Chapter Twelve—Lorna
IT’S SATURDAY AFTERNOON, and I’m standing at the kitchen counter trying to decide between pasta and the last chicken breast when someone knocks on the lodge door. Willa is upstairs on a call. Chris hasn’t knocked once since he arrived, which leaves very few possibilities. I open the door.
He’s on the porch with a brown grocery bag tucked against his side. “I went to the store. You’re probably low on a few things.”
I blink. “You bought me groceries again.”
“I bought groceries.” He lifts the bag. “Some of them happen to be things you eat.”
Refusing would be petty, and I’m trying to reserve my pettiness for things that matter.
I take the bag and start unloading it on the counter.
Garlic, fresh basil, two lemons, a block of parmesan that costs more than it should, and a jar of tomato sauce from the Italian place in Savannah we used to drive to.
I stop when I reach the sauce. It’s from a small producer, and the only store that carries it within two hours is in Waynesville. Chris drove to Waynesville for tomato sauce.
“You remembered this.” I hold up the jar.
Chris tucks his hands into his jacket pockets. “You bought four jars last time we were down there.”
Last time we were here. The only time we came together, before the second anniversary trip we never took.
I put the jar on the counter. Chris waits, but I don’t know what to say to that. After a few seconds, he turns toward the steps.
“I have pasta.”
Chris looks back.
“If you want to cook, the kitchen is yours for an hour.” I pick up the parmesan. “After that, you’re back in the guesthouse.”
“Understood.” He steps inside for the first time since arriving.
I move my laptop and notes from the table while Chris washes his hands at the sink. Willa’s voice carries faintly through the ceiling, too muffled to follow.
Chris opens a cabinet and takes out the large pot without asking. He cooked in this kitchen during the week we spent here three years ago, and the layout hasn’t changed. He fills the pot, sets it on the back burner, then starts breaking apart a head of garlic with the heel of his hand.
“Knife’s in the block.”
“I know.” He crushes another clove against the cutting board. “This is faster.”
I lean against the opposite counter because sitting at the table would make me an audience, and standing beside him would put us too close.
Four feet isn’t enough.
Chris rolls his sleeves to his elbows. A week outside has put some color into his skin, and the scrape from the fence post has faded to a thin pink line. He moves between the cutting board and stove, adjusts the flame under the pot, slices basil, and opens the sauce.
He catches me watching, so I expect a comment. Three years ago, I would have gotten one.
He turns back to the stove instead. “How much pasta?”
“Enough for three. Willa hasn’t eaten.”
He measures by eye. Chris has always cooked by instinct and somehow gets the amounts right. Once, when we were first married, I asked him how he knew when garlic was ready.
When it smells like garlic.
I laughed so hard he accused me of mocking his culinary expertise. The memory makes me smile before I can stop it.
Chris adds the garlic to the oil. The scent reaches me within seconds, followed by tomato and basil when he pours in the sauce. He tastes it from a wooden spoon, reaches for the salt, and finds it without asking.
He remembers this kitchen and my tomato sauce. Apparently, he remembers plenty when he’s actually paying attention.
Willa comes downstairs while Chris drains the pasta. She stops just inside the kitchen and takes in the situation.
I wait for whatever she’s going to say. Calmly, she walks to the table and sits down.
Coward.
The pasta is good, and I resent that slightly.
Willa has already gone back for more parmesan, and Chris is explaining where the sauce comes from.
“Small producer outside Savannah,” he says. “We used to buy it when we were down there.”
That one time he visited. I keep from rolling my eyes. “The store in Waynesville carries it.”
Willa looks at me. “Convenient.”
“Not especially.” I wind pasta around my fork. “It’s an hour and a half away.”
Her attention shifts to Chris.
He shrugs. “I had time.”
I concentrate on my plate.
Chris asks Willa about her work without discussing my case. She tells him about a former client who insisted on jogging at five every morning despite receiving threats and refused to change the route because he didn’t want anyone controlling his life.
“How long did that argument last?” Chris asks.
“Three weeks.”
“Who won?”
“I was still employed at the end of it.”
Chris considers that. “You won.”
“Obviously.” She smiles slightly. “The shot someone took at him helped persuade him to switch up his jogging routine too.”
I hide my smile behind my wineglass.
A few minutes later, Chris admits he got lost coming back from Waynesville because he ignored the GPS in favor of a road he remembered from our last trip.
“The road changed,” he says.
I stare at him. “You argued with a road?”
“I disagreed with its current configuration.”
Willa reaches for more parmesan. “Did the road reconsider?”
“No.”
“Shocking.” Her tone is dry.
I laugh. The sound catches me by surprise. Chris glances across the table, and for a second I see his grin before he looks down at his plate.
He doesn’t make anything of it. That makes it easier to keep sitting here.
After dinner, Willa carries her plate to the sink. “I have calls to return.”
I look toward the clock. “At eight on Saturday?”
“International.”
“Where?”
“Good night, Lorna.”
She’s halfway up the stairs before I can answer.
Chris picks up the remaining plates. “Subtle.”
I shrug. “She’s usually better than that.”
“I think she’s losing respect for us.”
I scoff. “Speak for yourself.”
His laugh follows me to the sink. Chris turns on the water while I find the dish towel. We don’t discuss who’s washing or who’s drying. He hands me the first plate, and I dry it. Then another.
