The Cabin

by Carla Neggers

  "If I'm going to sleep in the loft," he said, "I'll need another damn blanket."

  "You can use the electric blanket from my bed."

  "You have an electric blanket?"

  She smiled at him. "I'm not surprised you didn't notice last night."

  He grabbed one of her hands, circling his fingers around hers. "You have an electric blanket and a down comforter?"

  "Nice, huh? That way I can warm up the bed with the electric blanket before I get in." She tossed her head back, cutting her eyes at him, having fun. "I don't like a cold bed."

  "Holding out on me on a stalker is one thing, but holding out on an electric blanket—" He dropped her hand and slipped both arms around her, drawing her against him, his cool fingertips reaching the bare, hot skin of her lower back. "There's no forgiving and no forgetting on that one. You let me freeze last night."

  "Well, you weren't exactly freezing when you left me."

  He leaned into her, his mouth finding hers as he whispered, "You didn't need either your electric blanket or your comforter last night, did you?"

  Her answer was lost in their kiss, a long, slow, deep kiss that made her forget she'd ever felt alone in her life, never mind a few minutes ago. He eased one hand from her lower back to her front, moving his palm up her stomach, until he reached her breast.

  "I know you think I can handle anything, Susanna," he said, "but I can't. I can't handle being alone in San Antonio."

  "I never meant to stay in Boston—"

  "You were scared and confused. So was I." His tone was matter-of-fact, as if he was used to admitting to fear and confusion. "If we'd tried to deal with this sooner— well, who knows."

  "I know this is going to sound weird, but it's like these past months, this cabin—all of it's part of my destiny, somehow, something I had to go through. We did. I don't know. Maybe it's just that a part of me knew I needed these months with Gran, and this hasn't all been just about us and that son of a bitch Beau McGarrity."

  But Jack wasn't listening, not really. He was letting his hand drift down her abdomen, and he pulled back the stretchy fabric of her pants, easing his hand lower, until he was between her legs, touching her in ways only he ever had. It had been so long, she almost moaned with pleasure, then remembered her family upstairs. But he knew, and he probed deeper, not stopping when she couldn't get a decent breath, when she shut her eyes in an effort to maintain this moment, prolong it.

  "Come to bed with me," she said in a ragged whisper.

  "Not yet."

  He stayed with her, letting her quake silently against him, not stopping until she collapsed onto his chest and breathed in the scent of him. "Jack, I swear—no electric blanket," she said, her face buried in his shirt. "You don't deserve one."

  "I don't know about that." He gave a low, deliberate laugh. "I'd say I've earned a lot more than an electric blanket."

  "Bastard."

  He laughed again.

  But she didn't lift her head from his chest, feeling an unexpected wave of embarrassment, as if this was the first time they'd done something like this and she'd gotten ahead of herself.

  She quickly pulled away from him, avoiding his eyes as she took as much of the blanket with her as she could, wrapping it around herself. "It's this stretchy high-tech fabric. It's a danger. These pants are comfortable, but—" She didn't finish, letting it go at that.

  Jack was clearly not the least bit embarrassed, even for her sake. She snuck a sideways glance at him, but his dark gaze gave her no break whatsoever. He was, she thought, decidedly amused.

  She swept to her feet with her blanket around her, as if that might stop him from guessing she was aroused all over again. He was obviously aroused. Not that he cared a whit if she saw.

  She muttered good-night and headed for her bedroom, hoping to make it without tripping over the ends of her blanket and falling on her face. Damn near forty years old, married forever, two kids on their way to college, a super-successful financial planner worth ten million last she checked—and she was feeling self-conscious over a spontaneous romantic encounter with her husband.

  Except she didn't think it was spontaneous. She thought he'd planned it.

  "Counting snowflakes—ha!"

  She thought of him back on the couch in front of the fire and ducked into her bedroom, turning her electric blanket to the highest setting. She shot into the bathroom, tearing off her clothes and jumping into the shower, still not able to get a proper breath.

