Chapter Eighteen
The first time Beckett touched me after I left, it was because I slipped on ice. There was no music. No romantic snowfall. No cinematic pause. Just black ice outside the feed room and my dignity leaving my body faster than my feet did.
One second I was carrying a clipboard. The next, the sky moved sideways. A hand caught my upper arm. Another landed at my waist.
“Got you.”
Beckett’s voice was close to my ear. Too close. Every nerve I owned recognized him before my mind did. His chest against my shoulder. His palm spread over my coat.
The warm pressure of his fingers through layers of wool. I stopped breathing. So did he. For eleven years, touch had been the one language we rarely failed at. Even in the worst months, Beckett could pass behind me in the kitchen and put one hand at my hip in a way that made my body remember us.
That had become dangerous too. Physical closeness could create the illusion that emotional distance had been solved. He released me immediately.
“Sorry.”
I steadied myself against the wall.
“For catching me?”
“For touching you without asking.”
My heart was beating too hard.
“I was falling.”
“Still.”
I looked at him. He was holding a box of farrier rasps under one arm.
“Why are you here?”
“Tessa ordered these through Halvorsen supply because we get the wholesale rate.”
“You deliver now?”
“Apparently I contain multitudes.”
A laugh escaped me. His gaze dropped to my mouth, and heat climbed under my collar before I could pretend the moment meant nothing. His jaw tightened. He stepped back.
“Ice,” he said.
“What?”
“I’ll salt this.”
“You don’t work here.”
“Then I’ll tell someone who does.”
He carried the box inside. I stayed where I was until my pulse stopped acting like a traitor.
That evening, I had dinner with June Hanley at the Creekside Diner.
June had been my closest friend since college and had the useful quality of loving me enough to be unpleasant. She stirred sugar into her coffee.
“So when are you going to sleep with him?”
I nearly inhaled a french fry.
“Excuse me?”
“You’re separated, not dead.”
“That is your opening argument?”
“I’m not arguing. I’m asking for scheduling purposes.”
“Why would my sex life affect your schedule?”
“I need to know when to have sympathy wine ready.”
I glared at her. June grinned.
“You still want him.”
“Wanting someone isn’t the same as trusting them.”
“Correct.”
“Or forgiving them.”
“Correct.”
“Or deciding to stay married.”
“Also correct.”
I narrowed my eyes.
“You’re being suspiciously reasonable.”
“Because I think you’ve been acting like desire is a legal ruling. It isn’t. You can want him and still leave him. You can kiss him and still decide no. You can do nothing and decide yes. None of those things are binding precedent.”
“Have you been talking to Nina?”
“She’s terrifying. I like her.”
I pushed ketchup around my plate. June watched me.
“What are you actually afraid of?”
I knew the answer too quickly.
“That if I let myself love him again, I’ll start explaining him again.”
June’s expression softened.
“That’s different.”
“I spent years translating Beckett to myself. He’s tired. He’s busy. He shows love by providing. He trusts me to handle things. He isn’t expressive. He didn’t mean it.”
“Some of those things were probably true.”
“That’s why they worked.”
I looked out the diner window. Snow piled along Main Street in ridges gray from tires.
“I don’t trust the version of myself who stayed,” I said.
June set down her spoon.
“Then don’t become her again.”
“That’s not exactly a switch.”
“No. But you have evidence now that you can leave.”
I looked at her.
“What?”
“Before, some part of you probably thought the marriage was the house you had to live in. Now you know there’s a door. You used it.”
I swallowed. June reached across the table.
“Maybe the question isn’t whether Beckett deserves another chance. Maybe it’s whether Mara trusts Mara enough to choose one.”
I looked down at our hands.
“That’s annoyingly wise.”
“Tip twenty percent.”
Two days later, I found Beckett sitting on the mounting block outside Poppy’s paddock.
He wasn’t supposed to be there. Not because he was banned.
Because it was Sunday, and Sundays had become the one day Luis refused volunteer labor from anyone with a net worth higher than the county budget. Beckett held a paper cup.
Poppy stood twenty feet away, watching him.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
He looked up.
“Being ignored by a horse.”
“You drove twenty miles for that?”
“It’s peaceful.”
I stopped beside the fence.
“Coffee?”
He held up the cup.
“Tea.”
“You hate tea.”
“Coffee makes me impatient.”
“You were born impatient.”
“Then coffee gives it funding.”
I smiled. This time I let myself. He looked at me for one second too long. Then deliberately looked back at Poppy.
“Tessa said she tolerates people who sit still.”
“Tessa also lies for entertainment.”
“I accounted for that.”
I leaned on the rail.
“How long have you been here?”
“Forty minutes.”
“She hasn’t come closer?”
“No.”
“Good.”
He frowned.
“Good?”
“You keep coming here expecting progress to look like movement toward you.”
His eyes shifted to mine. I realized what I had said. So did he. Neither of us spoke. Poppy lowered her head and began nosing at the snow.
Beckett looked at her again.
“What does progress look like, then?”
“Sometimes it looks like not running away.”
His throat moved.
“I’ll take that.”
I sat on the fence rail opposite him. For ten minutes, we said nothing. Then Poppy took three steps closer. Beckett did not move. Another two.
She stopped. He looked at me with the expression of a child who had just been trusted with fire. I put one finger to my lips. He nodded solemnly. Poppy stretched her neck.
Sniffed his sleeve. Then stepped away. Beckett exhaled.
“That felt significant.”
“It was.”
“Do I get a certificate?”
“No.”
“A ribbon?”
“Absolutely not.”
“I feel there should be recognition.”
“There it is.”
He laughed. So did I. The sound faded slowly. He looked at me.
“Mara.”
“Don’t.”
“I wasn’t going to ask anything.”
“What were you going to say?”
His face softened.
“I miss this.”
I looked toward the paddock.
“Me too.”
The admission sat between us. Terrifying. True. He did not reach for me. That made me want him to.
I stood abruptly.
“I have chores.”
“Okay.”
I took three steps. Stopped. Turned around.
“Beckett.”
He stood too. I crossed the distance before I could negotiate myself out of it. I put one hand on his coat. His eyes widened.
“Mara—”
“Don’t make this mean something I haven’t said.”
“I won’t.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know.”
“And don’t say you know.”
His mouth curved. Then I kissed him. It was supposed to be brief. A test. Proof that wanting him did not own me.
The first touch of his mouth was almost unbearably careful. No demand. No assumption. He let me set the pressure, the angle, the distance. That lasted perhaps three seconds.
Then eleven years arrived all at once. My hand fisted in his coat. His breath caught. He made a low sound I felt more than heard. His hands stayed at his sides.
That restraint undid me more effectively than grabbing me would have. I pulled back. We were both breathing too hard. His forehead nearly touched mine, but didn’t.
“Can I touch you?” he asked.
My eyes closed.
“Yes.”
His hands came to my waist. Slowly. Like I was something he had no right to assume he could keep. I kissed him again. This one was not careful.
Neither of us pretended it was. When I stepped away, the cold hit my mouth first. Beckett looked wrecked. Good. So did I.
“That doesn’t change anything,” I said.
“It changes one thing.”
My spine stiffened.
“What?”
“You kissed me.”
I stared. He lifted both hands.
“That’s all. I promise.”
I laughed despite myself.
“Go home.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Do not call me ma’am.”
“Leaving now.”
He walked backward for three steps before turning. Poppy watched him go. I leaned against the fence.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
She sneezed.
“Traitor.”