“Maybe everyone does,” he said, sitting down beside her, and then lying down, pulling her into his arms. For the first time in months, she could breathe.

They kissed so long she lost track of time, of fear, of everything except the softness of his tongue against hers and the taste of him.

He loosened one pearl button on her dress, just enough to slip his hand inside. She felt his rough, work-callused fingers glide across her skin; goose bumps changed the feel of her flesh. She felt him touch her breasts, slip beneath the worn cotton of her bra to touch her nipple.

A crack of thunder.

For a second she was so sluggish with desire, she thought she’d imagined it.

Then the rain hit. Hard, fast, pelting.

They scrambled to their feet, laughing. Leni grabbed the picnic basket and together they ran along the winding beach trail, and emerged on the bluff by the outhouse.

They didn’t stop until they were in the cabin, standing face-to-face, staring at each other. Leni felt raindrops sliding down her cheeks, dripping from her hair.

“Alaska in the summer,” Matthew said.

Leni stared at him, realizing now, all at once in a sweep of goose bumps, how she loved him.

Not in the toxic, needy, desperate way her mother loved her father.

She needed Matthew, but not to save her or complete her or reinvent her.

Her love for him was the clearest, cleanest, strongest emotion she’d ever felt. It was like opening your eyes or growing up, realizing that you had it in you to love like this. Forever. For all time. Or for all the time you had.

She started to unbutton her wet dress. The lacy collar fell down her shoulder, exposed her bra strap.

“Leni, are you sure—”

She silenced him with a kiss. She had never been more sure of anything. She finished unbuttoning her dress, which fell down her body, landed like a parachute of lace at her booted feet. She stepped out of it, kicked it aside.

She unlaced her boots, pulled them off, threw them aside. One hit the cabin wall with a thunk. Down to her bra and cotton panties, she said, “Come on,” and led him up the loft ladder to her bedroom, where Matthew hurriedly undressed and pulled her down onto the fur-covered mattress.

He undressed her slowly. His hands and mouth explored her body until every nerve in her tightened. When he touched her: music.

She lost herself in him. Her body was autonomous, moving in some instinctive, primal rhythm it must have known all along, edging into a pleasure so intense it was almost pain.