I took the ladle in my hands, setting it delicately on the counter on a piece of felt, admiring its soft curves and delicate etching. Elliott, from behind me, took my hand in his. “It was beginning to split right here,” he said, his rough, callused finger over mine. He ran my finger over an area of the silver. “So I soldered some sterling silver into the space and made it as good as new.”

His breath, which smelled of coffee and peppermint, was so warm in my ear.

He turned me around toward him, my back on the counter, my legs touching his. He put his hands on the space where my neck met my shoulders, and I remembered how, when we were together, he always had his hand there. “Just because something is broken, Alice, that doesn’t mean you throw it away. It means that, if you love it enough, if you care for it exactly right, you can make it whole again.”

Looking up into his blue eyes, I felt like I was melting into a puddle, like all the mushy parts inside of me were going into all the mushy parts inside of him. I knew then that I couldn’t be away from him, that all the nights I’d lain awake missing him with a deep pain inside my bones hadn’t been wrong. I didn’t want to need him; I didn’t want to love him. Because I didn’t want to hurt him. Well, no, I didn’t want to kill him.

His hands ran down my bare arms, resting on my hips. “Elliott,” I said quietly. “They died. All three of them.”

He nodded. “I wasn’t worried about that a year ago. I’m not worried about it now.”

My eyes filled with tears. Here was someone who knew the truth and loved me anyway, someone I had pushed away who came back here for me. Yet I didn’t know if I was brave enough to start over again. I didn’t know if I could let him love me.

He leaned his forehead on mine and whispered, “How about we finish here, go get some coffee, and talk about how I’m too big and strong to die, even at the hands of the Black Widow.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. I knew people called me that. And if I hadn’t before, that damn Juniper Shores Socialite had certainly spread the word. I didn’t even blame people, but it was still hurtful. In other people’s voices—not in Elliott’s. Because he loved me, and I knew it as well as the lines of his abdomen that I put my hands on now. My heart was racing. This heat between us was what had been impossible to resist.