Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Owen
The phone buzzes against the counter. Once. Twice.
I ignore it.
Emma’s still curled into the armchair, her knees drawn up beneath one of the wool blankets. Her hair’s still damp where the snow melted around her hairline, her cheeks flushed adorably pink. The fire casts her in gold. She hasn’t said much since we came back in. Just watched me.
I’ve been quiet. I can’t break the feeling that if I say something… I’ll ruin everything. It’s perfect, just like this.
She gives me a thoughtful look, like she knows something’s shifting beneath my skin.
The phone buzzes again, and I turn it over.
Shit. “No cell reception” is a great excuse when you don’t want to hear from your family or your boss, but Seamus McCarthy isn’t a patient man. Neither is my father.
Sure enough.
Two messages. One from my father. The other from Seamus, the man they call The Undertaker.
Da
Call me. We need to talk.
Boss
Kilkenny. Friday. No delays this time. Big job. You in or out?
I stare at the screen. The snow hums outside, the wind brushing the eaves. My lungs go still.
She doesn’t ask what it says. But I know she sees me looking.
I lock the phone and place it face down.
I don’t move… just stand there, my palms braced against the edge of the counter. The warmth of the cabin has nothing to do with what I feel. I’m split open, cold at the edges, burning at the core.
Ireland.
It was always going to come back to this.
Half my life is there. The jobs. The family. Bits of me I’ve left half-buried. I never told Emma how deep that world goes. How long it’s been calling.
And now it’s not just calling. It’s demanding.
Friday.
That’s four days.
Four days to pack up. Fly out. Step back into a version of myself that doesn’t have room for wool blankets and hot cocoa and the sound of her laughter in the snow.
She shifts in the chair, and her eyes find mine.
“Bad news?”
Her voice is soft, careful.
I shake my head. Then stop.
“It’s complicated,” I say. But it’s not.
She waits.
I move toward the fire, dropping into the chair across from her. The distance between us is a breath. A heartbeat. A lifetime.
“My father wants me home.”
She doesn’t flinch. But something in her posture goes tighter, less curled and more alert.
“I didn’t know you still talked to your dad.”
“Aye.” I sigh.
“Something wrong?” she asks curiously.
“No. Just… work.”
“I didn’t know you worked together.”
I shrug. “Yes, and… no.”
She nods slowly. “So you’re… leaving.”
It’s not a question. I hate the way her face falls. I’d do anything to keep her happy, to keep her here with me and erase those worry lines between her brows.
I stare at her. A little bit of snow still clings to the tips of her hair, half-melted now. Her legs are tucked close to her chest like she’s bracing.
“I don’t want to, but I…”
She says nothing.
“I have to,” I add.
Still nothing.
The silence feels worse than shouting. Worse than crying. It’s knowing that she’s retreating into that quiet place where I can’t follow, where her thoughts twist without me.
“What are you thinking?” I ask.
She shrugs. “I always knew this wasn’t forever.”
My stomach turns. “That’s not what I wanted.”
“But it’s what’s happening.”
The fire pops, but she doesn’t look at me. Just stares into the flames like she can find a version of this moment that hurts less.
I lean forward, elbows on my knees, my voice low.
“There’s a job in Kilkenny. The McCarthys want me in by Friday.”
Her breath catches. “This Friday?”
“Aye.”
I see it, that tiny flicker of pain behind her eyes. She swallows it down fast, but it’s there.
“How long?” she asks.
“Two weeks. Maybe three.”
“And then what?”
“I come back, eventually.”
She lifts her gaze to mine. “Will you really come back? Or are you just saying that because you don’t want to watch me fall apart?”
I can’t answer, not right away. Because the truth is, I don’t know.
Every part of me wants to stay in this cabin. Until now, there was no reason to stay.
A part of me wants to watch her wake up in my bed every morning, wants to build a life that begins with waking to the sound of her breathing beside me.
But that’s not real. Not sustainable. I can’t keep ignoring who I am outside these walls. And once she knows… neither will she.
“I don’t want to leave you,” I say.
She gives me a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “But you will.”
I exhale.
“Hungry?”
I want to ask if she’s leaving. Instead, I ask if she’s hungry.
Coward.
She nods. “Mmm.”
“Sit. Maybe play with your words a bit, and I’ll make lunch, aye?”
“Thank you,” she says, but her smile is sad.
Why does it feel as if something’s unraveling?