the cottage was private, because Beau was safe across town, because no old letter or unpaid bill had the right to speak louder than her own body.
When release took her, it startled a cry from her before she could swallow it. Colt covered her mouth with a kiss so he could stay with her through it. She clung to him, shaking hard, and felt him follow a moment later, his control finally breaking in a low sound against her shoulder.
Afterward, neither of them moved for a long time. Colt's weight was careful even in exhaustion. Wren loved that care before she could decide whether the word love was allowed in the room. He shifted to spare her, but she pulled him back close enough that their skin still touched.
"You all right?" Colt asked.
"Yes."
"Truth."
She smiled into the dark. "Truth. I am all right. I am also hungry again, which feels rude."
His quiet laugh moved through her. "There are biscuits."
"Those are aftercare biscuits now."
"I can respect that."
They stayed tangled in the quiet. He brushed hair from her cheek. She traced the faint mark flour had left near the base of his thumb, pale dust somehow still clinging there after everything.
"I don't want this to make you think you have to solve me," she said.
His hand stilled.
"I know," he said.
"I mean it."
"I heard you the first time. I heard you before too. " He ran his thumb lightly over her wrist. "I want to help because I care. But caring does not give me ownership."
The words sank into places money had made sore.
"Thank you," she said.
"Hear me too."
Wren turned her head on the pillow.
Colt's face was shadowed, but she could see enough: tired eyes, serious mouth, a tenderness that did not soften the line he was about to draw.
"Beau cannot be surprised by us," he said. "She cannot wake up and find out the adults changed the floor under her while she slept."
"No," Wren said quickly. "Of course not."
"I am not hiding you like shame."
"I know."
"But I have to move slow where she can see."
"You should."
His relief showed only in the way his breath left him. "And Harlow stays honored."
"Always."
He kissed her forehead then, and it held more trust than any claim could have.
Later, they stood in the kitchen wearing half their clothes and ate biscuits split open with cold butter while the beans sat forgotten on the stove. Wren leaned against the counter and watched him in the lamplight, a man who had become her lover without becoming her answer to every problem.
That mattered.
It mattered enough that fear returned in a cleaner form.
"This is active risk now," she said.
He looked over. "Yes."
"We can't pretend we are only talking."
"No."
"And I still have to build something that can hold me whether or not we work."
"I want that for you."
She searched his face for the flinch. The old one. The man who might hear independence as an exit.
Colt only looked tired and steady.
"I do," he said.
She believed him enough for the next honest step.
They slept in pieces, waking to touch, to whisper, to kiss as if astonished the other was still there. Each time, they chose again. Each time, the room held. Near dawn, Wren woke alone for one sharp second and sat up, heart kicking, before she heard water running in the kitchen.
She found Colt at the stove, fully dressed except for his boots, making coffee in Sudie's old pot with the concentration of a man repairing equipment.
"You found the coffee," she said.
"I found something that claims to be coffee."
"Sudie buys it strong enough to settle disputes."
"That explains the smell."
Gray light pressed at the windows. Wedding lists still waited under the saltshaker. Wren's money list lay faceup beside them. The skillet sat in the sink. Flour dust marked one counter edge like evidence.
Colt poured two cups. They drank standing close but not clinging. Dawn feed waited for him. Beau waited for him. The world outside the cottage had fences, gossip, unpaid bills, old grief, and a wedding seven days away.
Wren did not feel rescued.
She felt seen, which was more dangerous.
Colt set his cup down and touched the back of her hand. "I need to go."
She nodded because she had known the clock was running from the moment he arrived.
At the door, he put on his hat, then took it off again long enough to kiss her once, slow and sober and nothing like goodbye.
"But Beau cannot wake to surprises."