The Widow's Cabin

by L. G. Davis

  Book Description

  He wanted to die. He needed her help.

  One year ago, Meghan Wilton's husband begged her to help him die. Two months after asking her to do the unthinkable, he was dead.

  Now Meghan is on the run with her five-year-old son.

  Her new name is Zoe Roberts, and her hiding place is a cabin in the woods of Willow Creek, Tennessee.

  Zoe has more than the law to fear.

  Someone else wants her found, someone with the money and power to destroy her because she’s a threat to his own freedom.

  The only way she can protect herself and her son is by uncovering dark and disturbing secrets that will leave her scarred forever...or get her killed.

  To save herself, she must return to the night her husband died.

  Is she brave enough to relive the worst day of her life?

  The Widow’s Cabin

  L.G. Davis

  Copyright © 2020 by L.G. Davis

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  PART TWO

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Epilogue

  Connect with L.G. Davis

  More Books by L.G. Davis

  1

  In less than a year, my husband will be gone. Forever. He will not only be leaving me behind, but also the world.

  That’s why every second counts.

  Brett’s hand is warm against my palm. He’s trying to comfort me. I hate that he’s failing at it. But I smile because I’m trying to comfort him right back. I’m probably failing too.

  Every day of my life, I wake up each morning waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  Being dragged from one foster family to the next as a kid only to be returned to sender time and time again does that to you.

  Brett was my new beginning, my fairytale. But fairytales don’t exist, not in my world. I was a fool to believe they did.

  The early years of our marriage were tough. I loved Brett, but I struggled to be close to him, to be happy. It had a lot to do with his father.

  Once I had finally become accustomed to living with my pain and had learned how to fake happiness, cancer struck.

  I’m trying hard to be strong for both of us, but I’m slowly coming undone.

  “Are you okay?” Brett lifts a thick eyebrow. His voice is deep with exhaustion.

  Since his stomach cancer diagnosis one month ago, he tires more easily. That doesn’t stop him from giving the little energy he has left to the Black Oyster Resort, one of his father’s hotels that’s based in Fort Haven, North Carolina.

  That’s where we met. His father had hired me to work as a maid, and Brett and I fell in love and got married within six months.

  Business always comes first for Brett, even before our little family. Whenever I confront him, he denies it, but it’s the truth. I thought I was okay with getting the scraps of his time. I forced myself to be grateful for having him in my life at all. Not anymore, though, not when we have such little time left together.

  It’s our wedding anniversary and I had wanted us to create one last happy memory. Tonight, I had wanted to live in denial, to pretend our life is perfect even when it’s far from it.

  His phone beeps before I can respond, before I can go on fooling myself.

  The other shoe drops. I expected it to.

  Brett always answers his calls, especially when it’s his father. Every time that man calls, he jumps.

  I reach for his hand and squeeze it. “Don’t,” I whisper, knowing full well that I’m asking for the impossible. “Don’t answer it, please.”

  His gaze moves to the phone nestled between his glass of sparkling water and his empty plate.

  “Sorry, sweetheart. It’s my father. You know I have to.” He wipes his mouth and tosses his napkin onto the table, then reaches for the phone to speak to my father-in-law, the man who controls both our lives.

  Cole Wilton calls himself a father, but he’s not. He’s far worse than a dictator, who treats his son like a puppet and everyone else like trash. In his presence, Brett is always anxious and helpless. While I do my best to build him up, his father never misses a chance to make him feel small.

  I wish so much I could help Brett see what a snake his father is. Cole knows he’s not welcome in our home. It’s the only place Brett can be himself without the cloud of his father’s disapproval hovering over him. It’s the only place I can feel safe.

  Cole shows up anyway from time to time, reminding us that the luxury two-story house we live in belongs to him.

  My most terrifying encounter with him was the night before I married Brett. He made it clear to me that he did not approve of me marrying his son and made a promise to destroy our marriage if I didn’t call off the wedding. I went ahead and married Brett anyway, but nothing was ever the same. Cole poisoned our marriage before it even started.

  After the wedding, I was desperate to get away, and I begged Brett to walk away from Fort Haven so we could start a new life in another town.

  I even proposed that we move to another Black Oyster Hotel location, so he could continue to work in the family business. Brett dismissed the idea immediately. His father needed him in Fort Haven, he claimed. The truth is that his father wanted to have him close enough to control.

  Blowing out a frustrated breath, I fold up my own napkin and push myself to my feet. While Brett is on the phone, I head upstairs to check on Liam.

