He kissed her back the way he did everything that had stopped requiring justification — completely, without reservation, one hand at the side of her face and the other finding her waist with the unhurried certainty of something that had decided where it belonged.
The fire cracked behind them.
When she pulled back he stayed close, his forehead against hers, his eyes closed for a moment in the particular stillness of someone who has stopped calculating and is simply present. She felt his exhale — slow, warm — and didn't move.
He opened his eyes.
Blue and steady and, in the firelight, entirely unguarded.
"The garden," he said.
She blinked. "What about the garden."
"The rain will have flattened it."
She looked at him. He looked at her with complete equanimity.
"You're thinking about the garden," she said.
"I'm thinking that we'll need to re-stake the runner beans tomorrow morning before the soil sets around the damage." A pause. "I looked it up."