  If Jack wanted his chance, she'd handily left the next move up to him. She didn't know how wise that was. He had her off-balance, thoroughly aware of his physical presence—of her own.

  She lathered herself with lavender soap, leaving her hair dry when she rinsed off. She stepped out of the shower, dried off with a big towel and put on her fulllength blue plaid flannel nightshirt. She looked like a mountain woman.

  The wind had picked up, slapping snow against the window, steamy from the heat of her shower.

  When she returned to her bedroom, she immediately noticed that the thermostat on her electric blanket was off. She assumed it must have heated up and some kind of safety feature had kicked in, but when she rubbed her hand over the blanket, her bed was ice cold.

  From a dark corner, Jack said, "I figured we should start out with a cold bed. It'll give us a fighting chance not to get too hot."

  He had already taken off his clothes, and he walked over to her bed and pulled back the covers, sliding between the sheets as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

  Susanna knelt on her side of the bed. "Jack, are you sure this is what you want?"

  "You have no idea how sure."

  "We should probably talk some more—"

  "Not a chance," he said. "Not tonight." He looked up at her, his eyes as hot as the fire in the other room, a sexy half smile destroying the last shreds of her self-control. "Are you going to run me out?"

  He knew the answer already, but she shook her head, smiling. "Not a chance."

  She lifted her nightgown over her head, but before she could cast it to the floor, he was there, smoothing his hands up over her hot skin, following with his mouth, his tongue, his teeth. He eased the nightshirt off and tossed it, lowering her to the bed. She eased her legs apart, feeling the hard length of him, but he didn't come into her right away, and she knew tonight would be different from the other times they'd made love during their long months apart.

  He kissed her, a kiss that seemed meant to imprint on her everything she loved about him. Every touch, every stroke, every taste and shudder reached deep into her mind, body and soul. When he came into her, there was none of last night's fury, although his passion was just as deep, his need as insatiable. And her own. He set the pace, as if he were bringing her to the edge and making her look over and see what was on the other side, where she would be in one year, five years, ten years, if she didn't figure out how she fit into this man's life, how he fit into hers.

  They came at the same time, free-falling off the edge of the world together.

  They cooled down in each other's arms, and when Susanna gave a small shiver, he pulled the comforter over them. She could feel herself drifting to sleep, her head on his shoulder. For that moment, it was if she'd never left him and had told him long ago about Beau McGarrity and Alice—and wasn't still keeping any secrets from him.

  Thirteen

  Jack awoke at dawn, reached over and switched on the electric blanket. He wasn't cold. He was taking the down comforter and thought it'd be decent to make sure Susanna didn't get cold. He grabbed the comforter off the bed, pulled on his pants and gathered up the rest of his clothes, heading for the bedroom door.

  He knew Susanna. Never mind that she was his wife and Iris, Maggie and Ellen had all seen them wake up in bed together—this was different. Easier for Susanna to have him wake up in the loft. Less complicated, less explaining, less trying to pretend she didn't care that they all knew what she'd been up to in the dead of night. />
  He glanced back at her, asleep in the gray light. He felt a rush of emotion, a tightness in his chest. He knew her love for him had enriched her life, and there was no question his love for her was soul deep. But this was his breaking point. He wasn't going back to San Antonio with matters between them unresolved. There'd be no more status quo.

  He crept through the kitchen and past the fireplace in the living room, over to the stairs and up them as quietly as he could. The sofa bed in the loft was still made up with its scrawny blankets. He climbed in, pulling the comforter over him and shivering for a few minutes until the bed warmed up.

  In the morning, he discovered it was Iris who kept turning down the heat. If an old lady could take it, so could he. She said it was because of tuberculosis. She was drinking coffee at the table while the girls were making whole-grain pancakes.

