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“You would be my husband.”

“That’s generally how it works.”

“I know how marriage works.”

“I’m relieved. One of us should.”

I tighten my hand.

“And you are not buying anything.”

His eyebrows lift.

“Nothing,” I say. “Not a bed. Not a desk. Not a school uniform, not a car, not a holiday, not a single thing for either of us that you have decided we need. If you want to give us something, you ask first and you accept the answer.”

He takes longer with that than he took with the proposal.

“And if the answer’s no?”

“Then it is no.”

Colt looks around his own kitchen as though checking whether he has already broken the rule.

“Growth,” he says.

“We will see.”

At the door I put my bag over my shoulder.

He opens the door and then stops when I do not move.

“I forgot something.”

“What?”

I step into him and put my arms around his waist, and his hands settle at my back without any hesitation at all, and I put my face against his shirt.

For several seconds I let him hold me.

Then I lift my face and kiss him, and he lets me decide how long it lasts, and when I step back his hands stay lightly at my waist until I move away from them.

“I will call you tomorrow.”

“I’ll answer.”

I leave before staying becomes the easier thing.

His yes is still inside me.

I put both hands on the wheel.

I want to go back in there and tell him what I have managed without him, and how long I have managed it, and that I did not need rescuing. I want him to have the whole file.

And I want him anyway.

I start the truck.

Chapter nineteen