  I meet Janella at the top of the sweeping stairs.

  “Liam sleeping already,” she whispers, her face blank as always.

  At thirty-five, Janella is three years older than me, but she already has noticeable wrinkles at the corners of her dark brown eyes and around her pinched mouth. In spite of all of that, she’s a stunning woman with big eyes and lashes that don’t need mascara to make them stand out. The dark goddess braid she always wears to work and the elegant way she moves make her look royal in my eyes. I only wish she would smile more to light up her face.

  Janella came before me. When I moved in, she was already the Wiltons’ housekeeper.

  Even though I would have personally hired someone more cheerful, I couldn’t find it in me to let her go. Something about her pulled at my heartstrings. She kind of reminded me of myself. The pain I knew she carried inside her heart connected with mine. She never said much about herself, but sometimes I feel connected to her somehow. Like me, she’s intimidated by Cole. Every time he shows up at the house, her shoulders hunch and she f
linches when he speaks.

  She’s also great at her job and always goes above and beyond, sometimes even taking on the role of a nanny to our four-year-old son, Liam. I tell her often that looking after Liam is not part of her job, but she insists that she likes to keep busy.

  I only wish I could communicate with her more. Since she speaks only a little English, we use a lot of sentence fragments and sign language to get the message across.

  What I know is that she’s alone in the US while her family is in the Philippines and she needs to support them on her own. Since she takes on so many tasks around the house and helps me with Liam, I told Brett to increase her salary, but he informed me that it was Cole who paid her.

  It gets to me to know that Cole has so much control over our lives. That night Brett and I had an argument that lasted for hours. Many more followed that one, all having something to do with his father, but we always came back to the same place, right where we started, underneath Cole’s thumb. Brett was never going to stand up to him and demand his freedom. There were many times I resented him for it, but my love for him made me stay. He needed me. He needs me.

  “Thank you. It’s best I don’t disturb him, then,” I tell Janella and she nods. “You can go home now. Go and rest.”

  She nods and for a moment she gazes at my face, as if studying it. “Good sleep, Mrs. Wilton,” she says finally, and I sigh with relief. I was starting to become uncomfortable under her intense stare.

  “Good night, Janella.”

  Instead of returning downstairs, I head over to our bedroom and sit on the edge of the bed, my hands pressed into the comforter. My chin rests on my chest, my eyes burning with unshed tears.

  I try not to think about how our lives will be when Brett is no longer here.

  Brett lives each day pretending the cancer is not real. He prefers to live in denial. Every time I mention it, he checks out of the conversation. He hasn’t even told his father about it and he made me promise not to either.

  I wish he would fight for his life, but he refuses to do chemotherapy, even though the doctors claim he might add a few more months or even years to his thirty-six. Brett’s reasoning is that there’s no guarantee that it will work.

  There’s more to it. He knows that treatment might weaken him, and if there’s one thing Brett hates, it’s to display any weakness, especially in front of his father. Cole has everything to do with many of the decisions Brett makes.

  A soft knock on the door forces me to raise my head.

  Brett is standing in the doorway, his phone in his hand. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I have to go to the hotel. There’s an emergency.”

  Brett once told me that as a child, his dream was to become a doctor. Thanks to Cole forcing him to join the family business, his dream didn’t come true. I never fail to see the regret etched in his features when he plays doctor games with Liam, where one of them is a patient and the other the doctor.

  He may not have become a doctor, but sometimes he lives the life of a doctor. He gets a call and a few minutes later he’s gone. It doesn’t matter what time of night it is.

  “What kind of emergency?” I ask, feeling deflated.

  “Employee issues. Nothing that can’t be sorted out.”

  “Did someone else quit?” In the past month, two housekeepers have resigned. I understand why they would. Working for a controlling man like Cole is not easy.

  “Yeah.” Brett rubs the back of his neck. He looks so tired and I want to draw him into my arms, but I’m also annoyed with him.

  “Can’t your father handle it?” I don’t understand why Cole always feels the need to call Brett. He lives in a spacious luxury suite at the hotel. He should be able to handle issues immediately without help.

  “No. It’s something only I can handle.” He shoves his phone into his pocket. “I won’t be long. I promise.” He crosses the room and comes to kiss the tip of my nose. In the past, his kisses used to offer me comfort, but now I barely feel anything.

  “Don’t be long,” I call after him. “I’ll wait up for you.”

  The door closes behind him and a few minutes later, his Range Rover roars to life.

  I remain sitting on my bed listening to the silence, my eyes closed. Then I fall back onto the bed and fall asleep in my pretty canary yellow cocktail dress.

