The Cabin

by Carla Neggers

  "I'm asking a fair price," Davey said.

  The construction workers, who'd apparently checked out the truck themselves, hooted in protest from their table, and a fresh argument was on. Jack managed to get the keys and a sense of where the truck was parked, then left.

  The puddles from the melting snow and ice had frozen over, creating treacherous patches of black ice. The houses and streetlights glowed brightly in the cold. Jack made his way across the street. Susanna had to be really pissed to have left tonight.

  And scared. Except she never liked to admit when she was scared, tried not even to acknowledge it to herself. Better to be angry and stubborn, to keep secrets. To run.

  Davey Ahearn's truck smelled like cigarettes but otherwise was immaculate. The engine started on the first try. It seemed to run fine.

  Susanna would calculate the projected return on her investments down to the last damn dime, but she wouldn't think to calculate what would happen if she stood him up in a Boston bar and took off for the wilderness without telling him.

  And now he'd been hit on the head.

  It was a five-to six-hour drive to the Adirondacks, but Jack doubted he'd be in a better mood when he got there.

  * * *

  Susanna paid the toll at the end of the Massachusetts Turnpike and continued west into New York State. She'd turned her cell phone back on, and she'd told Maggie and Ellen about their father turning up in Boston.

  Ellen sighed from the back seat. "We told him not to go all tight-lipped Texas Ranger on you. He knows it

  makes you mad."

  "I was mad," Susanna admitted. "I'm not so mad now."

  "No," Maggie said, "because he is. That's a phenomenon we studied in psychology class."

  One semester of psychology, and she was an expert. Susanna glanced over at Gran, who was staring out her window at the dark landscape, removing herself from this discussion.

  "I can't believe you stood him up," Ellen said in amazement. "Geez, Mom."

  "I wasn't trying to goad him." Susanna sighed, not sure she could explain her motives to herself, never mind her daughters. "This wasn't just about him showing up unannounced. Frankly, I'm unnerved about this Alice Parker thing."

  Ellen didn't get it. "But, Mom, Dad is a Texas Ranger. He can help figure out what's going on, why she's here, why she lied to us. He's the one who put her in prison."

  "Ellen has a point," Maggie said sagely. "Alice Parker is Dad's responsibility. If this were about money or one of your clients, you'd want him to listen to your advice and respect your expertise."

  "This doesn't just involve you father," Susanna said steadily, ignoring the twist of fear in her gut. "It involves all of us. Normally his work doesn't affect our lives this way. Look, your dad and I will work this out." She smiled into the rearview mirror at both girls. "Don't you two worry about it. Let's concentrate on having a good time in the mountains."

  They stopped for gas just north of Albany. While Iris and the girls fanned out to the rest room and snack shelves, Susanna ducked into a corner with her cell phone and dialed Jack's number.

  He answered on the second ring, and she took a sharp breath at the sound of his voice. Even his hello didn't sound pleased or patient. In his place, she supposed hers wouldn't, either. "It's me," she said. "We're at a quick-stop about ten miles north of Albany."

  "Not too far ahead of me." "What?" "Davey Ahearn loaned me a truck." "Jack, there's no reason for you to come to the Adi

  rondacks with us. Alice Parker is in Boston—"

  "I have directions to the lake, not to the cabin. Are you going to tell me how to get there or do I have to figure it out for myself?"

  Susanna opened a glass door and pulled out a bottle of cold water, her knees shaking under her. Something was wrong. She could hear it in his voice. He wasn't just short-tempered and irritated with her for bolting—he wasn't following her for payback. There was an edge. Worry, not just frustration with her for sneaking out on him. "Has something happened? Jack—"

  "I'm losing the signal. We can talk later." She quickly gave him directions. "Jack—" "I'll see you in a few hours." The connection went dead, and Susanna grabbed a

  bag of chips and joined Gran, Maggie and Ellen at the checkout counter. "Did you reach Dad?" Ellen asked. "Yes, he's on his way."

  Ellen laughed. "You mean he's following us to Blackwater Lake? Oh, cool. I can't wait to see him on snowshoes."

