The Cabin

by Carla Neggers

  "Yeah, right," she muttered, turning back to her car. "Who do you think you're kidding?"

  Ten

  It had been a very close call with Ranger Jack.

  Alice tried not to think about how she'd almost hyperventilated into passing out when she'd sneaked up behind him with Iris's walking stick and whacked him. He'd come within a hairsbreadth of grabbing her, and his defensive move had kept her from knocking him out.

  Once he had the walking stick, she'd grabbed Des-tin and cleared out.

  Now they were almost at Blackwater Lake, driving right back into the lion's mouth. Well, what else could they do? Alice couldn't think of anything that'd get Jack Galway and Beau McGarrity off her tail, put her on the road to Australia and stop Destin from whining about his repossessed BMW and the lousy heat in her car. The man needed a hundred grand. The world would be a happier place if Destin Wright had money in the bank again.

  He'd panicked when she'd hit Jack Galway. You attacked a Texas Ranger? Shit!

  He'd also wanted to go back and explain, tell Lieutenant Galway they'd just been checking on the house for Iris and mistook him for a burglar. Alice had asked him how they'd explain the papers he'd pulled out of Su-sanna's files and the directions they'd found to her place in the Adirondacks. Jack would want to know what they were doing with those. Destin had seen the light.

  He was riding shotgun, navigating. He had a map they'd picked up at a gas station in New Hampshire spread out on his lap. Driving across New Hampshire and Vermont had been his bright idea. They'd spent the night in a fleabag roadside hotel, sharing a room but not a bed. He had no interest, and Alice sure as hell didn't.

  The bright sun hitting the pristine snow and ice hurt her eyes, but she had to admit the scenery was stunning. Destin told her to turn down a steep, unpaved driveway that led to the Blackwater Inn, a rambling old building with slate gray clapboards, white trim and burgundy doors. Iris Dunning had grown up here, fallen in love, known tragedy. She'd told Alice about skinny-dipping all alone on a hot summer night.

  Alice didn't want to think about how she'd betrayed and manipulated an old woman and now was trying to figure out how to pry a hundred grand off her granddaughter.

  The inn was owned by a young couple who introduced themselves as Paul and Sarah Johnson and looked as if they spent a lot of time trekking up and down mountains. Alice asked for separate rooms. Destin muttered something about money, but she shot him a look and he shut up.

  Both rooms were on the second floor overlooking the lake. Alice's was decorated with country quilts that reminded her of her grandma's house back in Texas, although the four-poster bed and cherry dresser were more expensive than anything her grandmother could ever afford.

  Destin lingered in the doorway. "We can get some lunch and settle in, but I want to get this show on the road."

  "I'm not hungry. You go on."

  She dumped her battered suitcase on the floor and looked back at him. He seemed to be waiting for her to tell him what to do next. This was what she wanted, but it was unnerving, too, because she wasn't sure she knew what to do next—and she didn't want to screw up his life right along with her own. Not that he wasn't making his own decisions. She couldn't let his blond, preppy good looks throw her off. He wanted a hundred thousand dollars and a fresh start. He'd helped her sneak into Iris's house last night. He was ready to put the squeeze on Susanna, however Alice saw fit. He seemed to see Susanna as his savior, Alice as his smart and equally desperate cohort.

  Except she knew she wasn't that smart. She'd learned that the night Beau McGarrity had tried to frame her for his wife's murder. She was probably going to learn it all over again, using the likes of Beau and Destin to fund her new life in Australia.

  "I don't want to drive over to Susanna's cabin with my Texas tags," Alice said. "You'll have to hike in."

  Action appealed to him. "Great. I can snowshoe or cross-country ski—I can break a trail if I need to. I did a lot of winter sports before I had to give up my condo."

  And I did a lot of things before I had a criminal record, Alice thought. "Life's a bitch. Make Susanna feel your urgency this time, not just hear your desperation. Trust me. This is just the first step, but maybe it'll work—maybe we won't have to ratchet up the pressure. Just don't panic, okay? We'll get the money out of her."

  He grinned. "Damn right."

  They just had to keep Jack Galway from catching them and Beau McGarrity from figuring out she'd tried to double-cross him about the tape.