  Brett wakes me up when he enters the room, his curly dark hair as rumpled as his shirt.

  The first thing I do is glance at the clock. It’s five minutes to midnight. He left at eight.

  “Hey.” If he didn’t have cancer, I would start an argument. I’m dying to, but he already looks so tired and his eyes look empty and broken. He probably had a fight with his father.

  He doesn’t respond as he walks over to his side of the bed and removes his socks.

  “Was it something serious?” I ask, going to massage his shoulders. I’m surprised when he flinches a little.

  He gets to his feet and my hands drop from his shoulders. “Yeah,” he says and disappears into the massive closet. He remains there for almost fifteen minutes. Figuring that he needs to be alone to recover from whatever pain his father inflicted on him, I give him the space. I change into my nightgown and wait patiently for him under the covers in case he wants to talk.

  When he exits the closet, he’s wearing his pajamas and the expression on his face is even darker than before. For a few heartbeats, he stands in the middle of the room and stares at me.

  “What’s wrong, Brett? You’re scaring me. Did you have an argument with your father?”

  He nods and finally climbs into bed. He doesn’t explain and I don’t ask him. I don’t think I want to know. Hearing the things Cole calls his son disgusts me.

  I hate Cole even more for ruining our anniversary. He might even have invented the emergency so he could destroy Brett’s plans for the evening. Maybe that’s why Brett is so furious.

  I rest my head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat, wondering how many of them are still left before his heart stops forever.

  “I need you to promise me one thing.”

  “Okay,” I whisper and hold my breath.

  “Don’t let the cancer eat me alive,” he says in a choked voice.

  “What...what are you saying?” I sit up and search his eyes. They’re blank.

  “When it gets to be too much, when I’m too weak, I want you…” Words fail him as he bites his lip, still staring ahead. “Help me die with dignity.”

  After hearing his words, for what feels like an hour, I can’t move or breathe.

  “Did you hear me?” he asks, finally looking at me.

  “No.” I shake my head, tears spilling from my eyes. “I don’t understand.”

  “You do.” He turns me to face him and gazes deep into my eyes. “When I reach the end, I want you to help me die.”

  “You want me to kill you?” I’m shocked that those words are even leaving my lips.

  “I want you to help me. If you really love me, you will do it.”

  2

  Ipress my ear to the wooden door, straining to hear the conversation happening in the kitchen between Brett and his father.

  It’s been two months since Brett asked me to do the unthinkable, and I’m still reeling with shock, especially since the day after, he told me exactly how he wanted to die. He said he wanted to die on his own terms. He didn’t want cancer to win.

  I listened without interrupting him, praying that he would change his mind.

  I don’t know if he has changed his mind because he barely says a word to me anymore. His health is deteriorating at the same rate as his mood.

  Even though he’s still here, it feels like he’s already gone. He has even distanced himself from Liam. It kills me to watch him ignoring our son.

  Sometimes I think he’s pulling away to try and prepare us for a life without him.

  Almost every day I beg Brett to accept treatment that might extend his life, but he shuts down every conversation about the topic.<
br />
  Much as I’d rather shut Cole out of our lives and hate to see him around my husband when he’s so fragile, maybe he’s the only person Brett will listen to.

  Brett begged me not to tell his father about his illness, but Cole found out anyway. For all I know, it was Brett who told him. Or he could have seen the signs of illness in Brett, whose weight has melted off and whose eyes and cheeks have sunken into his skull.

  He burst into our house just as we were finishing up with dinner.

  “You will fight this thing like a man,” he barks at Brett. “Are you a man or some wimp?”

  I press my back against the wall next to the kitchen door and squeeze my eyes shut. The force of Cole’s harsh words bruises even me.

  Cole doesn’t love his son. The only reason he wants Brett to fight cancer is that he wants to keep emotionally abusing him. He derives power from crushing his son. But right now, I want Brett to live and I’m praying Cole will get through to him.

  “You have no right to tell me what and what I cannot do about my health. I know you like to have your way, but not this time.” Brett’s words are edged with steel. “I need you to get out of this house. I thought I made it clear that you’re no longer welcome here.”

  I hear something smash and my heart jumps to my throat. “How dare you speak to me in that manner!” Cole grinds the words out between his teeth. “You stupid boy. This house and everything you think you own belong to me.”

  A part of me is proud that Brett is finally standing up to his father and telling him to go to hell. It’s something I have begged him to do for years. But this time it’s not for the right reasons.