He told her over breakfast, just like that, casually like it was nothing.
"I have an errand to run this morning," Gabriel said, not looking up from his coffee. "I'll be back by early afternoon."
Autumn kept her eyes on her plate. "Okay," she replied. "What time are you leaving?"
"Around ten."
She nodded and took a bite of her toast and said, "I'll probably just read."
He looked at her then, and she looked back at him with exactly the right amount of emotion on her face—mild, a little sleepy, and unbothered. He held her gaze for two seconds.
"Good," he said, then went back to his coffee.
She had two and a half hours to get through before ten o'clock, and she spent them doing exactly what she'd said she would. She sat in the front room with a book open in her lap, reading the same par
