Chapter 1
The Cabin
Anyone who said they loved to pack was a dirty liar.
Ava taped the box she’d crammed with her father’s academic books. She pushed it aside and shifted to sit cross-legged on the floor. Her shoulders slumped in resignation as she assessed the mess scattered around the living room. She’d been sorting and packing for a week, and her dad’s stuff only seemed to multiply. But that was fine with her.
Staying busy kept her mind occupied.
Being occupied kept her thoughts at bay.
And by keeping her thoughts at bay, she could ignore them altogether.
She pulled another stack of books toward her. TheBirds of Maine Field Guidetoppled over to reveal a long-forgotten photo strip tucked inside. The sequences of pictures captured a much younger Ava in the arms of a teenage boy, his shaggy brown hair curling at the ends.
Owen Fowler.
She quickly tossed the pictures back inside the book and slammed it shut. She threw it aside like it burned, not wanting to acknowledge the flood of emotions that came with the brief glimpse of her past.
The heavy weight that had rested on her shoulders since her dad died pressed tighter, threatening to suffocate her. Memories of Owen, just like the reality that her dad was gone, were thoughts she intended to pack away in the back of her mind.
Compartmentalization was her friend.
Her phone vibrating had her scrambling on hands and knees to locate the device. It could be her boss finally calling with the news she’d been waiting for.
She spotted the glowing screen and answered the incoming video call before the voicemail kicked on. It wasnother boss, but her best friend back in the city.
“Hey, Morgan. What’s up?” Ava tried to angle the phone so the surrounding mess wasn’t visible.
“Hey, girl. Woah.” Morgan’s smiling face turned serious. Her perfectly manicured dark brows lifted.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“When’s the last time your hair saw a brush? And you’ve got dirt smudged on your nose.”
Ava smoothed a hand over her messy bun and brought the phone closer to inspect her image. She groaned at what she saw. Compared to Morgan’s glowing brown complexion and tightly coiled curls, Ava’s honey blond hair and dirt-covered face looked downright disheveled. And not in a fun way.
“I’ve been busy packing all day,” she said.
“It’s not too late to hire movers to haul everything out. Then you don’t have to spend the entire summer in the middle of nowhere. You’re missing out on so much.”
Ava suppressed a sigh and blew an errant hair from her face. It came right back and tickled her chin like it was mocking her. She changed the subject instead of defending herself. “Speaking of, catch me up on work. Has there been any talk about the board member interviews?”
Morgan rolled her eyes but let it go.
“I heard they interviewed Austin this week, but not much else. I’ll keep bugging people for information, though. Tell me again when you’ll be back? It’s boring as hell at work without you.”
Ava’s dad’s death had shocked the spread-out Hanson family, and somehow, it became her responsibility to deal with his cabin in Cedar Falls. According to her brothers, it was easiest to put her life on hold since she lived the closest in New York. Their lives were too busy, their work schedules too demanding, they reasoned. She wished anyone else was doing it instead of her.
“Not until the end of August, but hopefully it won’t take that long, and I can get back sooner.”
Because, unlike her brothers thought, her life and work were just as busy and demanding, and she had her eye on a coveted opening on the Grand Bohemian Hotel’s Board of Directors.
Morgan let out an exaggerated sigh. “Ugh, that’s so far away. You’re going to miss out on my Fourth of July party next month.”
Ava blew the annoying lock of hair away from her face again and eyed her father’s leather recliner, debating if it was worth getting off the hardwood floor to sit somewhere more comfortable while they talked. The path to the chair was littered with half-filled boxes and rags she’d attempted to clean with, though every cleaning attempt led to her inhaling dust bunnies and fighting to breathe in between coughs. Keeping a clean house hadn’t been her father’s forte.
Before she could move, Ava heard tires crunching on gravel outside the cabin. The steep gravel driveway made it impossible to make anunannounced visit. Or a sneaky exit. She would know; Ava got caught sneaking out many a time as a dumb teenager eager for late-night rendezvous with her friends.
