Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
PRIYA
Aweek of Owen Tate looks like this.
He shows up at my cabin around eight every morning with Boone trotting ahead.
Doesn't knock anymore. Just opens the door, pours himself coffee from the pot I started making for two, and sits at my kitchen table while I work on recipes.
Sometimes he reads. Sometimes he watches me knead or chop or stir.
Sometimes Boone puts his head in my lap, and Owen's mouth does that almost smile that makes my stomach flip.
By afternoon we've migrated to wherever the work takes us.
His porch, where he splits wood while I write on my laptop wrapped in a blanket.
My kitchen, where I test recipes and he tastes everything without being asked twice.
Twice he's fallen asleep on my couch with Boone across his feet, and both times I covered him with a quilt and kept typing because a sleeping Owen with the hard lines of his face gone soft is something I could stare at for hours.
At night, we end up in my bed. Or his. His cabin is sparse, just essentials, but his mattress is better than mine, and there's something about the view from his bedroom window at dawn that makes the whole valley look like it's burning gold.
The sex is extraordinary. Patient when I need patience.
Rough when I grab his shoulders and pull.
He learns my body with the focus of a man who used to read trail conditions for a living, mapping every ridge and valley, testing every surface.
Last night he held me on the edge for so long I said his name with syllables I didn't know I had.
Then he drove into me with his hand in my hair and his mouth at my ear telling me to let go, and I shattered so hard the headboard cracked against the wall.
After, he holds me. Chest to back. Arm tight around my waist. He sleeps deep when I'm there.
No 3am pacing. No staring at the ceiling.
I know this because the first night I stayed at his cabin, I woke at four and his breathing was slow and even against my neck.
The man who can't sleep, sleeps when I'm next to him.
Something is building here. Something I can feel in the architecture of our mornings, the way he started buying good coffee beans instead of the canned stuff, the way Boone has a water bowl at both cabins now.
We haven't named it. Haven't talked about what this is.
But it's there, in every shared meal, every time his hand finds the small of my back when we walk the trail between our cabins.
The Crimson Hollow fall harvest market is Saturday.
Sage mentioned it three weeks ago when I was in town buying cardamom.
She said they do cooking demos, local vendors, live music.
Her coffee shop runs a booth. This year she asked if I'd want to do a demo.
Something from the cookbook. "Bring that mountain man of yours," she added with a grin. "Get him out of that cabin."
My phone sits on the counter with the text I drafted an hour ago.
Sage:
Demo spot is confirmed for Saturday 11am! You're doing the chimney cake right? the one you finally nailed?
Me:
Yes!! Can I have a double table? I want room for the rolling and the display.
Sage:
Girl you can have whatever you want. Is Owen coming?
The cursor blinks after the last message. I haven't answered because I haven't asked him yet, and the reason I haven't asked him tells me something I don't want to examine.
He's on my porch. Splitting kindling for the woodstove because the temperature dropped ten degrees overnight and he noticed my kindling box was low without me saying a word. Boone supervises from the steps. The sound of the hatchet is rhythmic. Steady.
"Hey." Stepping out with two mugs. "I want to ask you something."
He takes the coffee. Drinks. Waits. Owen doesn't prompt. He just gives you space and lets you fill it or not.
"The fall market in town this Saturday. Sage asked me to do a cooking demo for the cookbook. Chimney cake, the one I finally cracked thanks to you fixing the oven." Deep breath. "Come with me."
The hatchet stops mid swing.
"To town."
"To the market. It'll be fun. People, food, music. You can stand in the back and scowl if you want. I just want you there."
He sets the hatchet down. His jaw does that thing where the muscle jumps once. "I don't do town events."
"I know. But I'm asking."
"Priya." My name. Gentle but firm. The voice he uses when he's about to close a door. "I go to town for supplies. That's it. I don't do crowds or small talk or standing around pretending I'm part of something."
"Part of something. Is that what this is? You're pretending?"
"That's not what I said."
