Page 75 of Off the Beaten Path

My shoulders feel heavy again, my knees weak, and it’s like Holden can sense it, because he drops my hand, his warm, strong arm coming around my waist instead, holding me upright. I lean into him shamelessly, needing to siphon his strength when I feel on the verge of collapsing.

“Is there anything we can do?” Holden asks, and I’m a little transfixed by the raindrop clinging to the tip of his nose. It’s something to focus on besides the way my life is falling apart.

Grey shakes his head. “No, the fire chief will be in touch probably tomorrow. Once he does his walk-through, he should be able to tell you when you can get back inside.”

Holden nods, his arm tightening around me. “I think I’m going to take Wren home, then.” Hazel eyes focus on me. “Is that okay? Do you want to stay?”

I’m chilled to the core and numb, my voice frozen in my throat, so all I can manage is a shake of my head. I don’t want to stay. I don’t want to look at it any longer, not when that clawing sensation is climbing back up my chest.

He presses a kiss to my temple and murmurs, “Let’s go home, Red.”

I don’t remember the walk back to the truck or Holden buckling me into the front seat or the drive back. It’s all a blur, but before I know it, he’s turned into the driveway of his house instead of my cottage. The house is dark, and I remember that we left June at Jodi’s house for her weekly sleepover, so it’s just us.

That’s good, because I don’t want June to see me fall apart, and I know I’m dangerously close to it, despite all of Holden’s talk of everything being okay and us figuring things out together. I don’t knowhowthis can be figured out, at least not in time.

Everything is over. I focus on my cottage across the yard separating our homes, and I wonder if I’ll lose it. I won’t be able to sell the cabin in the state it’s in, but I won’t be able to afford the mortgage without the income it was going to generate. Maybe the bedroom there hasn’t suffered too much smoke damage and I can stay there and work on the renovations.

That’s a plan, a step.

“What’s going on in that head of yours, Red?” Holden asks, reminding me that I’m not in this truck alone.

“I’m going to sell my cottage,” I say, noticing how hollow my voice sounds.

Holden shakes his head, and I can hear the movement of his damp hair against his collar. “You’re not going to sell your cottage.”

“What am I going to do?”

“We’ll figure something out,” he says, but I’m shaking my head.

“You keep saying that, buthow, Holden? There’s no plan. I messed up.” I sound ragged, wrung out, just like I feel.

His hand finds mine, massaging the palm, and it’s only then that I realize how sore it is from how tightly I was holding them together in my lap. “It was an accident, Red. A freak accident of nature. There was nothing you could have done.” His eyes lock on mine, and there’s a firm set to his jaw, just like before. “But wewillfigure this out.”

I want to believe everything’s going to be okay. I want to reclaim my role in our relationship as the glass-half-full partner, but everything feels so bleak. So I just nod, even though I don’t think what he’s promising can come true.

“Let’s go to bed,” he says, and I finally notice that it’s grown dark, too cloudy from the rain to see the moon and stars. I wish we could watch them together tonight, because staring up at the inky vastness has a way of making me feel minuscule. But tonight, the fog is heavy, both literally and figuratively, and my problems feel like a beam of light slicing through it, finding me even in the darkness.

Holden leads me inside, pulling me gently by the hand to his bedroom. He only lets go to pull out a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt that looks like it will hang to my knees. He sends me into the bathroom to change, and I’m haunted by the purple half moons under my eyes, the emptiness inside them. I look as hollow and ragged as I feel.

When I come back out, Holden has changed and pulled back the blankets. He helps me into bed and then climbs in beside me. His arms wrap around me, and I breathe in his familiar scent, sawdust and pine-scented soap, the only thing tethering me to reality.

“Sleep, Wren. Everything will be okay in the morning.”

I don’t believe him, but I cling to that sentiment, chanting it over and over again until I finally drift off to sleep.

WhenIwakeup,I’m alone, Wren’s side of the bed cold and empty. The first rays of light are bleeding through the curtains in shades of pinks and purples, and I wonder how early Wren must have been up. If she traversed my house in the darkness to leave. Not for the first time since we got the call, I wonder what she’s thinking. She usually wears her every emotion on her face so clearly, but last night, there was only a blank emptiness that cut me straight to the core.

I slide out of bed, the hardwood cool against my feet as I search the house for Wren. She’s nowhere to be found, and her car isn’t in her driveway where Mom and Finley must have dropped it off last night while we were at the cabin. There’s only one place I can imagine her going, so I get dressed quickly and hop into my truck, heading up into the mountains.

I’m not at all surprised to find Wren’s little yellow VW Beetle parked in front of the charred, ashy remains of the cabin. She’s sitting on the hood bundled in one of my jackets. Grey was right. It looks like the fire was localized to the front of the cabin, because the back looks relatively untouched, but the damage is still extensive.

When I climb up on the hood next to Wren, her eyes are red rimmed, her nose and cheeks pink from the early morning chill and from crying. She looks wrecked, and it makes my chest physically ache. I have to press my hand there just to dull it.

Her boots are soot stained. “Did you go inside?” I ask, already knowing the answer.

She nods, just a barely there dip of her chin. “Yeah.”

“Wren,” I sigh. “It’s not safe. You should have waited on the fire chief, or at least for me, to go in with you.”

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