She woke up at two in the morning to rain.

Not gentle rain — the kind that came in off the hills and hit the windows with intention, the kind that made Ashford feel exactly like what it was, a very old stone house that had been weathering exactly this for three hundred years and intended to keep doing so.

She lay in the dark and listened to it.

She thought about the kitchen. About his hands and his mouth and the table and the specific warmth of him against her and the way he had cooked afterward — efficiently, quietly, something with eggs and the last of the kitchen...