  Maggie narrowed her dark eyes on her mother. "Mom, is everything okay?"

  "As far as I know, yes, everything's fine."

  Gran was plainly suspicious, but said nothing. They all heaped their snacks onto the counter, Susanna paid and they piled back into the car, the temperature noticeably colder, the night very dark. As they headed further north, the highway narrowed to two northbound lanes, and the ambient light from nearby towns and cities disappeared, leaving only the stars, a sliver of a moon and their headlights to guide them.

  For long stretches, theirs was the only car on the road. Gran, Maggie and Ellen drifted off to sleep, and Susanna stayed focused on her driving, trying not to think about Jack somewhere on the road behind her. Huge outcroppings of rock and tall evergreens showed up on the edges of her headlights, and she was on alert for moose and deer, ice patches, sleepiness. All in all, she should have stuck to her plan and waited until morning.

  Three hours north of Albany, she finally turned off on their exit, taking the winding, narrow road into the village of Keene Valley. This was the High Peaks region of the Adirondack State Park, a preserve of six million acres of state and private land in the northern reaches of New York state. It was the largest wilderness area in the continental United States, bigger than Yosemite, Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons—thirty thousand miles of rivers and streams, more than two thousand lakes and ponds, with forty mountains over twenty-five hundred feet.

  Blackwater Lake was deep, cold and acidic, located near the resort villages of Saranac Lake and Lake Placid.

  Iris roused, as if she sensed they were close to her childhood home. "The air's different here. Can you tell?"

  "I can, actually." Susanna smiled at her grandmother. "It's a hell of a lot colder."

  Gran nodded. "People believed the air helped relieve their tuberculosis. Saranac Lake was a health resort for people who suffered from tuberculosis. Before antibiotics, thousands came here, rich and poor alike, for the mountain cure. They were required to be out in the air for eight to ten hours a day, four seasons a year. It didn't matter if it was twenty below."

  "And it worked?"

  "For many," Gran said quietly.

  They came to Blackwater Inn, a rambling lakefront house that Gran's parents had owned when she was a child. The Dunnings had come to the Adirondacks in the early nineteenth century as trappers. The rugged mountains and the harsh, inhospitable climate generally kept permanent settlers away, even the native Iroquois who hunted and traveled the waterways but seldom stayed.

  Susanna made her way up along the lake and turned off the main road onto a narrow, frozen dirt road. The girls jerked awake as the car began to bounce over the hard ruts. "Oh, man," Maggie breathed, "it's so dark up here."

  "How cold is it?" Ellen asked. "It has to be below zero. Dad's going to croak when he gets here."

  Susanna could hear the eagerness in her daughter's voice. Despite the circumstances, she and Maggie were both excited to see their father. Intellectually, they understood their parents' stalemate had nothing to do with them—they'd done nothing wrong. But they loved and missed their father.

  The dirt road fingered off into three driveways, and Susanna took the left-most, which lead straight to the back door of her cabin. There was no garage. She parked and turned off the engine, feeling the silence around her. Maggie leaned forward in the back seat and whispered, "Gran, I can't believe you grew up here. It's creepy."

  "That's because you're not used to it," Gran said. "I thought Boston was creepy when I first arrived. All those buildings and people, all that
light blocking out the stars." She drew a deep breath, pushing open her door and peering up at the starlit sky. "It's just as I remember."

  Susanna had more prosaic concerns. She jumped out into the cold, very dry air and unlocked the back of her all-wheel drive wagon, starting the girls on unloading. The cabin was open, her property manager having seen to cleaning and stocking the cupboards.

  Maggie shivered in the still, frigid air. Susanna shook her head. "You'd be warmer if you weren't wearing a coat from 1957."

  "Don't worry, I brought all my winter jock clothes. I don't plan to freeze to death up here." Maggie grabbed a backpack and hoisted it on one shoulder, then grabbed another. "This is going to take a million trips."

  Ellen swooped in and loaded up as much as she could in one trip. "Let's get inside and turn on some lights."

