He's going to come back at this. Probably, Thomas agreed. But now he knows we're not alone, Clare said. That changes his calculation. Yes, Thomas said.
He looked at her. You figured that out months ago. I figured it out when I saw how small this town was, Clare said. Small towns have long memories, and Whitmore has been operating in this one for 20 years. That cuts both ways.
Thomas was looking at her with the particular expression she had learned to recognize as Thomas Walker looking at something that meant more to him than he was currently saying. I need to ask you something, he said. All right, Clare said. When this is finished, when this is actually finished, the legal pieces and the bank and all of it, what are you planning to do? The question dropped into the air between them like something heavy placed gently.
Clare looked at him. She had been waiting for this question. She had been waiting for it since the porch the other night since the documentation box. Since the night she had told him about Ben and the hand in her sleep. She had been carrying her answer for weeks.
I'm planning to stay, she said. If you'll have me. Thomas held her gaze. As our housekeeper," he said, testing the word, knowing it was the wrong word, saying it to see what she would do with it. "No," Clare said.
"Not as your housekeeper." The kitchen was very quiet. Then, as what, he said. His voice was low, completely controlled, completely serious. Clare looked at him.
She looked at this man who had carried impossible weight and refused to put it down and had let her help him carry it and had been honest with her from the first conversation in a way that most people weren't honest in a year of knowing each other. And she thought about five children who had put her in a drawing of their home and talked to her about rabbits and stars and brought her broken music boxes and sat beside her in the dark. As that the person who stays, she said, "Whatever that means," Thomas was very still. I think I know what it means, he said. I think you do, too, Clare said.
He looked at her for a long moment. I said I'd wait until it was over, he said. You did, Clare said. It's not quite over yet, he said. No, she agreed.
It's not, "But it's close," he said. "Yes," she said. He reached across the table again. This time, he didn't take his hand back. She turned hers over.