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Her mouth curved sleepily. “I noticed.”

I climbed back into bed.

She turned into me almost immediately, fitting herself along my side with one leg tangled between mine.

Before sleep took her, she murmured against my chest, “I’m still going to Hollowfield tomorrow.”

I smiled into her hair.

Of course she was.

This time I didn’t need her surrender anywhere except this bed.

***

Pale light showed around the curtains when I woke.

I looked at the unfamiliar ceiling for a few seconds before Sybil shifted beside me. Her leg slid against mine beneath the blanket, and I remembered where I was.

My phone read a little after eight. We’d slept through the remaining hours of the night, and Sybil was still facedown on one pillow with her hair covering half her cheek. I eased out from beneath the blanket without waking her and pulled on my jeans.

After using the bathroom, I checked the front of the cottage. The doors remained locked, the windows secured. Beyond the curtains, the road was empty, and the wind had left a ridge of leaves along the porch steps. The lantern was still where we had left it untouched beneath the porch light. Nothing else appeared to have changed.

In the kitchen, yesterday’s bakery box still occupied a corner of the counter. I moved it aside to reach the coffee maker, then found eggs, bread, and a skillet. The cupboard doors didn’t all close evenly, and one drawer required a lift before it would slide shut. Sybil had been gradually making this place her own while keeping a business running out of half of it.

Coffee began dripping into the pot as I cracked the eggs. I called O’Shea before I started looking for plates.

“The lantern’s still untouched on the porch,” I told him.

“Leave it there. I’ll send someone to collect it.”

A county cruiser pulled into the drive ten minutes later. I watched from the front window while a deputy photographed the lantern in daylight, bagged it, and carried it away. By the time I found a spatula and started looking for plates, Sybil appeared in the doorway wearing a long T-shirt.

She stopped with one hand against the frame, looking from me to the stove.

“You cook?”

“Enough to keep myself alive. The plates are the part I haven’t figured out.”

She came into the kitchen and opened the cabinet beside my shoulder. “You were one door away. I would’ve let you struggle longer, but I’d like breakfast before the eggs go cold.”

I took two plates from her and moved the skillet off the heat. She reached around me for a mug, standing close enough that her shirt brushed my bare back, and poured coffee while I divided the eggs.

“Those look better than survival food,” she said.

“My parents made sure I could feed myself. My father was particularly insistent about breakfast. He thought cooking a meal and changing a tire were things an adult should manage without paying somebody.”

“I think I’d like him.”

“You’d probably get along.”

I put the plates on the table while she found butter and jam. There were still only two clear places among the paperwork, but she moved another stack to the far end before sitting. Sunlight caught the edge of a folder and fell across the worn wood between us.

For a while we concentrated on eating. The toast was hot enough to melt the butter, and Sybil ate several bites of eggs before reaching for her coffee. She tucked one foot beneath the opposite knee, settling into the chair with none of the stiff exhaustion she’d carried the night before.

My attention drifted to the unfinished baseboard across the room. She followed the direction of my look.

“I keep telling myself I’ll finish that,” she said. “Every time I get a free weekend, I book something or decide I should go to the studio instead. Then I get home and discover it hasn’t attached itself to the wall.”