  She and Maggie rushed toward the back door, Gran following at a slower pace. There was no wind, no sound coming from the nearby dark woods or the expanse of snow-covered lake.

  Lights came on in the cabin, and the girls whooped in pleasure—Susanna could hear them running around, checking out the big kitchen, the stone fireplace in the living room, the windows overlooking Blackwater Lake, the downstairs bedroom. They pounded upstairs to the loft and the two bedrooms there. Susanna followed her grandmother through the mud room, into the kitchen with its warm colors. "Why don't you go on to bed, Gran? We can unpack in the morning. You can take the downstairs bedroom—"

  Iris shook her head. She had on her red knit hat, but looked tired after their long trip, showing all of her eighty-two years. "No, I'll sleep upstairs. You and Jack might want your privacy."

  "Gran—"

  She smiled. "I said 'might.'"

  Maggie and Ellen banged back down the stairs. "Mom, this place is great," Ellen said. "I can't wait to build a fire. Look at this fireplace! When you said it was a cabin, I though you meant Little House on the Prairie or Daniel Boone. The pictures don't do it justice."

  "It's really beautiful here," Maggie said, more restrained but, Susanna could see, equally pleased with her mother's choice.

  They'd heaped most of the stuff from the car on the kitchen floor. They grabbed their backpacks out of the mess, looking tired after their long trip. Ellen scooped up Gran's suitcase, and Maggie took her grandmother's arm. "I'll spot you on the stairs. You wouldn't want to fall your first night here. They'd probably have to airlift you to a hospital."

  "There's a hospital right in Saranac Lake," Gran said.

  Ellen started across the living room, but turned back to her mother. "Should we wait up for Dad?"

  Susanna shook her head. "No, you all go on up to bed," she said. "I'll wait for your father."

  Nine

  While she waited for Jack, Susanna dragged her suitcase into the downstairs bedroom and unpacked everything into the oak dresser and closet. The queen-sized bed was already made, with an electric blanket and a fluffy down comforter folded at its foot. There was an adjoining full bathroom with sage-colored towels and woodsy scented candles. She laid out her toiletries and debated whether she had time for a bath. She decided, though, it wouldn't be smart, having Jack find her in the tub when he still had up a good head of steam.

  She pushed the image aside and ignored the jolt of desire, concentrating instead on relaxing into her cabin. She could come up for a stretch in the summer and paint and replace rugs, buy new furniture—make it her own. Her parents would be over on Lake Champlain.

  Thinking that far ahead was difficult, a toe in the water to see what her life might be like in four or five or six months. What did she want it to be like?

  She heard the rattle of a truck engine, and headlights sliced into her bedroom window. She quickly slipped back into the kitchen and looked out the window over the sink. Davey Ahearn's truck came to a hard stop behind her car. The driver's door opened and banged shut.

  She could see Jack's tall silhouette as he walked toward the cabin.

  He didn't knock. The mud room door creaked open and thudded shut, and he materialized in the kitchen doorway. No coat, no hat, no gloves, every muscle in his body rigid—but he was pale.

  Susanna took a step toward him. "Jack, what is it?"

  He held up a hand, stopping her. Without a word, he went to the sink and heaved. Not a lot, but with violence.

  She swore under her breath and ran back through her bedroom into the bathroom, wetting a face cloth with cold water. Her own stomach felt a little queasy.

  When she returned to the kitchen, he had the sink rinsed out and his head under the faucet, cold water running over his hair and face. He took five gulps of water in a row, rinsing out his mouth. "Fucking curried corn chowder. I should have known it'd come back up."

  He pulled his head out from under the faucet and sank against the counter, taking the face cloth from her and putting it behind his ear, holding it there while water dripped from his dark hair, down his neck, into the collar of his denim shirt.

  "Jack…Jesus, what happened?" Susanna saw the caked blood on his fingers and touched the face cloth, easing it back, wincing at the one-inch gash and nasty lump. "You drove like this? You could have a concussion. You should have gone to the emergency room."

  "I should have paid better attention." His eyes, pain-racked and very dark, drilled into her. "I was thinking about you instead."

