Page 14 of What We Keep
A long pause settled between us. My thoughts spun to Bree. I was still trying to wrap my brain around the fact that she died. They had seemed like a happy family. Bree had always been nice to me, back when I felt so awkward and out of place in a world my father viewed with deep suspicion.
“I bet it was tough to even get to the point of rebuilding,” I said softly.
Haven’s sharp features softened. “It was.” A beat of silence followed. “It is,” he added. “We really need to be open, like yesterday or maybe a year ago. But we have to meet code and all that. I knew once we started, it would be hard to finish if we tried to open before we were ready.”
“Makes sense.”
“What have you been doing for income during all this?” I asked.
“Well, we’re all firefighters and pilots. So that’s what we’ve been doing. While I have that law degree, I don’t love the work, but here and there, I handle small things.” He hesitated for a second, then asked, “Do you remember Nate?”
“Nate Fox,” I said. “I ran into him with Holly the other night.”
Haven smiled a little. “That’s the one.”
“He does contract work for the firefighting teams, and we fly the smokejumper planes with him. Sometimes we work the fires ourselves.”
“Is that hard after the fire here?” I internally flinched at my own question. That was me, queen of the obvious and awkward questions.
Haven tipped his head to the side, quiet for a few beats. Long enough that I worried I shouldn’t have asked. Yet he didn’t seem bothered by it. “Fires are getting worse everywhere out West. Summers are hotter and drier. Alaska’s no exception.” He exhaled, his shoulders stiffening slightly. “Obviously, the fire here was awful, but that’s not the hard part if that makes any sense.”
It made sense and was something I understood deeply. My father’s sad and needless death was painful, but it was separate from me in some ways. Like the fire itself wasn’t what hurt Haven, but the loss of his sister.
Strangely, I felt a sense of relief around it. Not relief that others had experienced hardship and loss—never that—but relief in knowing I wasn’t alone. That was the flip side of loss.
It was like walking through fire and coming out the other side. You weren’t unscathed, but you learned what you could live through. It was a mixed blessing.
“I understand,” I murmured.
At that moment, I felt something invisible stitch between us, a fragile thread of understanding.
“How about this?” Haven suggested. “You go ahead and move in.”
I didn’t mind the abrupt shift in conversation. I knew well the awkwardness of covering the ground of a loss and the need to move on quickly. If you got caught in it, it was like walking through quicksand. Not that I’d ever walked through quicksand. In hindsight, that fell on the list of childhood fears that seemed ridiculously overblown. To deal with loss, you had to keep moving, or you ran the risk of getting mired in it. That’s not to say you avoided it, but a part of grief was learning to live with it. You incorporated the loss in your heart and carried on.
My mind nudged on track as Haven continued, “And we’ll figure out some things for you to do around here. There’s more than enough to choose from.”
I felt uncertain about this plan, but I also needed a place to stay. I didn’t have any income yet. I didn’t know why I was being stubborn about it, but I hated asking for help. I knew from my time in therapy after my dad died that my reticence about asking for help was a response to a tragic loss. Or, for me, it was. I carried a deep-seated need to never need anyone.
Because if I didn’t need anyone, it wouldn’t hurt when they were gone. If I didn’t need anyone, I could solve everything myself. If I didn’t need anyone, I couldn’t get hurt again.
“Elsa?” he prompted.
I’d gotten derailed in my thoughts. Again. I had no idea how long this pause had stretched. “Okay,” I finally said.
Haven looked down at me, and his quiet chuckle sent a subtle vibration through my body. “Okay then.”
I bit the corner of my lip. When his eyes darkened, I convinced myself that it was a fluke. “I really appreciate this.”
I’d have to figure out how to deal with my inconvenient reaction to him. It would pass. It had to pass. Relationships weren’t for me. I couldn’t even ponder why I was contemplating relationships with Haven standing here. Much less chemistry, attraction, and all the messy things that came with them.
“Elsa?” Haven prompted.
I blinked up at him. “Uh-huh?”
“When would you like to move in?”
“As soon as I can?” My voice lilted slightly in question.
