Chapter 10 - The Warmth of Morning
The kitchen smelled of sourdough bread, cinnamon, and the fresh, cool breeze blowing off Lake Superior.
Reed stood beside Nenah at the butcher-block counter, his sleeves rolled up to his forearms, holding the chef’s knife.
“From the top down,” Nenah instructed, her voice soft, teasing, standing right beside his elbow. “Keep your knuckles tucked. Don't press. Let the blade do the work.”
Reed looked down at the onion.
His hands, which had signed treaties and pulled triggers, held the knife with the focused concentration of a student taking an exam.
He sliced down.
The blade moved through the onion with a clean, crisp *snip*, dividing the vegetable into perfect, even crescents. Not a single piece slipped. Not a single piece rolled across the floor.
Reed set the knife down on the wood.
He turned to face her, leaning back against the edge of the counter, crossing his arms over his chest.
“How was that?” he asked, a triumphant grin breaking across his face.
Nenah looked at the cutting board, evaluating the cuts with mock seriousness.
“Acceptable,” she pronounced. “A little thick on the edges, but… acceptable for a beginner.”
Reed laughed.
It was a full, rich sound that filled the sunlit kitchen, echoing off the wooden ceiling beams and out through the open windows into the pine trees.
He reached out, his hands gentle and reverent, and wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her flush against his chest.
Nenah rested her hands against his shoulders, leaning her forehead against the crook of his neck, breathing in the scent of him—cedar, lake air, and that deep, clean warmth that belonged only to Reed.
He rested his hand on the swell of her belly beneath the cream sweater.
The child inside kicked—a firm, fluttery movement that pressed against Reed’s palm.
Reed gasped, his eyes widening in pure, unadulterated wonder.
“Did you feel that?” he whispered, his voice trembling with an emotion so vast it made his chest ache.
“Every day,” Nenah smiled, looking up into his face. “He kicks every time the bread comes out of the oven. Martha says it means he’s going to be impatient.”
“He has his mother’s good taste,” Reed murmured, leaning down to press a soft, lingering kiss against her lips.
The kiss tasted of sweetness, of forgiveness, of a future that had been bought not with blood, but with the courage to walk away from darkness.
Through the window, the sun was climbing higher into the northern sky, burning away the last of the mist over the great lake.
In Chicago, the towers of glass and steel still stood, their boardrooms filled with ambitious men who traded their souls for an extra inch of territory. But those towers were six hundred miles away, belonging to a past that had no power to touch this quiet haven.
Here, in the kitchen on the edge of the world, there were no guards at the gate.
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There was no poison in the wine.
There was only a man, a woman, and the quiet, miraculous warmth of a morning that belonged entirely to them.
