Chapter 13 Two Cups Until Dawn
POV MARA QUINN
The grant application was due at eight in the morning.
At one fifteen, Mara and Cole were still in the office arguing over projected enrollment.
"Sixteen trainees is realistic," Cole said.
"Twelve is fundable."
"Sixteen uses the bays."
"Twelve keeps us from promising sixteen and delivering nine."
Cole rubbed both hands over his face.
"God, I forgot how much I hated doing business with you."
"You never did business with me."
"Exactly. I was happier."
She threw a pencil at him.
He caught it.
Then they both laughed.
The laugh went on too long.
At two, Cole made coffee.
At three, Mara read the same paragraph five times.
At three thirty, he put a blanket over her shoulders without touching her neck.
She looked up.
"Where did this come from?"
"Deke's chair."
"Then it contains at least three diseases."
"Builds immunity."
She kept it.
By four twenty, the application was done.
Cole leaned back.
"Send?"
Mara read the final page.
"Send."
He clicked.
Nothing dramatic happened.
A confirmation email arrived.
Mara closed the laptop.
"Done."
"Done."
They sat in the low office light.
Outside, the garage was silent.
Cole looked older when tired. Not worse. More honest, perhaps. The silver in his beard caught the desk lamp.
Mara suddenly became aware of being forty-seven in a room with a man who had once known every version of her body and now knew none.
She stood too quickly.
Cole stood too.
"Mara?"
"I should go."
"Okay."
She reached for her bag.
His hand rested on the desk.
Not reaching.
That restraint undid something.
Mara stepped toward him.
"Tell me not to do anything stupid."
Cole's face changed.
"I don't get to define stupid for you."
"Annoying answer."
"I have those."
Mara touched his shirtfront with two fingers.
Cole did not move.
She looked up.
"Can I kiss you?"
He closed his eyes for half a second.
"Yes."
The kiss was not young.
No urgency. No proof.
Just warmth, memory, and the shock of finding a door where Mara had expected a wall.
Cole's hand came to her waist and stopped there.
Mara kissed him once more.
Then stepped back.
They were both breathing too carefully.
"That does not fix anything," she said.
"No."
"It does not mean we're together."
"No."
"It might not happen again."
Cole nodded.
"Okay."
Mara stared at him.
"You could pretend to be less reasonable."
"I'm hanging on by a thread."
That made her laugh.
She picked up her bag.
At the door, Cole said, "Mara."
She turned.
He looked at her as if he had been given something fragile.
"Thank you for asking."
She drove home at dawn.
For the first time in nineteen years, her mouth remembered him without anger.
POV COLE MERCER
Cole did not sleep.
At six, he walked to the river.
The kiss sat inside him like a fact he did not deserve to interpret.
He thought about calling Lena.
He did not.
He thought about calling Rowan.
Absolutely not.
At seven thirty, Tank found him leaning on the bridge rail.
"You look terrible."
"Thank you."
"Kiss her?"
Cole turned.
Tank shrugged.
"You're fifty-one. You only look that stupid for three reasons. Love, gout, or tax trouble."
Cole laughed.
Then stopped.
"Tank, did Deke ever tell you about Rowan?"
Tank's face changed.
"Not until she was four."
Cole stared.
"He told you?"
"Made me swear."
Anger moved clean and hot.
"You should have told me."
"Yeah."
Cole stepped back.
Tank did not defend himself.
"I thought I was protecting Mara. Then protecting Rowan. Then too much time passed and I was protecting myself from admitting I'd been a coward."
Cole looked at him.
The sentence sounded familiar.
Tank's eyes were wet.
"I'm sorry, Rook."
Cole wanted to hit something.
Instead he said, "You need to tell Rowan."
Tank nodded.
"I will."
"And Mara."
"Yes."
Cole looked toward town.
The truth was widening.
Each piece made Deke smaller and everyone else more responsible.
Cole understood then that forgiveness, if it came, could not be built on one villain.
It had to survive a room full of flawed people telling the truth.
POV MARA QUINN
At five thirty the next morning, Mara stood in her bathroom looking at herself.
No makeup.
Grey at the temples.
Lines at the mouth.
A body that had carried Rowan, lifted motorcycle seats, gained weight, lost some, and stopped apologizing for both.
Cole had kissed this face.
Not the twenty-eight-year-old one he remembered.
This one.
Mara touched her lips once and laughed at herself.
Then she went to work.