34 #2
She pressed her lips together and looked toward the kitchen. The pot on the stove still held sauce. The oven was off. The rolls sat in a basket under a towel. Such normal things. Such gentle things.
“My father died when I was in my early twenties,” she continued. “Overseas. Assignment gone wrong. After that, journalism felt like the only part of him I could touch without admitting how angry I was.”
“And your mother?”
“She kept going.” Talia rubbed her thumb over the edge of her napkin. “She always kept going. Then Covid happened, and she was gone too. By then, I had already been working as a journalist for years. It didn’t make sense to change careers.”
“Making sense and being right aren’t always the same thing.”
She looked at him.
He held her gaze.
The words should have annoyed her. From anyone else, they might have. But Gordon said them like a man who knew the cost of remaining inside a life just because it had become familiar.
He leaned forward slightly. “What would you do if you could do anything in the world?”
Talia shook her head at once. “I don’t have a clue.”
“Nothing?”
“No.”
“Not one thing?”
“Gordon.”
“I’m asking.”
“And I’m answering.” She leaned back, unsettled. “I don’t know. I have spent so much time trying to prove I deserved the career I chose that I never seriously asked myself what I would choose if I wasn’t trying to prove anything.”
He absorbed that.
Then he said, “You could write books.”
Talia stared at him.
He did not smile like he was joking. He looked completely serious.
“Books?”
“Yes.”
“What kind of books?”
“Any kind you wanted.”
“I don’t know how to write books.”
“You know how to tell stories.”
“That’s not the same.”
“It’s close.”
“It is not close.”
“I think it is.”
She laughed under her breath. “You think a lot of things.”
“Yes.”
“And if I wrote books, you would know whether they were good because you read half of Bettie’s romance shelves before your brothers ruined it?”
His face softened. “I’d know because I’d read every one.”
Her heart tripped.
Gordon’s voice went quieter. “And I’d be your biggest fan.”
Talia looked away fast, but not fast enough to protect herself.
That was the sort of thing a woman could tuck into the wrong corner of her heart and carry for years.
“You can’t just say things like that,” she whispered.
“Why?”
“Because.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“Because you make impossible things sound simple.”
“They might not be impossible.”
“They feel impossible.”
“Maybe because no one ever stood with you while you imagined them.”
She closed her eyes.
Gordon did not move.
When she opened them, he was still there, patient and steady across the table.
Her appetite was gone, but not because the food was bad. Because the conversation had filled too many empty places at once.
“I should clean up,” she said.
Gordon nodded, accepting the retreat because he was kind enough not to call it one.
“I’ll help.”
They rose together.
The ordinary motions saved her. Scraping plates.
Packing leftovers. Washing dishes. Drying them.
Wiping counters. Gordon moved beside her in a way that was surprisingly easy.
He listened when she told him where to put things.
He did not pretend incompetence so she would do it herself.
He did not crowd her, though the kitchen was small enough that they brushed shoulders more than once.
Each touch sparked.
Neither mentioned it.
When the dishes were done, Talia folded the towel and set it on the counter.
“There,” she said. “Your kitchen has survived me.”
“It improved because of you.”
She smiled, then glanced toward the window.
Outside, full dark had settled.
“I should go,” she said.
The words felt necessary.
They also felt wrong.
Gordon leaned back against the counter, arms crossed loosely. “You don’t have to.”
Her pulse jumped.
“Gordon.”
“You can stay.”
“You know that is not a simple invitation.”
“I know.”
She studied him.
He looked calm, but she saw the tension beneath it. Not pressure. Not impatience. Want, yes. Hope. A little fear too.
“I have a room in the main house.”
“I know.”
“And people already talk.”
“They’ll talk if you leave. They’ll talk if you stay. They’ll talk if you sneeze near me.”
Despite herself, she laughed. “Probably true.”
“I’m not asking so they’ll know.” His voice lowered. “I’m asking because I want you here.”
The words moved through her.
I want you here.
He had said it before.
It had not grown less dangerous.
She turned toward the living room, needing space from his eyes. The cottage looked different now. Dinner had changed it. So had they. There were leftovers in the refrigerator, two clean plates in the cabinet, the scent of roasted garlic still in the air.
A small domestic imprint.
Temporary, she reminded herself.
Dangerous because it felt like more.
“I don’t want to give you the wrong idea,” she said.
“You already told me you’re going back to Houston.”
“Yes.”
“I heard you.”
“And this doesn’t change that.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
She faced him again. “If I stay, it doesn’t mean I’m promising you forever.”
His jaw tightened slightly, but he nodded. “I know.”
“It doesn’t mean I know what this is.”
“I know that too.”
“It doesn’t mean tomorrow I won’t panic and act like a fool.”
His mouth curved faintly. “I suspected that was possible.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Careful.”
“I’m being honest.”
“So am I.”
“I know.”
The quiet stretched.
Gordon pushed away from the counter and crossed to her slowly. He stopped close enough that she could feel the warmth of him, but not so close that she had to step back.
“If you stay,” he said, “it means tonight you don’t have to go back to an empty room and pretend you aren’t lonely.”
Her breath caught.
“And neither do I.”
That was what did it.
Not the desire. Though it was there, coiling low in her belly.
Not the memory of the storage building. Though it had haunted her all afternoon.
It was the honesty.
The loneliness laid bare without shame.
Talia looked up at him and felt her resistance bend.
“You fight unfair,” she whispered.
“No. I just tell the truth.”
“That’s worse.”
“I know.”
She breathed out a soft laugh, then lifted a hand to his chest. His heart beat steadily beneath her palm.
“If I stay,” she said, “we take tonight as tonight.”
“Okay.”
“No promises.”
“Okay.”
“No pretending this answers everything.”
“Okay.”
“And if I panic tomorrow…”
“I’ll still be here.”
Her fingers curled lightly against his shirt.
That answer was too easy.
Too steady.
Too much.
Gordon lifted his hand and touched her cheek. “Stay, Talia.”
She closed her eyes for one second.
Then she nodded.
“All right,” she whispered. “I’ll stay.”
Gordon’s breath left him slowly, as if he had been holding it longer than she realized.
He leaned down and kissed her.
Not with the urgency of the storage building.
Not with the hunger that had undone them both.
This kiss was slower. Deeper. A promise he had not spoken because she had told him not to make any.
Talia let herself lean into it.
Let herself hold him.
Let herself stop fighting the fact that tonight, she wanted to be exactly where she was.
In Gordon’s cottage.
In Gordon’s arms.
With the scent of dinner still warm in the air and the dark settled softly around them.
Tomorrow could bring questions.
Houston could remain where it was.
The article could wait until morning.
Tonight, she stayed.