A Summer to Stay (Cedar Falls #1)

Chapter 1

The Cabin

Anyone who said they loved to pack was a dirty liar.

Ava taped the box she’d crammed with her father’s academic books.

She pushed it aside and shifted to sit cross-legged on the floor.

Her shoulders slumped in resignation as she assessed the mess scattered around the living room.

She’d been sorting and packing for a week, and her dad’s stuff only seemed to multiply. But that was fine with her.

Staying busy kept her mind occupied.

Being occupied kept her thoughts at bay.

And by keeping her thoughts at bay, she could ignore them altogether.

She pulled another stack of books toward her. The Birds of Maine Field Guide toppled over to reveal a long-forgotten photo strip tucked inside. The sequences of pictures captured a much younger Ava in the arms of a teenage boy, his shaggy brown hair curling at the ends.

Owen Fowler.

She quickly tossed the pictures back inside the book and slammed it shut. She threw it aside like it burned, not wanting to acknowledge the flood of emotions that came with the brief glimpse of her past.

The heavy weight that had rested on her shoulders since her dad died pressed tighter, threatening to suffocate her. Memories of Owen, just like the reality that her dad was gone, were thoughts she intended to pack away in the back of her mind.

Compartmentalization was her friend.

Her phone vibrating had her scrambling on hands and knees to locate the device. It could be her boss finally calling with the news she’d been waiting for.

She spotted the glowing screen and answered the incoming video call before the voicemail kicked on. It was not her boss, but her best friend back in the city.

“Hey, Morgan. What’s up?” Ava tried to angle the phone so the surrounding mess wasn’t visible.

“Hey, girl. Woah.” Morgan’s smiling face turned serious. Her perfectly manicured dark brows lifted.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“When’s the last time your hair saw a brush? And you’ve got dirt smudged on your nose.”

Ava smoothed a hand over her messy bun and brought the phone closer to inspect her image. She groaned at what she saw. Compared to Morgan’s glowing brown complexion and tightly coiled curls, Ava’s honey blond hair and dirt-covered face looked downright disheveled. And not in a fun way.

“I’ve been busy packing all day,” she said.

“It’s not too late to hire movers to haul everything out. Then you don’t have to spend the entire summer in the middle of nowhere. You’re missing out on so much.”

Ava suppressed a sigh and blew an errant hair from her face. It came right back and tickled her chin like it was mocking her. She changed the subject instead of defending herself. “Speaking of, catch me up on work. Has there been any talk about the board member interviews?”

Morgan rolled her eyes but let it go.

“I heard they interviewed Austin this week, but not much else. I’ll keep bugging people for information, though. Tell me again when you’ll be back? It’s boring as hell at work without you.”

Ava’s dad’s death had shocked the spread-out Hanson family, and somehow, it became her responsibility to deal with his cabin in Cedar Falls.

According to her brothers, it was easiest to put her life on hold since she lived the closest in New York.

Their lives were too busy, their work schedules too demanding, they reasoned.

She wished anyone else was doing it instead of her.

“Not until the end of August, but hopefully it won’t take that long, and I can get back sooner.”

Because, unlike her brothers thought, her life and work were just as busy and demanding, and she had her eye on a coveted opening on the Grand Bohemian Hotel’s Board of Directors.

Morgan let out an exaggerated sigh. “Ugh, that’s so far away. You’re going to miss out on my Fourth of July party next month.”

Ava blew the annoying lock of hair away from her face again and eyed her father’s leather recliner, debating if it was worth getting off the hardwood floor to sit somewhere more comfortable while they talked.

The path to the chair was littered with half-filled boxes and rags she’d attempted to clean with, though every cleaning attempt led to her inhaling dust bunnies and fighting to breathe in between coughs.

Keeping a clean house hadn’t been her father’s forte.

Before she could move, Ava heard tires crunching on gravel outside the cabin. The steep gravel driveway made it impossible to make an unannounced visit. Or a sneaky exit. She would know; Ava got caught sneaking out many a time as a dumb teenager eager for late-night rendezvous with her friends.

Or one very cute friend in particular.

She brushed the thought aside.

“It’s not like I want to be here. This couldn’t have happened at a more inconvenient time. I just interviewed for the Board Member position at the hotel. But hold on a minute, I can hear someone pulling up to the cabin.”