  Destin left, shutting the door softly behind him, and Alice flopped onto the bed with its soft, pretty quilt. All in all, manipulating Susanna Galway into giving them a hundred thousand dollars was the easy part. If she had a hundred grand, Alice thought, she'd give it to Destin herself, just to shut him up. Well, she'd give him ninety grand. Ten she'd keep for herself and Australia. She could make do with ten just fine. She didn't need Beau's fifty.

  * * *

  Susanna's fantasies of her week in the Adirondacks with her daughters took another blow when they tried out their new snowshoes. She'd rented snowshoes over the Christmas break and had little trouble getting hers on, but Maggie and Ellen were having fits with theirs, both losing patience with the labyrinthine traditional bindings and fine adjustments. The cold air didn't help. With the sharp cleats, Susanna didn't want them using the mud room.

  Jack was watching them, sipping a cup of coffee at the mud room door.

  "I've got snow all over these stupid straps," Maggie muttered, bent over her snowshoe as she tried to shove her boot in tighter, fussing with the bindings in increasing frustration. Finally, she jerked up straight and gave her foot a good kick. The snowshoe flew off and buried itself in the snow. "Good. It can stay there and rust."

  Ellen had one glove in her teeth and was following one strap across the toe of her boot with her bare hand, figuring out how the bindings worked. "Ah-ha! I get it!"

  Susanna retrieved Maggie's snowshoe and handed it to her. "Do you want me to help?"

  "No. I'm going to freeze to death before I figure this out. What are the signs of hypothermia?"

  "Maggie," Susanna said, reining in her own impatience, "you're making this harder than it is."

  Jack stepped out onto the shoveled walk. "God forbid you girls should read the directions."

  Maggie scowled at him. "It's not as easy as it looks."

  "And you're making it ten times harder."

  Ellen had managed to get one snowshoe on properly and tested it, gently kicking out her foot. When it didn't come flying off, she let out a victorious whoop, which only drew another scowl from Maggie. Ellen ignored her and started on her other snowshoe, getting it on within seconds now that she had the hang of it.

  "I hate you, Ellen," Maggie said, deadpan, "I really do."

  Jack dumped his coffee in the snow and squatted down to help her. "You've got everything all out of whack."

  "How do you know? You're a Texan, too. You don't snowshoe."

  He glanced up at her. "I read the directions."

  Both girls, at least, Susanna thought, were dressed properly for the winter conditions, although Maggie had added a 1940s purple orchid pin to her jacket. Jack secured her left snowshoe, and when she realized what she'd been doing wrong, she tackled the right one herself. She tested them in the driveway. "Oh, this is so cool!" She laughed, tramping after her sister toward the lake. "I love it! Dad, you'll have to get a pair!"

  He hadn't told them about the lump on his head. "That's okay," he said.

  Susanna watched Maggie make her way along Ellen's broken trail and felt a sudden wave of affection for her twin daughters. "They're not so different than when they were six."

  Jack stood next to her. If he was cold in his suede jacket and cowboy boots, he didn't show it. "Maggie threw her bike the first time she tried to ride it, remember?"

  "You were patient with her then, too."

  He glanced at her, his eyes very dark against the snow and blue sky. "I'm not as patie
nt as I used to be." His voice was low and intense, but he shifted, squinting out at the girls' trail to the lake. "You'd better go. You'll get cold standing here."

  But Susanna couldn't yet bring herself to move. She thought about earlier, staring out at the waterfall, replaying that day with Beau McGarrity in her kitchen. She'd bit back tears on her way back to the cabin, and Jack must have noticed her red eyes. But he'd said nothing, and now she had on snowshoes and wasn't saying anything, either. She cleared her throat. "Gran's making hot chocolate for when we get back. She feels terrible about Alice—"

  "It's not her fault."

  "You mean it's mine."

  He shifted his gaze back to her, expressionless. "No. Mine."

  "Jack—"

  "Go snowshoeing, Susanna. Enjoy your vacation. I'll figure out what to do about Alice Parker."

