When Tara got home from work, I was on the couch, reading. I had my head on one arm of the couch and my feet over the other. I lowered my book and watched her come through the door.

She kicked off her shoes—she always did that first—and then dropped her purse, exhaling a breath. “Hey,” she said to me. “What’s for dinner?”

I raised my eyebrows at her. “Takeout is on the counter.” She had worked late, which meant that dinner was my job. Except I couldn’t cook to save my life. As if she would be surprised.

She walked to the counter, checked out what I’d bought, nodded in approval. “Okay.” Then she bypassed the food and opened the fridge to pull out her go-to bottle of white wine. “First things first.”

“That good a day?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Just long.” But there was a knot of a frown between her eyebrows, and her expression was distracted as she poured her wine.

We were in our apartment—our place. An apartment we’d rented together. I was still in shock, to tell the truth, that I was actually living with her. We’d moved in a month ago, and so far I hadn’t fucked it up, which was incredible. I told myself that if Tara came to her senses and kicked me out, I could always pack a bag and go back to the guest house.

Then I’d try and get her back. As many times as it took.

I watched as Tara sipped her wine, then unzipped her slim black pants and pulled them off. It was a nice show, but I knew it wasn’t for me. She was stressed out about something, and she was trying to get comfortable. Wearing just her work blouse and her panties, she picked up her wine again and came my way.

“What are you reading?” she asked.

She would tell me what was wrong sooner or later. I could wait. “Jane Eyre,” I said, showing her the cover. “Just like you told me to.”

That made her smile. “You needed to read something besides that godawful Dostoevsky. What do you think?”

I frowned. “She’s thinking about marrying that St. John guy, which would be a big fucking mistake. She doesn’t belong with him at all.”

Tara approached the couch and swung one long, bare leg over me, lowering herself onto my lap, straddling me while still holding her wine. “She’s trying to figure out how to be a good person,” she said.

I was lost for a second, because I was looking at those long legs, but then I remembered what we were talking about. “She doesn’t need to marry a prig and go be a religious bore to be a good person,” I said. “She can be a good person by being with Rochester and helping with his fucked-up self.”

“Well, I won’t give it away,” Tara said, smiling at me. She took a sip of her wine, and then her brow knotted again. “I just learned that one of my clients went back to prison.”

I frowned at her. “Not your fault,” I said. “You know that, right?”

“Logically, yes,” Tara said. She was comfortable now, sitting on my lap like she belonged there. I wasn’t about to move. She swallowed and looked away. “I mean, I do know that. And it’s happened before. But it always makes me think about what I could be doing better.”

“You can’t save everyone in the world,” I told her. I took her free hand and kissed the back of it. “You do good work. Just look at me.”

I’d always be an ex-con, but I was a respectable businessman now. Sort of. We had opened a second location of Riggs Auto, this one on the right side of the tracks, in the nicer part of town. Ryan had moved back to Westlake with his son, and we made it look like the new location was Ryan’s, which gave it a steady stream of customers. Behind the scenes, I did most of the books, the planning, and the marketing. Ryan just fixed the cars, sometimes shirtless. It was a license to print money.

“That’s different,” Tara said.

“No, it isn’t.” I let her hand go. “Something else is bugging you. What is it?”

She sighed. “They want to give me a promotion at work.”

I felt my eyebrows go up. “You don’t sound enthused.”

“It would be more of an administrative role,” she said, sipping her wine again. “I’d be doing more back-end work, going to meetings and looking at budgets. I wouldn’t be seeing so many clients face to face. It’s a pay raise, but I feel like I won’t be helping as many people as I could.”

I thought about that. She was always so hard on herself, my Tara. Always looking for ways she could be improving herself, doing a better job than she already was. The truth was she could do just about anything she set her mind to. “If you’re looking at budgets, then you’re deciding how the money is spent,” I said.

“True.”

“So you could decide to hire more counselors, or better ones, or improve the kind of counseling they do. You could decide to take on more clients who need it but can’t afford it. You could spend some of that money on Saturday hours for people who work all week and can’t afford to take a day off.”

Tara looked at me, the frown between her eyes.

“You could improve the outreach,” I said. “You could, say, offer sessions to abused women or abused kids. Get some specialists in to teach your counselors what to do. Organize talks at schools. Connect up with the cops and emergency services for women who need restraining orders.” I shrugged. “Okay, I don’t really know what I’m talking about. But you see what I mean.”

“Jesus, Jace,” Tara said. “How do you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Make everything make so much sense. It’s like your superpower. I’ve been conflicted about this all day.”

“I don’t see why. You can do lots of good as an administrator. More, maybe.”

She sighed. “Obviously, I should listen to you about everything.”

“Really?” I smiled at her. “Okay, take your panties off.”

She smiled back. “Nuh-uh,” she said, putting her glass of wine down. “I’m starving. Dinner first.” She leaned forward and kissed me, and I cupped her head, made it go on longer. She tasted like wine, and I licked it from her mouth, making her groan.

“Trying again,” I said when I broke the kiss. “Take your panties off.”

“Not yet,” she said. “Later.”

But she leaned in and kissed me again, and this time was deeper.

I had her.

And it was the only thing I wanted.

* * *