The rhythm comes back too easily.
Chris washes slowly enough for me to keep up. I stack the plates in the cabinet, take a glass from him, dry it, and put it away. For a few minutes, neither of us talks.
That’s what catches me off guard. Not the sauce. Not the drive to Waynesville. Not even dinner.
This.
Standing beside him after a meal. Passing dishes back and forth. Moving around each other without having to think about it.
“The pasta was good,” I say.
“The sauce did most of the work.”
“You drove an hour and a half for sauce.”
Chris rinses another glass. “I wanted something to cook for you, and everything at the first store seemed like too much.”
“You were trying pretty hard.”
He chuckles. “I drove to Waynesville. I didn’t charter a plane.”
I dry the glass. “Your standards for excessive effort may be distorted.”
“Possibly so.” He shuts off the water. I hand him the towel, and our fingers touch.
Neither of us moves.
Chris is close enough that I can see the faint lines around his eyes that weren’t there three years ago. The kitchen has become very quiet.
“I should go back,” he says.
“Probably.”
He dries his hands and drapes the towel over the edge of the sink. “Lorna.”
“Don’t.”
Chris stops. No argument or questions.
He picks up his jacket from the chair and walks to the door.
I follow him. Cold air hits my bare arms when I step onto the porch. The creek is loud after two days of rain, though I can’t see much beyond the yard.
Chris reaches the steps.
“Thank you for dinner.”
He turns. For days, he’s been careful around me. He waits to be invited onto the porch. He leaves when I ask. He doesn’t turn every conversation into our marriage.
Right now, he isn’t doing anything. He’s waiting.
The impulse seizes me before I can stop myself. I cross the porch and kiss him.
For one second, Chris doesn’t respond. Then he kisses me back.
I move closer.
He still doesn’t pull me against him.
I break the kiss. “This doesn’t fix anything.”
“I know.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
He brushes his thumb across my cheek once.
That’s it.
He doesn’t ask what the kiss means. He doesn’t tell me we’re making progress. He doesn’t ask whether I’ve changed my mind.
I kiss him again.
This time, restraint gives way. Chris catches me around the waist and pulls me against him. I grab the front of his sweater, and the kiss turns hungry enough that I stop caring about the cold.
I reach behind me for the door.
We stumble inside.
The lodge door closes, and Chris kisses me against the hallway wall. His mouth moves along my neck while he slides his hands beneath my shirt.
“Upstairs.”
We don’t make it far before I pull him back for another kiss on the landing.
Chris laughs against my mouth. “You said upstairs.”
“I’m aware.”
“You stopped.” I squeeze his hand. “Do you want to complain about it?”
He’s staring at my lips. “No.”
“Then keep moving.”
We reach the bedroom, and Chris pulls his sweater over his head. I touch the scar below his left shoulder, the one from falling off a horse when he was nineteen. I know exactly where it is without looking.
I know him. That hasn’t disappeared just because everything else between us broke.
I run my nails down his sides, and his breathing changes. “If you ask me if I’m sure, I’ll throw you out of the lodge.”
Chris laughs. “I wasn’t going to.”
“Wise.” I push him toward the bed.
He sits, and I climb into his lap. Chris grips my thighs as I settle over him, then pulls my shirt over my head.
I know what makes him react. He knows the same things about me. When I press my hips against his, his cock hardens immediately.
“Lorna.”
“Stop talking.” I nip his lower lip.
We shed the rest of our clothes without much grace. Chris pulls me against him, and the familiarity is almost worse than if this were new. There is no awkward discovery to distract me. No uncertainty about where to touch or what he likes.
My body remembers everything.
Chris pauses under me, his cock pushing against my entrance. “Tell me what you want.”
I stare into his eyes to be sure he understands. “You. Right now. That’s all I’m offering.”
He accepts the boundary with a kiss.
I guide him into me, sinking down on his shaft, and the first stretch pulls a sound from my throat. Pleasure comes with a sharp edge I wasn’t prepared for. I’ve missed this. I’ve missed him physically even while I’ve been furious with him everywhere else.
Chris starts slowly.
I pull him closer. “I don’t have osteoporosis, and neither do you.”
He laughs, but it turns to a moan when I clench around him. After that, he stops treating me like I’m fragile and thrusts harder and faster.
Thought becomes difficult after that. I know the rhythm of his body, and he still knows mine. He touches me where I need him, and the pressure builds until I come against him, shaking through it.
Chris follows soon after, then lowers himself carefully beside me.
For a while, neither of us says anything. Cold air slips through the cracked bedroom window.
I’m on my back staring at the ceiling, and Chris is beside me with one arm resting across my waist. My breathing has finally returned to normal.
The house creaks downstairs. I tense and turn toward the bedroom door.
Chris doesn’t tell me it’s nothing or that I’m safe. He waits, also more alert.
After a few seconds, I settle back against the pillow, and he strokes his hand lightly along my hip.
“This doesn’t mean I’ve forgiven you.” I don’t look at him.
“I know.” He sounds resigned.
I turn toward him. There’s no surprise on his face. He doesn’t look wounded and isn’t attempting to negotiate for more than I’ve given him tonight. He just shows sad acceptance.
Chris stays beside me, clearly expecting me to tell him to leave. Instead, giving in to the need for comfort and familiarity just for tonight, I let him.