And then someone knocked on the front door.
Ava dropped his wrist and took a backward step. Confusion marred her face.
Owen stifled a groan of disappointment. “You should get that,” Owen said. He cleared his throat to remove the huskiness from his voice. “I’ll clean this up.”
“Right,” Ava whispered.
She turned on her heel and walked out of his sight to answer the door. Moments later, the loon yodel sounded from the opened door.
Owen kneeled on the floor to pick up the debris he’d dropped. Some pieces skittered under the nearby armchair. He reached a hand under the chair, blindly feeling around for any remnants. Instead, his hand connected with something smooth. A book.
Hidden under the armchair was a copy of theBirds of Maine Field Guide. The glossy cover showed scratches, and the top corner was missing. Ava probably didn’t know it was under there. When he stood, something slipped out from between the pages. He placed the book on the seat of the chair for Ava to find and bent over to grab the strip of paper off the floor.
Flipping it over revealed a photo strip of the two of them from when they were teenagers. Owen smiled, tracing his thumb over the image of Ava kissing his cheek in the photo booth. At the sound of the front door closing, Owen shoved it into his pocket to keep. He doubted Ava even knew about the photo strip.
He crossed through the living room and down the hallway connecting the downstairs bathroom to the kitchen to throw away the scraps he’d gathered. There he found Ava, still standing by the front door, staring down at a cardboard box in her hands. Her upper back and shoulders were tense with unease. Owen threw away the trash in his hand and approached her.
Something was wrong.
Chapter 14
The Package
Of all the packages she could’ve received at the cabin, her dad’s ashes were the last thing she’d expected. How had she not even thought about the fact someone had to collect his cremated ashes at some point? A wave of dizziness had washed over her as she’d signed for it. She thought she thanked the courier before shutting the door in his face, but she couldn’t be sure.
She stared down at the box.
Pleasant Rest Funeral Home and Crematorium
Warning: Human Remains
The box was lighter than she would expect for human remains. She supposed they were ash, but still. Her dad, the man often larger than life, with his bespectacled face and graying beard, his love of all things loons, his natural ability to make anyone laugh with a corny joke; howhad the entirety of her dad been distilled into a lightweight box no heavier than his favorite case of beer?
Distantly, she was aware of Owen somewhere in the cabin. The heavy tread of his boots against the wooden floors thumped from nearby. Then she felt the slightest bit of warmth through the chill that had overtaken her body.
“Are you OK? Who was at the door?”
She tore her gaze away from the package to look at Owen. A crease appeared on his forehead as he studied her.
“It’s Dad,” she said.
She blinked back tears that threatened to fall as she uttered the words. She would not cry, not now, at least. Not in front of Owen. She already felt vulnerable, something she never allowed herself to be. So she did what she did best. She shoved all the broken shards of grief cutting away at the inside of her chest back into the box they’d escaped from. Then, for good measure, she slapped an extra piece of tape across the seam on top.
Ava forced her shoulders to relax and took a deep breath. When she felt in control again, she placed the package on the dining room table to deal with later.
“Alright. Where were we? You needed me to vacuum, right?”
Owen stared at her in confusion.
She ignored it and pressed on. “You asked me to vacuum under the step. Let’s get back to it.”
She walked past Owen to get the vacuum out of the hallway closet. A tug at her wrist stopped her. Owen’s warm fingers pressed against the pulse in her wrist, thawing a little more of the chill wrapped around her.
“Forget about the stairs. Ava, are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she said. She looked past his face, focusing on the pattern of the wallpaper behind him. If she saw the warmth of his coffee brown eyes, the concern, she knew she’d crumble. But she didn’t want to do that. Not now.
So she broke his hold on her wrist and kept walking. “I’ll just get that vacuum,” she said.
