I release his forearm. He releases me at the same moment, steadying me against the wall first, making sure I have it before he steps back.
"I was bored," I say. "Bed rest is not a skill I have."
There is a threat of a smile on his face. "Come on," he says. "I have something for you."
He offers his arm without making a production of it. I take it. He adjusts to my pace without comment, taking on more of my weight than I mean to give him, and we're close enough movingthrough the hall that our sides stay in contact from shoulder to hip. He smells like cedar soap and something warmer underneath it, something my nervous system files as safe before I've made any conscious determination about it. The tension across my shoulders drops a fraction.
Owen opens the door at the end of the hall.
It's a working room. Shelves with books, the spines worn soft. Two dark monitors on a desk. A sofa along the near wall, wide and deep, brown leather aged to butter from use. A smaller fireplace already going. The whole room has the quality of a space that gets used seriously and has never been arranged for company.
"Jace went to your cabin this morning," he says. "He brought your laptop. Your phone. The notebook that was on the kitchen table." A pause, careful. "We didn't look at anything. We thought you'd want them close."
I go still.
Something moves through my chest fast enough that I don't catch it before I'm already turning toward Owen and putting my arms around him. Pure reflex, gratitude arriving before the more sensible parts of me have anything to say about it. Thank you for thinking of me. Thank you for knowing what I'd need without asking.
He goes still. One beat, two, a man recalibrating, and then his arms come around me. His hand settles between my shoulder blades, careful, and I can feel his heartbeat under my ear, slow and steady.
I pull back.
My face is warm. I concentrate on a point past Owen's left shoulder while I locate the parts of myself that know how to behave and reassemble them into something functional.
Owen clears his throat and steers me toward the sofa and moves the coffee table closer with one foot, settling one of the sofa cushions on it.
"Sit."
I sit. He crouches in front of me and takes my ankle in both hands and moves it onto the cushion with a care that is so specific and deliberate that I feel it in places that have nothing to do with my ankle. He reaches past me for the throw blanket on the sofa back and settles it across my legs, tucking the edge. Then he brings my things from the desk and places them within reach.
I go for the laptop immediately.
"Limited screen time," Owen says. "You hit your head and need to be careful."
"I know. Just finishing a project." I open the file. The fox kit is there, exactly where I left it, one paw forward, not committed. I study the line of the ear, the shadow I haven't finished beneath the chin.
Then, curiosity takes the best of me. "What do you do in here all day? I know Reid works at the wolf rescue center. What about you and Jace?."
Owen looks up from where he's setting my notebook on the cushion beside me. A beat passes. Small, but I catch it.
"I handle finances, mostly. Remote work." He straightens. "Jace does guide services and runs field expeditions. That sort of thing."
I wait for more. It doesn't come. The answer is accurate and contained and it closes like a door, politely. But Owen is entitled to his privacy. I am the last person who gets to push on that.
"And you?" he asks.
"Illustrations. Children's books, mainly." I pull up my working file. The fox kit blinks back at me. "This one is part of a series about hard concepts. Loss. Grief. Fear."
Owen looks at me from across the desk where he is settling. That quality again, the one that sees more. "That's really good," he says.
I look back at my screen. My face warms under the praise before I can stop it.
He opens his laptop. Reaches into the desk drawer. Puts on his glasses.
I look up once, involuntary, and look immediately back down.
They are dark-framed, rectangular, slightly too serious for his face, and that is precisely the problem. The glasses add a layer of quiet authority that I am completely unprepared for.
The room settles into quiet. The fire ticks low. His keyboard starts, even, unhurried, the rhythm of someone who knows exactly what they're doing.
