“We can’t do this here,” she whispered. “Not with Sydney and Bay downstairs.”

He kissed her hard. “Give me ten minutes to get rid of Rachel.”

“You can’t get rid of Rachel.”

“But she’s going to be here three days.” They stared at each other, and he finally took a deep breath and rolled beside her. She was going to close her robe, because how could she just lie there with her robe open? But he stopped her by sliding his hand over her chest and cupping one of her breasts. It felt so secure, so right. Mine. “Expectation can be nice too, I guess,” he said. “Three whole days of expectation.”

“Three whole days,” she repeated.

“What changed your mind?” he said, moving to his side and dipping his head, putting his mouth where his hand had been.

She grabbed his hair in one hand and squeezed her eyes shut. How could she want something this much, something she didn’t even understand? “I should let people in. If they leave, they leave. If I break, I break. It happens to everyone. Right?”

He lifted his head to look in her eyes. “You think I’m going to leave?”

“There can’t be this forever.”

“Why do you think that?”

“No one I know has ever had this forever.”

“I think of the future all the time. All my life I’ve chased dreams of what could be. For the first time in my life, I’ve actually caught one.” He kissed her again before grabbing his shirt and standing. “I’ll give you one day at a time, Claire. But remember, I’m thousands of days ahead already.”

It was Fred’s first night in the attic, and Evanelle could hear him moving around upstairs. It was nice, knowing someone was around, making small busy noises like mice. The thing about ghosts was that they didn’t make a sound. And she’d been living with the silent ghost of her husband for long enough to know.

She wondered if she was being hypocritical, encouraging Fred to move on. It wasn’t as if Evanelle had moved on, really. Maybe it was different when the one you loved died, as opposed to the one you loved simply leaving you. Or maybe it was the same thing. It probably felt like the same thing, anyway.

All of a sudden, Evanelle sat up.

Damn.

She needed to give someone something. She thought about it a moment. It was Fred. She had to give Fred something.

She turned on the light by her bed and reached for her robe. She walked into the hall, then paused, figuring out where to go. The two other bedrooms downstairs were now neatly organized with filing cabinets and nice wooden storage shelves for all her things.

Left.

The second bedroom.