Rowan carried in the last bag and set it by the kitchen table. “Priya said the owner won’t come by unless you ask.”
Megan nodded.
He waited.
She looked around the cottage again, and he saw her fighting the instinct not to trust comfort. For a year, every safe place had come with a hidden cost. Every kindness had to be measured before accepted. That knowledge hurt him more than her anger ever had.
“There’s formula in the pantry,” he said. “Diapers in the nursery. Dr. Kline called in prescriptions for the boys’ vitamins. Priya arranged delivery.”
Megan touched the back of a chair. “You don’t have to report every detail.”
“I know.”
“You’re doing it because you’re nervous.”
“Yes.”
She looked at him then.
There was something almost familiar in the silence. Not warm, not easy, but recognizable. Two people who had once known each other’s weather standing in the aftermath of a storm neither had fully survived.
