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“I love her. I don’t love you any less. I’ll never love you less. You gave me so many happy years, and you gave me Emmy.” He rested his cheek against his daughter’s head. “I’m going to try to make her as happy as you made me.” He smiled. “It’s silly, but we met because Jake got drunk and shoved me into a séance tent. She—her name is Magdalene, Maggie—pretended to talk for you, and she said the loveliest things. It made me feel like you were really there. And maybe you were. It made me feel better.” He sighed. “She makes me feel better. She makes me—Maybe you don’t want to hear it.” Emmy was wriggling in his lap now, wanting up, and he released her. She leaned forward, clinging to her mother’s headstone, poking her fingers into the engravings.

“I just wish I could get your blessing,” Theo said helplessly. “I just wish so many things.”

The breeze kicked up again, nearly blowing his hat off his head, and Theo suspended his disbelief in the supernatural for a moment to imagine that Sarah’s laugh was floating past him.

“Goodbye, love,” he said.

The apartment, ghosts and all, violently snapped back into a home again. Tom and Bridgers were, absurdly, even more casually affectionate than they had been even years before, pausing while passing each other in the hallway for a quick kiss or a hand-squeeze. Maggie pretended to be put off by it, huffing and bustling about, but she knew she wasn’t fooling anyone—she was fine on a stage, but she couldn’t lie to Tom and Bridgers any more than she could lie to herself.

It even softened the blow of the slowing business; it wasn’t at a stand-still, but a few orders had been canceled, and the coffers weren’t quite as bursting as they could be. It was more the principle of the thing than the monetary aspect, and morale would have been low if the boys hadn’t been so newly re-enamored with each other. They had left a few hours earlier, Bridgers insisting on taking Tom out to a play the community children were putting on, and Maggie had given Theo some warning in case he was free to stop by. She fidgeted, cracking her knuckles as she waited for the kettle to boil, and absently picked at her nails. The sound of Theo’s knocking, expected as it was, still startled her into a jump, and she rushed down the stairs to let him in. He smiled his hello, and Maggie surprised both of them by throwing her arms around his neck, clinging to him like he was newly returned from war.

“Well, hello,” he said, laughing and wrapping his arms around her waist, lifting her slightly off her feet.

“Hello,” she echoed into his neck. “I missed you.”

Theo didn’t respond, evidently content to simply hold her as long as she needed. And wasn’t that it, after all? That Theo was content to be whatever Maggie needed in the moment? She kissed his neck and withdrew her arms. Theo let her down with a dull thud, and she grabbed his hand and led him upstairs. “How was your day?”

He took his hat off, placing it on the peg by the door, and turned to face her, his expression inscrutable. “Very fine,” he said at last, drawing her into his arms again. “Better now, I think.”

Maggie’s heart, incapable of even performative stoicism, flipped over, and she buried her face in his chest. “Do you want something to eat? I bought some biscuits from Stinson’s today, I think they’re a ginger … something.”

“Maggie.” Theo slowly pushed his fingers into her hair, tilting her head to the side and pressing warm, dry kisses along her jaw. “How long will your brothers be gone?”

Her drawn breath was shuddering, and her knees threatened to lock. “I don’t know, exactly, they just left about twenty minutes ago—oh.” His mouth had opened at her throat, and his tongue was teasing the skin there, lapping at her pulse.

“Do you really want to eat biscuits?” A nip, so gentle that it sent a shock up her spine, and Maggie choked out a, “No, not really, no” before Theo lifted his hands to her face and cradled it, pressing his mouth against hers in such careful supplication that she wanted to cry. She grabbed his shirt and led him, slowly walking backwards, towards her bedroom, kissing him all the while, his big hands around her waist. They tripped, ungainly, over the threshold, and Maggie slammed the door shut, reaching up to bury her hands in his curls.

Theo peeled her out of her dress slowly, kissing each patch of skin that appeared as he undid laces, loosened buttons. Her corset gaped open, air filling her lungs in a rush, and Theo gently cupped her right breast in his hand, his thumb stroking her nipple softly. His mouth ghosted along her jaw, and he let out a sigh, kicking her dropped skirts and top away. Growing impatient, Maggie pressed her hands on his chest, unbuttoning his shirt and sliding it off his shoulders. He wasn’t a broad man, but she liked how starkly his modest muscles stood out on him, the sharp angles under his skin moving as he lifted his arms to undress her, or pick up his daughter, or haul a flank of lamb over his shoulder. He was a working man, and his body served him well.

It served her well, too. She pressed her mouth to his, a touch too enthusiastically, and he laughed as she tried to undo his trousers, her fingers fumbling over the clasps. He took over, swiftly stepping out of them, and framed her face in his hands.

It was a strange sensation, standing nude together, the hot August air settling around them like a fog. Theo’s gaze didn’t break from hers, and she felt her stomach tighten and thrum. He was naked in many ways when they were together in his bed. He was brave. Theo was fearless.

Maggie was trying. She held his eyes as she sank down to her knees, careful to tuck her discarded skirts under them to cushion her from the hard floor.

“Maggie,” Theo’s voice was thin, his face drawn.

“Hush,” she said, taking him in her hand. He still felt peculiar to her, this hard length covered in such delicately soft skin, and she pressed her face into his abdomen while she stroked him. Breathed in. “Let me. I want to.” She lifted her eyes back up to him. “What do I do?”

Theo let out a long breath and wetted his lips, rising his hand to settle in her hair. “Use your hand,” he said hoarsely. “For what doesn’t fit. Take it in your mouth, try to avoid using your teeth.” He hissed when she drew him in slowly, laving her tongue around the head. “Yes, suck the—Oh, God, yes, like that.” His fingers flexed in her hair, pulling her closer. She spent several long minutes alternating between sucking, stroking, lapping, reveling in the sounds he made, how his hand tightened in her hair. Her knees were protesting when he finally grunted and pulled her up, kissing her with a desperation she hadn’t felt from him before.

“I wasn’t finished,” she protested, twisting her neck so he could latch his mouth onto her pulse.

“If I come in your mouth,” he said, nipping at her skin, “I can’t fuck you as hard as I want to.” He kissed her mouth firmly. “And I want to fuck you very hard.”

Maggie let herself be driven backwards, her legs hitting the mattress and her upper body collapsing onto it. Theo crawled over her, bracketing his arms on either side of her shoulders. “Are you ready?”

“What?” Her thoughts were scattered, leaves blowing around in the wind.

“Are you wet enough for me?” He stared down at her, and all she could summon was a nod. Without a word, Theo dragged his cock up and down her, wetting himself, and thrust.

She turned her head to bury her face in the pillow, letting out a reedy moan.

“Don’t turn away,” he breathed, stroking into her again, his voice shuddering. “I want to see you. Please.”

She would not escape this unscathed.

“More,” she gasped, rocking her hips up almost violently, desperate to be fuller of him. “Theo, please, more.”