Chapter Thirty-Five
I had slept with Beckett hundreds of times. That should have made the next hour familiar. It didn’t. The farmhouse bedroom was not ours. The bed was mine.
The decision was mine. Those details changed everything. We reached the top of the stairs still kissing, then stopped in the hallway because I suddenly couldn’t breathe. Beckett noticed immediately.
“Mara.”
I pressed my palms to his chest.
“Wait.”
He stepped back. No question until I looked at him again.
“Do you want me to leave?”
“No.”
The answer came quickly. I closed my eyes.
“I want this. I’m just scared of what it means.”
His expression softened.
“It means what you decide it means.”
“That’s very therapeutic of you.”
“I’m expensive now.”
I laughed, and the tension loosened. He reached up slowly.
“Can I touch you?”
“Yes.”
His hand cupped my cheek. The tenderness nearly undid me.
“We can stop at any point,” he said.
I nodded.
“And tomorrow doesn’t become a contract.”
I swallowed.
I nodded again.
“Good.”
I kissed him. This time, I did not hold back.
We moved into the bedroom slowly, shedding layers between kisses, relearning what had never actually been forgotten.
There was nothing tentative about my desire.
The tentative part was permission—the way he waited for every new choice instead of assuming familiarity meant permanent access.
His hands traced my waist, my back, the curve of my hip. I touched the silver at his temples, the scar near his shoulder from a fall years ago, the body I had known so long I could remember its changes by season.
“You’re staring,” he murmured.
“I’m allowed.”
“Please continue.”
I smiled against his mouth. When we finally came together, the moment was less like reclaiming something lost and more like discovering that intimacy could survive being renegotiated. He watched my face. I watched his.
There was heat. There was hunger. There was also grief, because bodies remember what hearts try to organize into timelines. At one point I started crying. Beckett stopped instantly.
“Did I hurt you?”
“No.”
“Mara—”
“No. Don’t stop.”
He stayed still anyway.
“Tell me.”
I touched his face.
“I missed you.”
His eyes closed. A tear slid toward my ear.
“I missed you while I was still living with you,” I whispered.
Pain crossed his face. He lowered his forehead to mine.
“I’m sorry.”
“I know.”
This time, the words did not feel inadequate. They felt like acknowledgment. We stayed there until the ache changed shape. Then I pulled him closer. Later, under the old quilt, Beckett lay on his back while I traced a line across his palm.
Neither of us spoke for several minutes.
“Are you panicking?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Me too.”
I turned my head.
“Why are you panicking?”
“Because this is the happiest I’ve been in months and I’m trying not to turn that into entitlement.”
I smiled faintly.
“That’s a very specific panic.”
“Therapy gives things names.”
I rolled onto my side.
“I don’t want you moving in tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
“I don’t want people to know yet.”
“Okay.”
“I don’t want this used as evidence that we’re fixed.”
“Okay.”
I narrowed my eyes.
“You can elaborate.”
He turned toward me.
“I don’t want those things either.”
“Really?”
“I want to come back to you. I don’t want to skip the part where we learn how.”
My chest tightened.
“Good answer.”
“I practiced for eleven years.”
“Poorly.”
“Cruel.”
I laughed and tucked closer. He put an arm around me. I slept. That was the dangerous part. Not sex.
Sleep. I had spent months learning to rest alone. Waking with Beckett’s hand loose against my waist felt so natural that for one disoriented second, I thought nothing had happened. Then memory returned. The radio.
The suitcase. Harlow Creek. The postnup. The flood. The months between.
I sat up too quickly. Beckett woke.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
He pushed himself upright.
“Mara.”
“I said nothing.”
My own voice sounded sharp. He went still. I swung my feet to the floor and reached for my robe. Panic climbed my throat. I had done it.
I had let him back into my bed, and some primitive part of me was already trying to rebuild the old routine around that fact. Coffee for two. His shirts in the closet. My schedule bending around his. Home becoming wherever Beckett was.
“I need you to go,” I said.
The words hurt both of us. His face changed. He did not argue.
“Okay.”
He dressed quietly. Guilt swamped me.
“I’m sorry.”
He stopped buttoning his shirt.
“You don’t have to apologize for changing what you need.”
“I invited you.”
“And now you’re asking me to leave. Both are allowed.”
My eyes filled.
“You’re making it worse by being kind.”
A sad smile touched his mouth.
“I can trip over something on the way out if that helps.”
I laughed through tears. He finished dressing. At the door, he looked back.
“Last night doesn’t obligate you to anything.”
I let the reassurance land.
“And it wasn’t a mistake to me.”
I swallowed.
“It wasn’t a mistake to me either.”
His shoulders eased slightly.
“Good.”
Then he left. I stood in the hallway listening to his steps descend. The front door opened. Closed. His truck started.
I wanted to run after him. I didn’t. For the rest of the morning, I was furious with myself. Tessa arrived at eight, took one look at my face, and said, “Oh no. Did you sleep with him?”
I nearly dropped my coffee.
“How do you know?”
“You look like a woman who enjoyed something and now wants to file a complaint against joy.”
I stared at her.
“I hate you.”
“Did he do anything wrong?”
“No.”
“Did you want it?”
“Yes.”
“Do you regret it?”
I opened my mouth. Closed it.
“No.”
“Then what’s the crisis?”
“It felt normal.”
She waited.
“Too normal,” I said. “I woke up and for a second I could feel the old life trying to close around me.”
Tessa’s expression softened.
“Or maybe your nervous system recognized someone you love.”
“That’s dangerously reasonable.”
“I’m growing.”
I looked into my coffee.
“I asked him to leave.”
“Did he?”
“Immediately.”
“Then maybe the new life is already different.”
I looked at her. She shrugged.
“Old Mara would have panicked and then made breakfast so nobody noticed. New Mara told him to go. New Beckett went. Sounds awful, obviously.”
I threw a napkin at her. But the tightness in my chest eased. At noon, I texted Beckett. ME: I don’t regret last night. His reply came an hour later.
Not immediately. He had been working. BECKETT: Neither do I. Then: BECKETT: Thank you for telling me. No question about the next night.
I put the phone down. Panic had come and gone without controlling either of us.