  "Cursing me, you mean. Do you want ice?"

  "No." And he added, without softening, "But thanks."

  Susanna dropped her hand, but stayed close. "Was it Alice?"

  "I don't know. I was hit from behind, the hall was dark—I didn't get a description. By the time I got to my feet, whoever it was had cleared out."

  "Where did this happen?"

  "Your bedroom."

  She could feel her own face pale. "At Gran's? You were attacked—"

  "Yes. I was attacked in Iris's house. I went over there when you didn't show at Jim's Place. Someone was up-stairs—two people, from what I could tell." He dropped the face cloth in the sink. His face had more color after the dunk under the faucet. "They got out before I could catch them."

  "Did you call the police?"

  "On my way out of town. They're not happy with me for clearing out, but they'll get over it. They won't find anything. For all I know, I walked in on a couple of Iris's friends and they took me for the intruder."

  "But you don't believe that," Susanna said, stiffening so she wouldn't start shaking.

  "No."

  "I should have been there. I feel so guilty—"

  His gaze burned into her. "Good."

  She nodded. "I deserved that."

  "Damn right." But this time, his voice softened, if not his eyes. "Don't you ever consider consequences?"

  "All the time. Day in and day out in my work, with Maggie and Ellen, Gran. Just not with you."

  And that did it.

  He hooked an arm around her middle and pulled her to him, using his free hand to trace her mouth. "Su-sanna…damn…" A gleam came into his eyes. "I suppose I shouldn't have said I'd hunt you down. Iris told you?"

  "Oh, yes. She told me every word you said. It was a provocative comment, but—" She stopped, gulping in a shallow breath when he threaded his fingers into her hair, then cupped the back of her head with his palm. "Don't you have a concussion?"

  "Probably."

  He spoke into her mouth, drawing her against him. She could feel that he was fully aroused already, within minutes of walking into her kitchen and throwing up in her sink. He kissed her, a hard, deep, hungry kiss. He tasted of spring water now, and as she responded to him, she had to contain a moan of pleasure. After so many years together, he knew all her responses, all her defenses. He knew just how to kiss her, just how to touch her.

  "We shouldn't…" she whispered. "Your head…"

  "It's pounding. It's been pounding for three hundred and fifty miles as I thought about what I'd do when I got to you."

  "Was this it?"

  "This was just the start." He curved b
oth hands over her hips and drew her against him, thrusting, as if he were inside her. His eyes were impenetrable, and if he were in any pain from the lump on his head, he wasn't paying any attention to it. "Where's your bed?"

  "Jack…we should…"

  But he wasn't listening, and she pointed to her bedroom, shaky with desire. This was what she'd wanted since the minute she saw him leaned up against the gargoyle in front of her building. He was her husband, the only man she'd ever loved, and she wanted him to make love to her.

  He positioned one arm around her middle and half carried her into her bedroom. She could have said no, they needed to wait and talk in the morning—talk now. She could have thought twice, even, about what they were doing. But she'd been thinking about this moment for the entire long, dark drive into the mountains once she knew he was coming after her.

  He laid her on the bed, dispatching just with her pants, then with his own. No niceties. No romance. No "wooing." He didn't have the patience for it, and neither did she.

  "Damn it, Susanna," he said under his breath, "you know how to drive me out of my mind."

  They came together furiously, and suddenly it was as if he were a stranger, not her lover of twenty years, not the man she'd married just out of college. Susanna thought of what her daughters had said, that he'd changed, that there was an edge to him.

  The thought vanished, obliterated by the feel of him inside her, then the suddenness of her own release. She hadn't seen it coming, and she quaked as he stayed with her, matching her rhythm, her need, not letting up until his own release came.

  "I'd like to lock us in here for three days straight," he said, still inside her, his face lost in the dark shadows, "and get things settled between us."

  She placed a hand on his firm, warm skin. "This isn't one of our problem areas."

  He lowered his mouth to hers, as if to confirm her words. "We're either going to be married or not married." He parted her lips with his tongue. "I'm not going to fly two thousand miles and drive off into the mountains to have sex with my wife."