"No. You don't owe me anything. I don't expect anything from you. I know that's hard to believe when you've grown up in a world where you owe your entire life to a man with a dragon stick."
"But Sober—"
"No, let me finish this, please. I don't want to own you, Repentance. I rescued you because I couldn't bear to think of the life squeezed out of you by the swingman's rope. I couldn't bear to think of your beautiful eyes with no light in them. It was purely selfish on my part, but not the kind of selfishness you think. I don't mean to use you or take anything from you. I love you and I want you to be safe and free."
She smiled. "You love me?"
He looked confused. "Of course I love you. Was that ever in question?'
"So you're not having a joke on me? You really were waiting for me all those years?"
He looked shocked. "How many times must I say it?"
"I don't understand why you would do that. You didn't even know me. We'd not spoken more than a few words before that trip up the mountain."
"I loved you all the same," he looked at her, his face flushed and his eyes bright. "I've loved you since the day I saw you in the swamp picking persimmons for Comfort, when everyone was saying your mother wasn't right in the head. I heard you singing to Comfort and telling her you'd never let anyone take her away. I wanted to protect you. That's why I put the bunches of swamp bananas on the ground every week just at the time you were out with Comfort looking for breakfast. And the berries and nuts. Didn't you ever wonder why the squirrels loved you so much that they left you mounds of berries in the summer and nuts in the winter?"
She laughed. "You? I used to thank Providence for all that food. I thought he knocked those bananas out of the trees for us."
"No, that would have bruised them. He made me crazy in love with you so I climbed the trees and carried the bananas down and gently laid them on the ground for you."
Repentance blushed. He was crazy in love. She was overwhelmed. She never knew. And even after she caused him so much pain, he still loved her. She swiped at the stray tears that slipped down her face. "And here I was afraid you might want to button with Generosity."
"Generosity?"
"She's very nice," Repentance said. "And she's pretty."
"She is both of those things." Sober said. "But I've never thought of her in that way." He leaned back and closed his eyes, thinking. "Interesting question. Were I not in love with you, would I button Generosity? She's a fine girl. Still a man likes to have a little peace and quiet in his own home of an evening." He opened his eyes and threw Repentance a wink. "And I do believe Generosity could chase a dead man from his grave with all her chatter."
She looked at his happy face and laughed with him at the thought of Generosity talking a dead man from the grave. She kept looking at him after they grew quiet. Where would she be in five years? He would be free eventually. Would he still want her?
It didn't much matter. She understood perfectly what Providence had done to Sober all those years ago because he'd done the same thing to Repentance. Crazy in love. That described it perfectly.
She slid close to him, picked up his arm, ducked underneath it, and laid her head on his chest. He settled his arm around her.
"I love you, Sober," she said.
He bent down and kissed the top of her head. "And now I can die a happy man," he whispered.
She snuggled against him.
"Well, no, that's not true. I'm not perfectly contented, yet," he said. He reached under her knees and pulled her onto his lap. Then he kissed her.
On the mouth.
For a long time.
When he finally pulled away she fell against his neck, feeling a little lightheaded.
He closed both arms around her and held her tight.
"Now you're content?" Her voice sounded gravelly as if she'd not used it in years.
"Not really."
She stiffened in his arms. He hadn't liked it? She'd never kissed anyone before. Maybe she'd done it wrong.
He kissed her again. Longer that time. Finally he trailed little kisses across her cheek to her neck, just below her ear.
"Not nearly content," he whispered. "You're like salt water. The more I drink, the thirstier I get."
She leaned against his shoulder and sighed. She, at least, was perfectly content.
There is rest for the weary warrior on the sunny slopes of Providence's Mountain, but there is none to be had in this world. You mustn't lie down and sleep. Every time I've thought to take a little nap, I've paid the price. Evil never rests and neither can we.
~Kindness Firtree, Meditations on the Precepts
Chapter 33
Sober kissed her once more and scooted her off his lap and onto the settee beside him. "Now, leave me be, woman. My breakfast is already cold," he said as he picked up his fork.
She shoved him with her shoulder. "You blame me?"
"I don't see anyone else here distracting me."
They ate in silence, glancing at each other and smiling every so often.
When he finished breakfast, Sober waved at the bookshelves that covered the walls. "Well, then, what shall we do today, Repentance? Read books, read books, or read books?"
She thought sitting on the settee and continuing with that kissing business might be nice, but she said, "Well, I don't know. I was kind of thinking we might read books."
He smiled. "Good idea. We have
