Chapter 12
ONE BED
Kaden
T he next morning, she is still pressed against me when I wake.
Her back against my chest. My arm still around her waist.
The warmth of someone who fell asleep trusting me and hasn't moved.
I lie there.
I should get up and walk the perimeter and make the coffee.
And run my morning threat assessment, the routine exists for a reason.
But I don't move.
Her breathing is slow and even. Deep sleep. Real sleep. The kind that means she feels safe.
She told me that two nights ago.
I looked at you and I wasn't scared anymore.
I run that.
Then I ease my arm out from under her. She shifts and then resettles into the warm space I left.
Thankfully she doesn't wake.
I stand there for a moment and realize that I’ve never been this content in any relationship.
Not that I’m naming this a relationship.
But I admit to myself that this feel good, and I feel whole with her.
Then I go make coffee.
She comes out at seven with her hair up in the loose way that means she hasn't pinned it properly, in my flannel shirt.
The spare one from the bag that she claimed somewhere between the first and second cabin and has not returned.
She goes straight to the coffee without looking at me and pours two mugs. She sets mine on the table without comment.
"Morning," she says easily. Warm. Unbothered. Like she slept well. Like the world is functioning exactly as intended.
"Morning."
She leans against the counter. Looks at the window. Hums something low. Not a real song. Just a tune. The sound of a person who is content.
Two adults. Sensible. Practical.
She handed me a clean get away and I am sitting here irritated about it.
Irritated in a way I cannot classify.
I also notice that she told me last night she has an extensive collection of my mannerisms.
The almost-smile. The not-quite sound. The sugar measured automatically.
She has been paying attention to me the way I pay attention her. Cataloguing and learning behaviors to assess threats and expectations.
And she called us practical.
She turns around and catches me watching.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"You have the face."
"I don't?—"
"The one that means you're thinking about something that you don’t want to think about."
I look at my coffee. "Threat assessment,” I lie.
She drinks her coffee and says nothing more.
She opens the refrigerator and starts pulling things out. "I'm making breakfast. Don't tell me where anything is. I did a full inventory last night while you were on the perimeter."
"You've been here eight hours."
"Excellent provisions, by the way. Whoever stocks these places deserves a raise."
"I'll pass that along."
"You said that last time."
"And I'll say it again."
She looks over her shoulder at me. Warm. Amused. "Set the table."
I set the table.
She makes eggs with smoked paprika. Something she found in the cabinet. The kitchen smells like a place someone lives in. She plates it, sits across from me, eats, hums the not-quite song again between bites.
I eat the eggs. They're very good but I say nothing.
She looks at me. "Nothing at all. That means you like it."
"You've catalogued my responses."
"Extensively."
"That's—"
"Practical."
Straight face. Unbothered. Winning.
I go back to my eggs.
I realize that I intensely dislike the word practical .
She holds the pose all morning.
Pleasant. Easy. Pouring me a second coffee when mine runs low. Asking nothing. Volunteering nothing. The settled voice that costs her something to maintain and that she maintains anyway.
I notice the cost. She notices that I notice. Neither of us says anything.
I wonder why neither one of us can discuss the future.
I realize that for me I’m afraid that this will end, that I’ve just been a way to pass the boredom of being trapped in a cabin.
She’s younger and beautiful. Suddenly, I feel like she can do better and it bothers the hell out of me.
I work on the case file. She reads. The cabin is quiet in the way I told myself I wanted before I knew what I wanted.
By lunch I am running out of patience with my prior opinion.
She makes soup. Sits across from me. Eats. Asks about my coffee preferences in a voice that sounds like polite small talk and is not polite small talk.
"Did you ever drink coffee with cream?" she asks.
“No, I guess it’s a military thing. No one bothers with the frills, just the caffeine.”
I set down my spoon.
"You're going to make me say it."
"I'm not making you do anything."
"You're waiting."
"That is not the same thing."
I look at her. She looks back.
Her voice is settled and her eyes are steady/
She is a woman who has decided what she is willing to ask for and what she isn't.
She is not going to ask.
I run that.
Finally, I give in. I’ll be the one to bring it up.
"This isn’t just practical for me.”
Her hands go still on her spoon
"I've been telling myself it was the job. I’m telling myself a lot of things, but the truth is, this means a lot to me.
