I heard the creak of the door when one of the cats came into the room. I heard Liam’s footsteps pass by on his way to the loft. I heard a coyote, distant but haunting.
I didn’t hear Edward. He was waiting for me to speak.
“Okay,” I finally managed.
“Okay, what?”
“Okay, speak.”
“I have been. I need to know what you think.”
“What I think is that you’re the one with the ideas, so you need to suggest one.”
“About…?”
“What to do next.”
“Is that interest?” he asked with what actually sounded like humor.
“Curiosity.”
He was silent. Considering. “Okay,” he decided. “Curiosity’s a start. I want to go public.”
“With our relationship?” I cried, scooting back against the wall and reaching for Hex or Jinx or whichever cat it was, black in the black. I clutched its little body to my chest. “You can’t. That’d spoil everything for me. People here can’t know what I did.”
“Would that be so horrible?”
“Yes!”
“They would understand.”
“But they’d know. And I’d know they did, so I’d be seeing it in their eyes whether it was there or not. I’ve thought this through, believe me I have, many times. You come to a new place, and you start making friends, and some of those friends become good friends. You want to share who you are, who you were, only you’re afraid. I’m afraid, Edward.”
“I’d be here to help.”
“I’m afraid.” What more could I say?
“Okay. Then what if we kept the past a secret and dated? Just dated?”
“Which would surprise no one, given your performance tonight.”
“Performance?” he echoed, more amused than offended.
“Edward. You were glued to my side. I mean, talk about making a statement.”
“You were my guide.”
“Like you ever need a guide,” I said, but if there had been a smile in his voice, it was gone.
“I do here. We’re in uncharted territory. I don’t know what to do any more than you do. I know where I want to be, just not how to get there. And, by the way, in case you didn’t get it before, where I want to be is happy. Five years of grieving hasn’t brought Lily back. I loved her—we both did—during the time we had her, but she just isn’t here anymore.”
Maybe not. I couldn’t see her eyes in Edward’s right now, but she would be there in the light of day. Agreeing to what he said would mean opening a door and letting the agony in.
My heart was thudding. It wasn’t quite the clenching I usually felt, but it was a hard th-wham, th-wham, th-wham.
His voice lowered. “Do you still have her ashes?”
We had put equal amounts in three ceramic boxes. One had gone into the ground under a stone that held her name. Of the remaining two, we each had one. Mine was in my green velvet box, being kept safe by my grandmother’s spirit.
I took an uneven breath and willed my heart to ease up. “Yes,” I said as softly. “You?”
“Mm. I haven’t found a place where I wanted to set them free.”
“Me, neither.”
We were quiet then, even my heart. Given what we were discussing, the hush should have been filled with angst. Either I was too tired for angst, or discussing this with Edward had made it bearable. Not peaceful. But bearable.
After a full minute, he said, “So, can we do it?”
“What?”
“Date?”
“You mean, like go out to dinner?”
“Yeah. In public. There may be talk, but so what? No one has to know anything more than we want them to know.”
“Michael Shanahan will have to know.”
“How the hell would he?”
“He knows everything. I swear he has spies, and what he doesn’t learn from them, he learns from me because when he asks, I have to answer. That’s the rule. He says it’s his job to know who I spend time with.”
“So tell him. I’m sure he’d rather you spend time with me than with Grace.”
Actually, I wasn’t so sure. Jealousy was the word that came to mind.
“So, do we date?” Edward asked.
“It can’t go anywhere,” I warned. He might think he still loved me, but if he saw me often—if he saw me without makeup, with my bangs a mess and my scar showing, he might realize he couldn’t wake up to that every morning.
And me? What would I feel? On one hand, I didn’t ever again want to go through the pain of divorce. This time, though there was no marriage to be wrecked. I would always be coming home to my own place—well, my own, assuming Liam left—and my pets