  "Tuberculosis was the scourge of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century," she said. "We forget nowadays. They called it the White Plague. In the 1870s, a doctor by the name of Edward Livingston Trudeau came to Saranac Lake when he thought he was dying of tuberculosis, but he ended up being 'cured.' He credited a strict regimen of mountain air, rest, good food, light exercise and a lack of stress. He was convinced it would cure other sufferers, and he helped turn Saranac Lake into a health resort. Thousands upon thousands came until antibiotics were discovered in the late 1940s and 1950s. They'd stay weeks, months, even years, until they were well enough to leave. They called it 'curing,' although the disease didn't actually go away—it went into a kind of remission, as I understand."

  Jack poured himself a mug of coffee, said good-morning to the girls and sat at the table across from their great-grandmother. "This cure involved a cold house?"

  Iris ignored his teasing tone. "Patients were required to spend eight to ten hours outside. It didn't matter the time of year. When you drive into Saranac, you'll see many of the older homes have porches—upstairs, downstairs, the front of the house, the back. Wherever they could stick one. The porches gave the patients a place to sit or lie down while they did their outdoor curing. They call them 'cure cottages.'"

  "Amazing," Jack said, meaning it.

  "My mother was a nurse at a cure cottage when she was young. My father took her away from that life and brought her up here to Blackwater Lake. But she never lost her belief in the restorative powers of the mountain air."

  Jack drank some of his coffee. "Iris, it's ten degrees out."

  She smiled, not too sweetly. "It's supposed to get into the upper twenties today. That's not bad for the Adirondacks this time of year." She adjusted her shawl, and if she was cold, Jack knew she'd never admit it. "The Trudeau cure was remarkably effective. Tuberculosis tends to run in cycles of wellness and sickness—patients often had to return for another round of curing."

  Maggie swung over with a platter of hot pancakes. She was wearing a brightly striped top from about 1976. "Yuck. I'm never taking antibiotics for granted again."

  "They ended Saranac's days as a health resort. For years, everyone came up here. Actors, writers, politicians, bankers, war veterans, European royalty, circus people. There were curing places for the rich and the poor. But I don't remember it as a sad place at all. People had hope— they didn't come to die. They came to cure."

  "Then why are you going to the cemetery?" Ellen asked, setting a pitcher of hot syrup on the table.

  Jack grimaced at her frank question, but Iris took it in stride. "Because I'm an old woman," she said. "Most of the people I knew when I was a girl are dead."

  "Oh," Ellen said. "Duh. Sorry, Gran."

  Jack helped get plates, forks and napkins on the table, making no comment about Susanna's absence. He remembered the taste of her, and almost spilled the hot syrup.

  While he was distracted, Maggie and Ellen cooked up a plan for him to take them cross-country skiing while their mother and Iris went and looked at old tombstones.

  Many of their friends in Texas skied in Colorado and Utah, but he'd never been big on winter sports. He preferred his ten-mile runs, the weight room and his heavy bag. But he was cornered, and he knew it. Cross-coun-try skiing. He'd gone a few times when he was at Harvard. Fell a lot.

  He'd planned to check out Destin Wright, then track down Alice Parker and figure out who'd slipped into Iris's house the other night and hit him on the head. Des-tin was a possibility. It wasn't as if he was after Susanna for pizza money.

  But he said, "Sure, I'll take you cross-country skiing."

  Susanna finally wandered out of her bedroom, looking as if she'd done some lovemaking last night—but Jack thought only he would notice. She was dressed for tramping in a northern cemetery in the winter cold. A heavy, expensive Norwegian sweater in a black-and-white geometric print and slim black pants. Hair pulled back. Very sexy.

  She didn't say good-morning to anyone until she'd got a mug from the cabinet and poured herself coffee. Then she turned, leaning against the counter, her eyes meeting his for an instant before she smiled. "Gran, you ready?" she asked.

  Maggie frowned. "Aren't you going to eat? Ellen and I made pancakes."

  "They smell wonderful. I'll take a couple and eat them on my way."

  "Cold? With no butter and syrup?" Ellen shuddered. "Yuck."

