He opened the wine. “I had a different set of issues.”
The fire had gotten hotter than he’d meant it to, Abigail’s cheeks reddening in the warmth. The hard look was gone now, her dark curls softly framing her face. “You’ve got white dust in your hair,” Owen said, setting two glasses on the counter and pouring the wine.
“I’ve been knocking out walls.”
“Cathartic?”
“I don’t know. I suppose it is. It’s just one of those things that needs to be done.”
“Did you stake out Mattie just now, or did you hear him and investigate?” Owen walked over to her with the two glasses and handed her one. “I’m guessing you laid in wait for him.”
“You’re guessing wrong. I was curious, and just took a walk over there—”
“In the dark.”
“Correct.”
“Without a flashlight?”
“I didn’t need one, really, out in the open on the rocks, with the stars and the moonlight. Once my eyes adjusted, I was fine. There was one short stretch of woods that was a little tricky.”
Owen sat on the chair opposite her. “And a flashlight would have warned Mattie you were on the way.”
She tasted the wine. “So it would have.”
“Are you ever off?”
She frowned at him. “What do you mean, ‘off’? Crazy? Out of control?”
“I mean, do you ever turn off your inner detective?”
“Ah. That ‘off.’ I have no jurisdiction here. Why?”
“I’d just like to know when I’m talking to Abigail, my pretty dark-eyed neighbor, and when I’m talking to Detective Browning, my pretty dark-eyed cop neighbor.”
“They’re one and the same.” She drank more of her wine. “So, how did Linc do on your hike?”
“Fine. He’s in better shape than he thinks he is. He asked about you—why you’re here, that sort of thing.”
“That’s understandable. Whenever I’m here people get stirred up. I remind them of a lot of unanswered questions. And Linc.” She shifted, staring at the fire. “Chris’s death was hard on him. He was just thirteen. He idolized Chris.”
“I remember.”
“Think you can help him?”
“Traipsing Linc Cooper up and down mountains wasn’t exactly what I had planned for the summer.”
“What did you have planned?”
Her voice held none of the suspicion and frustration it had when she was out on the rocks with Mattie, and her eyes shone in the glow of the orange flames. Owen could see the plaster dust on her hands, in her hair, and thought of her alone in her dead husband’s house, knocking out walls.
“I don’t know what I had planned,” he said.
“That could be just what you need—to have a few weeks with no plan.”
He smiled. “My grandmother would say that describes my whole life. She says I’m a tumbleweed at heart.”
“Maybe that’s why you like Maine. All the granite around here isn’t going anywhere. It gives you a sense of permanence that you don’t have in your life right now.”
“So philosophical.”
She laughed. “Now you’re scaring me.” She got to her feet, took another sip of the Chianti before setting the glass down on a side table. “I don’t want to keep you. Thanks for the wine.”
Something about his tone—his expression, whatever—had spooked her, made her self-conscious, aware. Owen rose, setting his wineglass next to hers. “Linc thinks you’re going to end up selling your place, too. I told him it wouldn’t feel right not having a Browning out on these rocks.”
“The real Brownings are all gone now. Too many of them died young. Chris, his parents. God knows how many ancestors. I swear his grandfather lived to ninety-five just to spite the odds.”
Owen touched a finger to her jaw. He felt the heat of the fire on one side of him and, on the other side, the cool night air coming through the partially open door. Her skin was warm, soft. “Abigail.”
She took an audible breath. “I’ll never have that kind of love again. A first love. I know that.” She seemed to make herself look at him, her gaze clear, unwavering. “But don’t think I haven’t loved again. Or that I can’t.”
“What about falling in love again?”
“I haven’t—not in the way you mean. I have a good life. I have wonderful friends and colleagues, a great family, rewarding work. That’s a lot.”
“Enough?”
“I don’t live in the past, if that’s what you mean. I want answers to Chris’s death. I want justice for him. But that’s not the only thing that gets me up in the morning.”
With the tip of his finger, Owen traced the outline of her mouth, saw her shut her eyes for a split second longer than a normal blink, telling him she wasn’t unaffected by his touch.
“What about you?” she asked. “You haven’t married.”
“Not yet, no.”