Page 218

“You’re feeding me because—”

“Because you’re worth feeding. Open.”

I did.

He put the fork between my lips. I took the egg, chewed properly, and swallowed.

“Water.”

I drank the rest.

“Good girl.”

My heart gave one hard, happy beat.

Cash set the glass down, bent, and kissed the top of my head. Then he picked up the registration letter.

His thumb rested over the Montana address.

“You okay?” he asked.

I looked at the page.

At my company. My address. The words that made a decision into a location.

“I think so.”

“Dangerous amount of confidence.”

“I expected it to feel like losing something.”

“Does it?”

I thought about Denver. The sublet. The binders open on the table. The dead kitchen light. The company I had built in one city and carried into another because it turned out a company was not a punishment you served at a particular address.

“No,” I said. “It feels like changing the return address.”

Cash nodded as if that was a declaration of great emotional depth, which, for me, it possibly was.

He set the letter beside my plate and pushed my hair behind my ear. His hand lingered at the back of my neck.

“Welcome home, Ms. Nair.”

A truck crossed the cattle guard.

I shot out of the chair.

Cash caught my wrist before I cleared the table.

“Walk.”

“That is not a rule.”

“It is in the kitchen.”

“Since when?”

“Since you nearly took out the coffee table last Thursday.”