Jennifer Estep: Widow's Web

But he wasn’t—and I didn’t know if he would ever be here again.

I was sitting there staring at the rune when a sharp knock sounded on the front door, followed by a key turning in the lock. Besides me, only a few people had a key to the house—and Owen was one of them.

Heart pounding, I put the drawing aside, got to my feet, and went out into the hallway, hurrying toward the front of the house. I skidded to a stop just inside the door, waiting for whoever was outside to come on in and show himself. The lock clicked open, and the door swung forward.

But it wasn’t Owen standing on the other side—it was Bria.

My baby sister stepped inside the house and held the door open for someone coming in behind her—Roslyn. Both women were carrying canvas bags full of . . . something. I couldn’t quite tell what.

“Hi, Gin!” Roslyn called out, putting both of her bags into one hand so she could pull the door shut behind her.

“Roslyn. Bria. What are ya’ll doing here?”

Bria raised an eyebrow. “You told me to come by anytime.”

“Me too,” Roslyn chimed in.

I shook off my confusion. “Of course, and you’re always welcome. Both of you—you know that. I’m just . . . surprised, that’s all.”

Bria and Roslyn exchanged a look. Then they both came in farther, passing me in the hallway and heading toward the kitchen. They dumped their bags on the table and started unpacking the items inside, which included some cheeses, crackers, chocolates, fresh fruit, a bottle of wine, and a couple of books.

“What’s all this?” I asked.

I picked up one of the books and turned it over so I could see the cover. The words Little Women glinted in silver foil.

“Book club,” Roslyn said, opening the kitchen drawers in search of something.

“Book club?”

“Remember, you were joking the other day at the Pork Pit that we should start our own book club. Well, I talked to Bria, and we both thought it was a fine idea, especially now . . .” Roslyn winced, and her voice trailed off, but I knew what she’d been about to say.

Especially now that you and Owen are having problems .

My heart twinged with pain, but I was gracious enough not to call her on it.

“We thought it would be fun,” Bria said in a quiet tone. “For all of us. Roslyn and I have spent the last few days reading Little Women .”

The two of them looked at me, the question of whether they should go or stay clear in their eyes. They were obviously trying to cheer me up, and their gesture touched me. I knew they wouldn’t have read the book if Roslyn hadn’t seen me with it at the restaurant. I hadn’t had many true friends in my life, and I was glad that I’d found them. So even though I didn’t really want company, I plastered a smile on my face.

“I think book club sounds like a great idea. Thanks for thinking of it—and me.”

“Excellent!” Roslyn said and turned her attention back to the drawer she was rifling through. “Although where’s your corkscrew? I don’t see one in here.”

“I think Finn stuffed it in one of the drawers in the den the last time he was here. I’ll get it.”

Bria and Roslyn started chatting about how good the food looked and what sort of plates they should put everything on, while I went into the den. After a couple of minutes of searching, I found the corkscrew stuffed down behind one of the couch cushions.

“Finn,” I said, laughing a little and shaking my head.

I’d just turned to go back to the kitchen when my eyes landed on the drawing I’d done of Owen’s hammer rune. I stopped and picked up the paper, my fingers tracing over the rune, a sharp, pulsing ache in my heart once more.

But like it or not, the pain and the uncertainty were things that I just had to live with, like I had so many other hard, painful things in my life. Owen and I had hit a rough patch, thanks to my actions, and his too. Now we had to deal with the consequences and fallout as best we could. Owen had asked for some time, and I needed the space and separation too. Maybe more than he did. Time to realize that Owen had loved someone before me. Time to realize that part of him would probably always love Salina. Time to realize that her death had hit him harder than I’d thought it would—harder than I thought it should. But who was I to judge? I wasn’t exactly the poster child for emotional health. Quite the opposite.

Besides, Jo-Jo had said that everything would work out the way it was supposed to. I’d taken her words to mean that Owen and I weren’t done, that she saw a future for us. It might take a while, and there might be a lot of heartache along the way, but we’d get there. I knew we would. I had to believe we would.

I just had to.

I carefully tore the sheet with Owen’s rune out of my sketchpad and propped it up alongside the others on the mantel. Maybe it was time for a change regarding the drawings. I’d always thought of them as the runes of my dead family, but maybe, maybe I could start thinking of them as tributes instead. A way to celebrate the people I loved.

Or maybe the love Owen and I had shared was just as dead as my mother, sister, and Fletcher.

No, I thought. Our love wasn’t dead. It was just a little battered and bruised. It would eventually heal, and I was determined to do everything I could to help it along. If that meant giving Owen time and space to himself, then that was what I was going to do—no matter how much I just wanted to be in his arms right now.

“Come on, Gin,” Bria said in a loud voice. “The wine isn’t going to open itself!”

“Be right there!” I called back.

My friends had come to cheer me up, and I was going to let them. So I had a broken heart—so what? I’d gotten through worse, and I’d get through this too. This time, I was just grateful that there were people here for me, people who cared about me.

I looked at Owen’s rune a final time, then fixed a smile on my face and headed into the kitchen to eat, drink, talk, and laugh the night away with my friends, my family.