"It's what it sounds like." The mug is hot in my hands. Grounding. "I'm asking you to spend a Saturday with me. At a market. Where people might see us together. Is that the problem? That people would see?"
His eyes go flat. Gray and distant. The warmth that's been building all week draining out of them. "You don't know what you're asking."
"I'm asking you to show up. That's it."
"Showing up is how people get hurt."
The words drop out of him like stones. Heavy. Old. Worn smooth from being carried too long. And something in his face shifts, breaks open for a second before he seals it shut.
"Danny Reeves hiked that trail because I said it was safe.
I had bear activity reports on my desk for two weeks.
Grizzly sightings, fresh scat, a kill site a hundred yards from the path.
The data didn't hit the closure threshold, so I kept the trail open.
He walked in with a daypack and came out on a helicopter with his face torn apart. "
My hands go still on the mug.
"Everyone I've been responsible for, everyone who counted on me, something went wrong. Danny's daughter watches her father go through surgery after surgery because I signed a form. Three years and I still can't stop reading those reports looking for the thing I should have caught."
The pain in his voice is raw. Exposed. A wound he's been pressing on for three years, alone in that cabin with only Boone to witness it.
"Owen."
"I'm not the guy who shows up at your market and holds your hand in public. I'm the guy who gets people burned." He picks up the hatchet. Drives it into the chopping block. Leaves it there. "You should know that before you start making plans that include me."
The words land exactly where they're aimed.
Right in the center of the bruise Vikram left.
Four years of a man who wanted me in his kitchen but never in his life.
Who cooked my food at dinner parties but never told his colleagues I was writing a book.
Who kept me close in private and invisible in public.
And now Owen is standing on my porch telling me the same thing in different words. That he'll sleep in my bed and eat my food and hold me at night, but the moment I ask him to step into the daylight, he can't do it.
"I had a husband who wanted me in private." My voice comes out steady. Surprised by that. "Four years of being someone's secret ingredient. The thing that made his life taste better without anyone knowing I was there."
His face changes. "That's not what this is."
"Then come to the market."
Silence. The mountain is quiet around us. Wind through the aspens. Boone's nails clicking on the porch as he shifts between our feet, sensing the temperature change.
"I can't."
Two words. And they're honest. I can see that. He's not Vikram. He's not keeping me hidden because he's ashamed. He's hiding himself because he's terrified. Of being responsible. Of being needed. Of showing up and having something go wrong again.
But understanding why someone hurts you doesn't make it hurt less.
"Okay." Setting the mug down on the railing. My voice is calm but my hands are shaking. "I'm not going to beg someone to be seen with me. I did that once and I promised myself I'd never do it again."
"Priya, wait."
"You know where to find me, Owen. Same place I've been this whole time." Opening the door. "But I won't be someone's secret. I'm worth more than that."
The door closes behind me. Through the window, I watch him stand on the porch for a long time. Hands at his sides. Boone pressed against his leg, looking up at him with those brown eyes.
Then he turns and walks up the trail toward his cabin. Boone follows, but he looks back twice.
The kitchen is quiet. The coffee goes cold in my mug. Nani's recipe cards sit on the counter in their careful rows, and the chimney cake batter I prepped this morning waits in the fridge for a demo that I'll do alone.
My phone buzzes.
Meera:
So? Is mountain man coming to the market?
Me:
No.
Meera:
Oh honey.
Me:
I’m fine.
Except I'm not fine. I'm standing in my kitchen pressing the heels of my hands into my eyes because I let myself believe that a man who bought good coffee beans for me was the same as a man who'd choose me out loud.
Boone's water bowl sits by the door. His paw prints are still damp on the floor from this morning.
Saturday I'll do the demo. Smile for the crowd. Nail the chimney cake. Come home to this cabin and try not to notice that it already feels too quiet without the sound of a hatchet on the porch and a dog's nails on the floorboards.
Seven months I spent learning to be alone after Vikram.
One week with Owen and I've forgotten how.