I’ll give her everything in my powerto make this right.Everything.
I go inside to find Luke.
***
Riding out into the Nevada morning, the desert opening ahead, the city falls away in the mirrors. The air is still cool before the heat arrives. She’s still in my chest in a way that has nothing to do with distance.
I’m sorry, brother, thinking into the open road.And I’m not sorry. Both things at once. I think you understand that.
He probably did.
Tracker had always understood the complicated things.
The day runs long after that with Luke, logistics, and the kind of detailed work that eats for hours without you noticing. By the time I finally leave the clubhouse, the heat has broken, the lightgone gold and low over the desert, and all I can think about is getting home to her.
The first thing I noticed when I pulled into the driveway was candlelight.
The warm amber glow of it is visible through the glass, something different about the house, a quality of light that isn’t the pool or the overhead.
I unlock the front door and stop in the doorway.
The table is properly set, a cloth not owned, candles never bought, and the scent of something extraordinary drifting from the kitchen. Music is low somewhere inside. The flowers on the island are rearranged. The whole house is transformed from the inside out by a woman who has decided tonight will be something worth remembering.
And Sophia…
She’s standing at the stove in a dress that makes my train of thought disappear completely. She turns when she hears me come in and smiles that smile she has when she is pleased with herself and knows she has reason to be.
Crossing the kitchen in four strides, I kiss her.
Properly, fully, and with both hands in her hair, nothing held back.
When I pull back, she is slightly breathless.
“Hello to you too.”
Looking at her in the candlelight, the dress, and the kitchen that smells like something extraordinary, I cup her face. “I could get used to this.”
Her smile widens. “Good. Sit down. Dinner’s almost ready.”
We eat by candlelight.
The roast is extraordinary. I tell her so, and she waves it off the way she does when she is pleased and doesn’t want to show it. I watch her across the table, think about two days, and feel the weight of it getting heavier with every minute that passes.
She talks about her day, a new development with Victoria Chen, the approval of the signage brief, and Trevor calling with congratulations. Her eyes do that thing they do when she is talking about work she cares about, lit up, focused, and completely alive.
I listen, ask questions, and watch her hands move when she talks.
And think about not coming back.
About her finding out the way she found out about Tracker.
I push it away.
Everything in my power, I tell myself.Everything.
She must see something in my face because she sets her fork down and directly looks at me with that focused blue gaze that never misses anything. “What is it?” she asks quietly. “You’ve had something on your mind all evening.”
I look at her across the candlelit table, at the dress, the candles, the roast, the flowers, and everything she has done to make tonight something worth remembering.