  She and her sister headed upstairs, Gran behind them, to get ready for their excursions. Jack cleared the table, aware that Susanna was on edge, maybe a little tired and testy. He came up next to her, touched the hair at her ear. "Mad I climbed into bed with you—or mad I climbed out?"

  A smile tried to develop. "You stole my down comforter."

  "Ah."

  "And I'm not mad. Preoccupied."

  Probably because she still had to tell him about the ten million. He'd told her he always knew everything, but she hadn't seemed to take that as an indication he knew about the money. Well, he was in a fine mood. His head didn't hurt anymore, and he'd made love to his wife last night. Find Alice Parker and figure out who got the jump on him the other night, and he'd be a charmed man. He didn't even mind cross-country skiing for a couple of hours.

  "We can talk at lunch," he said. "I need to make a couple of calls."

  She nodded, but he could see she had a lot on her mind. And she was tired. He could have gone easier on her last night, but she hadn't seemed to want that—and their second bout of lovemaking had been at her instigation. Not that he objected.

  He started for the mud room, but she caught the tips of his fingers. "Jack—no regrets about last night?" she asked softly. "That's not why you left?"

  "No, that was to spare you the knowing looks this morning."

  But she didn't smile. "It wasn't the fire we let go out, you know. It was the light."

  "What?"

  Now she did smile, shaking her head. "Nothing. Go make your calls. We'll talk later."

  To get a better signal, he went outside and stood in the driveway in half a foot of fresh snow. The sun was out, sparkling on the white drifts, and it was very cold. Fortunately, Sam Temple picked up on the first ring.

  "I've got two minutes before hypothermia sets in," Jack said. "Any news?"

  "Yes." Sam was all business. "I tried to get through to you last night—I left a message on your voice mail. McGarrity took off."

  Jack went very still, focusing on a nearby pine tree, its branches arced almost to the ground with snow. Wind gusted suddenly up from the lake, dumping some of the snow off a branch, spraying it in his face. "Where?"

  "His cleaning lady said hunting. I don't believe it. He took his truck."

  "Have you checked with the airport and airlines?"

  "Nothing yet. There's more, Jack. The cleaning woman overheard McGarrity talking to Alice Parker way the hell back in January. Her English isn't great, but it's better than McGarrity thinks."

  Jack's Spanish was decent, but Sam was fluent, moving between Spanish and English with ease. "What's your schedule like?" Jack asked him.

  "Already talked to the captain. I'm on my way to the a
irport now. My flight leaves for Boston in an hour."

  "How much time does McGarrity have on us?"

  "A day. The cleaning woman said he went alone. No hunting buddies."

  "I'm missing something," Jack said. "I've been missing it all along."

  "I'll call you when I get to Boston." Sam's tone lightened, static creeping into their cell signal. "What about you and Susanna? Has she come clean about being rich?"

  "No."

  "Just going to let her agonize and think you don't have a clue?"

  "Susanna doesn't agonize."

  "You know, if I had a rich wife, I'd be happier than you are."

  "If you had a rich wife, you'd turn in your badge and run for governor." Jack could feel his jaw set hard, the cold seeping into him. Sam had found out about Su-sanna's money on his own, from coming around the house and talking to her. Jack hadn't told him. "We need to find McGarrity."

  Jack didn't need to tell Sam Temple to watch his back. He knew. He was a professional, but he'd also seen the crime scene pictures of Rachel McGarrity.

  He turned to head back into the cabin, but Maggie was there, shivering in the snow, her arms crossed on her chest. She wasn't wearing a coat. "I came out to ask you what time you want to leave." Her dark eyes leveled on him, wide and scared, with a touch of her mother's grit. "Dad….do you mean Beau McGarrity, the man they think shot his wife?"

  "Maggie—"

  "Is he after Mom?" she asked quietly.

  Jack settled back on his heels. When she was a little girl, Maggie had wanted to be a Texas Ranger. Now she was talking about anthropology. He moved toward her, noticed she hadn't changed into a warm high-tech shirt. She still had on that one from the 1970s. "Why would McGarrity be after your mother?"