Widow's Web

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.