the front. Boxes of pasta, too, were visible, along with an array of spices and the basics of rice, beans, flour, and sugar in square glass jars, all labeled precisely. Glancing over her shoulder, Virginia asked, “You get something to eat?” She righted a crooked carton of chicken stock.
“I pilfered a slice of your coffee cake. It was good.”
“That’s not much. You want something more?”
“No, thanks.”
A stack of tuna cans was twisted to perfection. Virginia glanced at her watch. “Lunch won’t be for another couple of hours.”
“I think I’ll make it. So . . . where was everyone this morning?”
Beneath the shoulders of her housedress, Virginia’s shoulders tightened almost imperceptibly and the tins of canned fish suddenly threatened to topple.
“Hey, there!” Wyatt’s voice rang through the outer hallway. Ava turned to find him striding toward her. The worry she’d seen etched across his face last night had evaporated, and he even managed a smile. “How’re you feeling?”
She shrugged. “Not bad.”
“Good.” He hooked her elbow with a hand and admitted, “I was worried.”
“I’ll be okay.”
One corner of his mouth twisted upward. “I’m counting on it.” But there were still doubts in his eyes, doubts he tried to hide. “So what do you say? Want to go into town?”
“With you?”
“Of course with me. Maybe get some lunch.”
“I thought you had to work.”
“I’m leaving later this afternoon, but I thought we could get off this island for a while, pick up some groceries or whatever, just hang out.”
“Just hang out,” she repeated.
“I know, I know.” He dropped her elbow and held up a hand as if in surrender. “We haven’t done it in a long time, but I was thinking it might be time to, you know”—he lifted one shoulder and his smile stretched a bit—“reconnect.”
She glanced upward, toward the landing on the second floor, to make certain no one was listening. Lowering her voice, she said, “So why didn’t you come to bed last night?”
“I was there.”
“No . . . Really? But . . .” She shook her head and stepped back from him, remembering their cold bed, how the pillow had shown no impression of his head, that the sheets and covers on his side had been neat and unmussed. He couldn’t have been there. She would have known, would have felt him. “You weren’t there.”
“I got up early.”
“Wyatt.” She lowered her voice further, trying to hang on to her patience. “What is this?”
“You tell me.”
“Why are you lying?”
“Good question,” he said, his smile fading. “Why would I?”
“You weren’t there when I went to sleep or when I woke up.”
“That’s not exactly news, Ava. Happens all the time . . .” Then he looked away from her and let out a long-suffering sigh. “I was there, Ava. Right next to you. For most of the night. I came in and you were asleep, so I didn’t disturb you, and then later, when you were so restless, I got up and spent the rest of the night from about four a.m. on down here, in the den.” He hooked a finger toward the room on the far side of the staircase, the place he’d claimed when they’d moved in years before and the room to which he’d often retreated, closing the French doors and drawing the curtains whenever he was working from home, which over the past two years had happened less and less.
“Your side of the bed hadn’t been slept in,” she insisted.
“Much,” he corrected, holding up one finger as his face flushed a bit. “It hadn’t been slept in much.” Scowling, he said, “Okay, forget about coming into town with me. Maybe it’s not such a good idea. I guess we both need our space.” Shooting her a final look somewhere between disappointment and anger, he walked back the way he’d come, his footsteps ringing hollowly on the marble floor of the foyer.
She ground her teeth together. It’s your fault, Ava. He was offering an olive branch and you snapped it in half.
“Uh-oh.” Ian’s voice whispered through the foyer, and she turned to find him leaning on the wall near the elevator. “Trouble in paradise?”
“What business is it of yours?”
“Touchy, aren’t we today, cuz? What’s wrong? Off your meds?”
What was this all about? She thought of the pills she’d flushed down the toilet and refused to feel guilty about it. No way, no how.
“You know, it’s really not smart to piss Wyatt off,” he said idly.
“I don’t mean to.”
“Sure you do.”
Ian was staring at her, and she said, “Don’t you