  She decided not to argue about who'd do what, not now. She could feel the cold against her face, and although there was very little breeze, she knew she needed to get moving to stay warm. "If anything had happened to Gran—if Alice—"

  "Nothing happened." He took her by the arm, his eyes serious but with a warmth that hadn't been there since he'd arrived in Boston. There'd been a lot of heat last night, but not much warmth. "Nothing will."

  Susanna managed a quick smile. "And you with a big fat lump on your head."

  He shrugged. "The lump's gone down. It's just a cut now."

  "Another scar."

  He winked at her. "You like my scars."

  "Jack, for God's sake." But he'd made her laugh, and she started along Maggie and Ellen's trail, glancing back at him. "If you're planning to stick around, you can go into town and buy yourself some winter clothes."

  "Good. I'll put them on your credit card."

  "I can't believe Gran grew up here," Maggie said when they stopped at a fallen tree above Blackwater Lake. "She's such a city person now."

  Ellen stared down the steep embankment at the icy lake. "I keep imagining her at our age, clomping around out here in the wilderness. She just had those big old fur-trapper snowshoes in those days."

  "Gran's pretty amazing," Susanna said. They'd set off on a snow-covered path along the lake, moving easily on their snowshoes among the tall pine and spruce trees, their branches drooping with snow. "She wants to go snowshoeing one day while we're here."

  "Do you think she can?" Maggie asked.

  "I don't know," Susanna said. "The snow's fairly deep, but maybe if we break a good trail, she can make it."

  "She and Dad could go together." Ellen laughed at her idea, shaking a clump of snow off her snowshoe. "Can you see him out here?"

  "Snowshoeing falls under the 'any idiot' category," Maggie said. "I mean, the hardest part's getting the things on your feet." She grinned. "Listen to me, the expert after thirty minutes."

  Susanna didn't tell them she had no idea if Jack was staying or leaving. He would do what he wanted to do. He might discuss his decision with her—he might not. He was in just that sort of mood.

  The path looped back through the woods, away from the lake, and Susanna let the girls swoop on ahead of her. They were almost eighteen, strong and agile. She thought of Gran out here at eighteen, alone, unmarried and pregnant. She couldn't just pull a cell phone out of her pocket and dial 911. She'd endured hardships and moved to Boston, alone with a young son, absorbing the changes in her life and ultimately thriving.

  Susanna took in the snow drifting against the naked beeches and birches, the clouds hovering over the mountains in the distance. She couldn't stay stuck in neutral, she thought. It wasn't fair to Maggie and Ellen, it wasn't fair to Jack—or even to herself. She had to move forward before the standstill in her marriage solved matters on its own, like the old, rotten tree that all at once crumbled, without any wind, any axe, anything at all to spur it on.

  The truck Jack had borrowed from Davey Ahearn was gone when she tramped back down the hill, through the woods, to the cabin. He might have left a note inside saying where he'd gone—to town for winter gear, back to Boston, after Alice Parker—but Susanna didn't count on it. She peeled off her snowshoes and sank onto the bench in the mudroom. The twins had gone in ahead of her and their snowshoes were leaning up against the rough-board wall, the clumps of snow melting onto the floor. Their wet socks and gloves were scattered, their boots stood in muddy pools.

  Susanna didn't blame them for leaving a mess. She was dead tired herself. She eased off her boots, still caked with snow, and pulled off her outer layers. Her nose was running, her hair was crackling with static electricity and, impossibly, she was sweating.

  She couldn't wait to go out again.

  "Hey, there. Anybody home?"

  "Destin!" Susanna jumped up, landing in a cold puddle in her stockings as she stared at Destin Wright in the mud room doorway. "What are you doing here?"

  He brushed snow off his cashmere coat, grinning, his cheeks red from the cold. "Man, it's cold. I thought hik-ing'd warm me up, but I'm still freezing."

  "That's because you're not dressed properly. Des-tin—"

  "Relax, Susanna. Don't go getting your nose out of joint. I'm checking out the Winter Olympics training facilities in Lake Placid. I want to try the luge and bobsledding, maybe try the ski jump. I haven't skied Whiteface in a while. Hell of a mountain."

  "How did you find me?"

  He shrugged. "It wasn't hard. I heard people talking at Jimmy's, figured it out." He frowned at his pants, wet from the knees down. "Hope they don't freeze solid on my way back."

