He was gentle with Kai in exactly the ways my ex-husband had never been.

He listened.

He remembered.

He never rushed me.

I had come out of my divorce braced for a man who would want too much too fast, and here was one who seemed to want nothing but our happiness, and the relief of that was so large that I never once asked what a man like that was doing, quietly, with the deed to my house.

Now, kneeling in that hallway, the memories I had trained myself to explain away came back all at once.