She sets the spoon down.
"And the practical speech last night?"
"You were enjoying it. You said so."
"You let me enjoy it."
"Yes."
The cabin is quiet.
"Kaden."
"Yeah."
"It wasn't practical for me either."
"I know."
"You knew."
"I know how to read people."
She lets out a short breath. Half a laugh. Half something else.
"We are both," she says, "the most spectacular liars I have ever met."
"Apparently so."
She picks up her spoon. Goes back to her soup. The corner of her mouth doing the thing.
The cabin is quiet in a different way now. Not the careful quiet of the morning. Something settled. The quiet of two people who have stopped pretending.
We eat lunch.
Marcus calls at three.
I take it at the table. She stays in the chair across from me., listening. She doesn't move and doesn't pretend not to be listening. We're past that.
"Stand down, Lange."
I put it on speaker, and his voice is clear in the quiet cabin.
"Threat assessment has been revised. New intelligence. Crane has pulled his people back. Whitfield is distancing himself. The immediate risk to the witness is significantly reduced. She's cleared to return. We'll maintain a detail until trial, but full protective custody is no longer warranted."
I am very still at the table. My hands flat on either side of the file.
"When?"
"Tomorrow morning you can bring her back."
She hears every word.
The cabin doesn't change. The light is the same. The maps are the same. The spoon she used to stir the soup is still drying on the counter.
Everything exactly as it was thirty seconds ago.
My eyes come to hers.
"Understood."
I hang up.
We look at each other across the table.
Tomorrow.
She gets what she said she wanted. Her apartment. Her patients. Her Tuesdays. Her life back.
I wait for the relief in her face.
I look at her. She is looking back, but not relieved.
What we just said to each other over soup has nowhere to go yet.
No room in the assignment to put it.
Tomorrow, she goes home.
Tomorrow this becomes something else, or it becomes nothing.
"Okay."
Her voice is even. So is mine when I say it back.
We are both, I think, still very good liars.
Neither of us is fooling the other.
Yes, neither of us can come out and say what we want.
She makes dinner.
It is a good dinner. I help. She lets me. She is teaching me about garlic. I am still very bad at garlic.
"You're crushing it."
"I'm pressing it, the way you taught me."
"Crushing is for the second pass. The first pass is gentler. The garlic gives more flavor when it's not panicking."
"Garlic panics."
"Everything panics."
She corrects my grip on the knife.
Her hand on mine, brief. She doesn't move it for one extra second. Then she does.
We eat at the table. She does not ask me what happens after tomorrow.
We do the dishes together.
The bed feels smaller tonight.
Neither of us mentions it.
She comes out of the bathroom in the t-shirt she's been sleeping in and the borrowed flannel over it.
She stops at the foot of the bed. Looks at me.
"I'm not asking for anything."
"I know."
"I just want?—"
"Yes."
She crosses to the bed. Slides in. I pull her in close, her back against my chest, my arm across her waist. The way we slept last night. My body responds to feel of her softness in my arms.
Neither of us says anything.
We just lie there.
My breathing is slow and I feel her breath against my forearm.
Her fingers absently trace the back of my hand.
After a while I feel her tense.
"What?"
"You're warm."
"Hmmm. Yes, among other things, I am warm,” I say with a chuckle.
"And you smell good."
"Well, thank you for noticing. Since you’re being so observant, is there anything else?"
She laughs once, quietly, against my chest.
She turns toward me and instead of using words, she strokes her observation, inflaming my reaction,
The is different with last night's confession still undiscussed.
It’s as if we both fear, this could be the last time we are ever in each other’s arms.
The knowledge of tomorrow morning is making everything more deliberate.
She kisses me first.
I let her set the pace and she sets it slow.
Her hands move to my face, then my shoulders, then my chest. Tracing the compass tattoo again with her thumb. Pausing on his name.
She is just paying her respects to it.
I close my eyes.
"Thank you for telling me." She says against the compass, quietly.
"Thank you for asking."
She kisses the compass. Once. The press of her lips deliberate.
What happens after that is not the most charged thing we have done but it is the most honest.
We make love slow and careful.
We don't say much. We don't have to.
When she falls asleep her hand is over the compass.
I stay awake.
Tomorrow morning I take her home.
Tomorrow morning the assignment ends.