He gave her Hettie.
“Her name was Hettie and she couldn’t fry an egg to save her life.”
She relaxed against him and rubbed her nose along his throat.
Nick kept talking.
Liv kept listening.
He ended with, “She’d like you for me.”
Liv emitted a dubious sound before she said, “That’s sweet, honey, but it’s hard to believe.”
“She would.”
“Right.”
She didn’t believe him.
“She would, Liv,” he asserted on a squeeze of his arms.
“Okay, Nick.”
She totally didn’t believe him.
He lifted a hand and hooked a finger under her chin, forcing it up.
He caught her eyes in the moonlight.
“She would, Livvie, because you make me happy.”
She melted into him.
“Now that,” she said in that voice of hers, “I can believe.”
He bent his head and kissed her soft.
When he released her mouth, she snuggled close.
He was nearly asleep when her drowsy voice came again to him.
“You’re good at what you do.”
He had no clue where that came from.
“What?” he asked, sounding just as drowsy because he was.
“Taking care of us, the women you love, making us free in all the ways we can be.”
Suddenly, Nick was wide awake.
Just as suddenly, Liv was sleeping.
Nick held her close and turned his eyes to the paned window where moonlight shone in.
“I hope you’re free, Hettie,” he murmured to the quiet night.
Hettie did not reply.