“Keep me on the line. I need to know if you’re being murdered.”

Ava groaned and pushed herself up. Her hips screamed in protest after sitting on the unforgiving wood floor for so long.

Nobody knew she was there. She’d avoided going into town, only driving her dad’s Subaru once late at night to get groceries in a much larger town an hour away.

Ava wasn’t ready to deal with everyone and their pitying stares and whispered comments about why she hadn’t returned to Cedar Falls in the last ten years.

A rapid knock sounded on the other side, followed by a yell. “Birdie, I know you’re in there.”

Shit.

“I need to go, Morgan. I’ll call you later,” Ava said, ending the call on Morgan’s protests, and pocketed her phone.

The frantic knocking continued. “I will break this door down. Don’t think I won’t.”

Ava knew better than to hide from Summer, her childhood best friend.

Her loud banging demanded entry. Despite Ava’s refusal to step foot in Cedar Falls, Summer had remained her friend.

The two of them rarely went more than a week without talking on the phone, or a few months without Summer taking the train to Manhattan to spend a long weekend at Ava’s apartment.

Summer was also the sister of the only boy Ava had ever loved.

Ava threw open the door after a harsh knock made the door tremble. The loon alarm yodeled when the door opened. One of her dad’s many quirky loon accessories around the cabin. He’d thought it would curb the kids from sneaking out. They’d still tried anyway.

“I can’t believe that loon still works. Oh my god, Birdie, come here.” Summer launched herself at Ava, wrapping her toned arms around her in a tight embrace. Her French braid whacked Ava’s face from the force of her movement.

An earthiness clung to Summer’s clothes like she’d dried off from a swim in the lake.

The familiarity of the smell increased the weight Ava wore around her shoulders.

That heaviness that shrouded your body in tragedy’s aftermath.

Memories of fishing with her dad brought unexpected tears to her eyes.

The reminder she would never again spend a day on the lake with her dad was so sharp and sudden she couldn’t avoid it if she tried.

No matter how many boxes she packed or thoughts she ignored.

Summer tightened her arms around Ava’s trembling shoulders.

Ava regained control of her emotions and huffed a self-deprecating laugh before pulling away. She concentrated on Summer’s collarbone, unable to look her in the face. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was here.”

Her eyes filled with tears before she quickly wiped them away with the back of her hand. Summer grabbed the wooden loon napkin holder off the countertop. Ava accepted a napkin with a halfhearted smile and dabbed at her eyes. Then she attempted to wipe the dirt off her nose.

“You have nothing to apologize for, babe. I was trying to give you space, but clearly, that was a mistake,” Summer said.

Even though they lived in different states, they both had location-sharing apps on their phones so they could track each other’s whereabouts. You could never be too safe.

“I didn’t want to draw attention to my arrival.”

“Yeah, I gathered that.” Summer rolled her eyes. “What are you doing here? You swore you’d never come back, yet you show up without telling me. I could’ve given you a ride from the airport, at least.” Summer’s big brown eyes probed into Ava’s, roaming her face for answers.

Ava grimaced and stepped away, gesturing for Summer to follow her further into the cabin. She saw Summer glancing at the piles of stuff that had yet to be sorted in the open kitchen and dining area.

“I know. I was nominated for that board position just as I was going on leave, so I had a rushed interview before I left. The last couple of weeks have been a blur.”

She nudged the Birds of Maine Field Guide with her foot as she walked by, pushing it out of sight under a chair. “We’re selling the cabin. Lucas and Noah couldn’t get away from work to help, so I’ve been packing it up on my own.”

“You shouldn’t be doing this alone,” Summer countered.

Ava shrugged. “It wasn’t worth the fight. I want to get it over with and get back home.”

Summer turned in a slow circle as she examined the mess in the living room. “We’ll do it together. I can come help a few times a week. We’ll have this place packed and ready to sell in no time.”

Relief filled Ava, quickly followed by denial. It was on the tip of her tongue to refuse Summer’s offer, but the truth was, she didn’t want to do this alone. She’d rather not do it at all, but that wasn’t an option either.

“Thank you,” Ava said.

“But we’re not doing anything else today. You’re getting out of this cabin and coming into town with me.”

Nope. She wasn’t showing her face in town.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Ava protested. The thought of running into him made Ava want to put her head underwater like a loon. Except she would never resurface.