Page 148 of Things We Burn

Kane folded his arms across his chest. His muscles and tattooed rippled, and my mouth moistened, remembering those arms around me. Remembering sex.

I still hadn’t been cleared for that. I wondered if Kane would even see me that way when I was. He had his hands on me whenever he could. But it was that careful, caretaking touch. No fire.

“Okay,” he conceded, going to sit at the breakfast bar.

“What are you doing?” I asked. “Go back to bed. You need sleep.”

He nodded. “I do. I’ll sleep when my woman sleeps.”

“There is no room for chivalry in the newborn trenches.” I shook my head at his asinine notion. . “It’s every man for himself.”

“Not this man.” His tone told me not to bother arguing the point further. But I wasn’t functioning on all cylinders.

“What if she wakes?” I sighed.Or what if she somehow rolls over and suffocates in the mattress without either of us there? Itwas a thought I didn’t utter, but it pumped nausea through me. It didn’t matter that she didn’t know how to roll yet. Such morbid and terrifying thoughts were commonplace then. I tried to brush my concern aside but couldn’t. I almost abandoned my mousse to run up the stairs to check on her breathing.

“I got her, Chef.” Kane tapped the monitor I hadn’t noticed him carrying, as if he could see the terror on my face. “I’ll watch over her. You finish.” He jutted his chin to my bowl.

I gulped painfully, struggling to even trust the man who loved Mabel just as much as I did with her wellbeing, but I managed.

I went back to the mousse, forcing myself to make slow, practiced movements although I felt the overwhelming need to hurry through the steps like I felt the need to rush through everything else. Meals. Brushing my teeth. Showers where I heard phantom baby cries.

Measured calmness, that’s what was required. It used to be muscle memory. Now I had to grit my teeth, sweat dampening my brow as I compelled myself to be meticulous.

When the mousse was put in a glass dish and into the fridge to cool, Kane jumped up.

“Okay, Chef. We’re going outside to sit for a spell,” he said, holding onto my hip.

The simple touch grounded me. His scent, his naked torso. All of that awakened something deep inside me, that desire too tired to come all the way to the surface, though.

“I need to clean this up.” I flicked my wrist to the minor mess I’d made. I’d gone into autopilot, keeping the kitchen clean and tidy, but there were still dishes to be done.

“You need to come outside with me,” Kane commanded. “You need some fresh air.”

I wanted to argue with him, but Kane had a tone that brooked no argument.

I let him lead me outside, inhaling the crisp air. Summer was still holding on, but the bite of fall could be felt at two in the morning.

My eyes scurried to the screen of the monitor Kane was holding.

“She’s good,” Kane promised me.

He then sat in the chair on the deck. I went to sit in the one beside it, but Kane pulled me onto his lap. Delicately, though. Not roughly like he had before. I was mostly healed, but my body was tender. Kane knew that, and handled me with care.

I stiffened at first, conscious of my new body, my extra pounds. Kane’s arms settled around me, and like a balm, they settled me.

The sound of the ocean crashed gently against the silence of the night.

“I’ve worked in some of the toughest kitchens in the world,” I said. “I know that doesn’t sound like something to brag about—”

“It most certainly is something to brag about,” Kane interrupted, rubbing my arms.

I rolled my eyes. He was not about to let me get one self-deprecating thought in, even when he was struggling with sleep deprivation.

“Those kitchens break people,” I continued. “The environment, the stress, the treatment from the head chef, others trying to get ahead of you. There is a reason why my profession is fraught with drug addictions and mental breakdowns. It is not for the weak.”

“You’re not weak.”

“I used to think so.” I rubbed my eyes, trying to hold on to my train of thought. “I not only survived all of that, but I didn’t become an addict, didn’t suffer any kind of mental breakdown or throw knives at waiters like some of my contemporaries had.

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