“Of course.” Another brief kiss landed on her shoulder, and then he was gone.

She waited for the sound of his footsteps to retreat before the first tear fell and a sob rose in her throat. She choked it back because Grady hadn’t left the cabin yet. He had to get dressed and grab something to eat, and she was going to have to lay here and pretend she was still asleep until he was gone. Hold it together like her heart wasn’t breaking in two and only when he left could she fall apart.

Because she wouldn’t do it in front of a guy who could spend twenty-four hours in bed with her and walk away without any indication that it had meant anything at all.

It was a long twenty minutes, but Suzanne did it. She listened to his footsteps retreat. To the sound of water running through pipes while he took a quick shower. To the sound of the fridge door opening and the smell of coffee brewing and bread toasting. She listened to the radio static as he turned it on low and then the trek of his feet over to where the painting still stood on its easel, counting the seconds until he trekked back to the kitchen again.

Then the keys jingled as he pulled them off the hook on the wall, and several seconds later the door opened. Suzanne lay very still, hardly breathing as she waited for it to close. Waited and waited, the pressure building behind her eyes and in her sinuses.

And for long moments she swore she could feel the weight of his gaze on her back and she stopped breathing altogether, her heart beating like a train. Until finally—finally—the door clicked shut and the dam burst.

Suzanne allowed herself half an hour. One half hour before she picked herself up off the floor, literally and figuratively, and got on with the day. She needed to check on her parents. And clean up in here. Put the painting away. It was three days until Christmas, and she couldn’t spend them curled up in a fetal ball because she’d gone and done something monumentally stupid.

There was cooking to be done and last-minute things to buy. She’d told Winona she’d go to the boardinghouse and help her with some table favors she wanted to make. Her mom had promised she’d give a talk at the old folks’ home. She had too much to do to feel sorry for herself.