  "On your way back where? Destin, you're not staying on the lake—"

  "What?" He didn't seemed prepared to give her an answer. "Hey, look, I've got a life. I can come up here the same time as you if I want."

  Susanna eyed him as the cold water seeped into her socks and the cold air blew in from the open door. If she asked Destin to shut the door, he might think he was invited in. She didn't want that. "You must know I don't believe you," she said. "I think you're here to try to get me to give you money."

  He licked his lips, his expression—a mix of panic and irritation—telling her she was right. "My window of opportunity's closing, Suze. I have to do something. I can't—it's a great idea. If you'd just look at the damn business plan. I worked my ass off to do one up after you told me I needed one."

  "You don't need me, Destin. If your idea is as good as you think it is, take it to venture capitalists, network, work your contacts. It'll fly."

  "You'll regret this," he said.

  There was an edge to his tone that drove her back on her heels. "Destin, are you threatening me?"

  "What? Nah, I'm just telling it like it is. You know this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, Suze. It'll make your ten million look like petty cash—"

  "My ten million?" She stared at him coolly, but her mouth had gone dry with tension. "What makes you think I have ten million?"

  He gave her a sheepish smile. "It's what everybody says at Jimmy's."

  She didn't believe him.

  "I don't know what happened," he said. "I had buckets of money. Buckets. And people crawling all over me, wanting to invest in anything I came up with. Now it's all disappeared." He lowered his gaze to her, the edge still there. "What would you do if you lost everything?"

  "By 'everything' I assume you mean all my money. Well, for starters I'd hope I wouldn't alienate everyone who cares about me. I'd look to the constants in my life for emotional support—family, friends." She thought of Jack, who'd been there in the lean times when they were first starting out, at her side when she delivered twin babies—through everything she'd done since she was nineteen years old. But she pushed the thought aside, focusing instead on Destin. "You have to get a grip, Des-tin. Money isn't who I am. It's not who you are."

  "Easy to say when you're sitting at the end of the rainbow with your pot of gold. I'm in the red zone. I liked me better when I had dough. Shit, I'm lucky they haven't come for the fillings in my teeth."

  Susanna had started to
shiver from the cold. "Did you break into Gran's house last night?"

  "Hell, no. Jesus—Susanna, you don't think I—"

  "You know Audrey Melbourne, the new woman who's been hanging around at Jim's Place, don't you? Redhead, small, Texas accent."

  "Maybe I should go."

  She heard Davey Ahearn's truck rattle into her driveway. Destin turned, going pale at the sight of Jack climbing out. Susanna said, "Audrey is actually a former police officer from south Texas named Alice Parker. Jack investigated her for official misconduct, and she ended up serving a year in prison. She got out on New Year's Eve."

  "I wouldn't know anything about that."

  "That's why Jack's up here." She tilted her head back, feeling less anxious, either because her husband was here or she had Destin on the defensive. Or both. "He ran into an intruder at Gran's last night. He's not happy about it."

  Destin licked his lips, glancing outside. "Holy shit," he said with a fake laugh, "he just gets bigger and meaner looking, doesn't he?" But his gaze shifted back to Susanna, his blue eyes intense as he added in a low voice, "Suze, you have to help me. This is my last shot. I can't—it's only a hundred grand. I'll never bother you again. Promise."

  Jack walked into the mud room, and Destin flew around, grinning awkwardly. "Hey, there. Jack, right? The Texas Ranger? I'm Destin Wright, a friend of your wife's. I'm up here doing some bobsledding, thought I'd drop by and say hi."

  "You hiked in?" Jack asked, tight-lipped.

  "Yeah, I went down the wrong driveway, decided I'd just tromp along the lake. Wish I'd brought my snowshoes with me. The ones I have back home, I could climb Everest in them."

  Jack unbuttoned the top button of his suede jacket. "Do you want a ride back to your car?"

  Destin quickly shook his head. "No, no, that's okay. I don't want to interrupt your vacation. It's nice out— kind of cold, but that's what we're up here for, right? The snow and the cold?" He grinned uneasily, taking a step toward the door, which Jack was still blocking. He looked back at Susanna. "I'll see you around."