Silas placed his card on the counter.

I covered it with my hand.

His gaze dropped to where I touched him.

"No," I said.

The clerk suddenly became fascinated by tissue paper.

"They're for Sophie," Silas said.

"I know."

"This isn't an allowance."

"I know that too."

"Then why?"

Because Grant had begun with small things. Dinner. Gas. A coat I could not afford. Every gift became a receipt he presented during arguments.

I could not explain all of that at a cash register.

"I need to buy the first pair," I said.

Silas removed his card.

No argument. No wounded pride.

"All right."

I chose the less expensive red sneakers without the lights. The total dropped below forty dollars. The protected card worked on the third attempt.

Sophie wore them out of the store.

We stopped at the food court because Sophie smelled cinnamon pretzels. I reached automatically for my purse, remembered the three dollars left inside it, and said I was not hungry.

Silas heard the lie. His eyes went to the menu and then to me, but he did not reach for his wallet.

"Ronan lost a bet," he said.

Ronan, who had just sat down with his coffee, looked offended. "Did I?"

"Yes."

"What was the bet?"

"Whether you could remain quiet for ten consecutive minutes."

Maeve checked her watch. "He lost in the parking lot."

"This organization is corrupt."

Ronan bought a paper bag of pretzels and pushed it into the middle of the table as his alleged penalty. Sophie tore one into uneven pieces and distributed them with solemn fairness. One for me. One for Maeve. One for Ronan. The largest for Silas.

"Because he tied my shoes," she explained.

Silas broke his piece in half and gave part back to her.

Grant had never split the best portion. He took it as naturally as he took the first shower, the television remote, and the right to decide when an argument was over. Such tiny thefts had seemed too petty to name. Watching Silas hand half a pretzel to my daughter made every one of them rise in my memory.

I stared down at the salt on my fingers.

"You all right?" Silas asked.

He did not touch me. He had learned that sudden concern could feel like another kind of corner.

"Just hungry," I said.

This time the lie was gentler. He let me keep it.

Outside, Silas carried the returned boxes toward the pickup. I walked beside him.

"You were angry when she called me Mrs. Quinn."

"Yes."

"You didn't pretend otherwise."

"Would pretending improve it?"

"Grant always said jealousy proved love."

Silas stopped beside the truck.

"Jealousy proves jealousy. What I do with it proves something else."

"And what are you doing with it?"

His eyes moved toward my bare ring finger.

"Carrying shoe boxes."

I laughed.

"You hate my name that much?"

"I hate that he attached himself to it."

"Quinn was my name before Grant."

Silas blinked.

"He took yours?"

"No. He took mine. We had the same last name before we met. He joked it was fate."

Something in Silas eased.

Then I added, "People still hear it and think wife before they think Evelyn."

His expression darkened again.

"What do you hear?" I asked.

He set the boxes in the truck bed.

"The woman who told a doctor he had never treated her. The mother who designed three ambulances. The person who laughs when I burn toast."

His voice lowered.

"And the mate I am trying very hard not to claim before she chooses me."

The word claim should have sounded like Grant locking a door.

In Silas's mouth, it sounded like a question he was prepared to spend years asking.

"What happens if she never chooses you?"

The muscles in his forearms tightened around the boxes.

"Then she is still my mate. And still not mine."

There was no self-pity in it. That made the answer hurt more.

The parking lot disappeared around us.

I felt the pull between our bodies, hot and quiet. One step would place me against him.

Sophie opened the truck door.

"My shoes are fast!"

The moment released us.

On the way home, she kicked both red heels happily against the seat.

For once, I did not tell her to stop.