Snowy Mountain Nights

by Lindsay Evans

  Reyna slammed Louisa and Marceline’s bedroom door shut. “Dammit!”

  She could feel Garrison throwing her concerned looks from by the door. He glanced around the cabin but said nothing, giving her some time with her turbulent emotions. The resort was a safe place to be. But if someone was determined to hurt themselves, there were almost endless options of ways to do it. A shiver of alarm pimpled her skin.

  “What about your divorce?” Garrison’s voice cut through her morbid thoughts.

  He stood on the other side of the large living room, an odd presence in her very female cabin, standing among the casual wreckage of the women’s belongings. Bridget’s pink robe flung across the back of the couch, two coffee cups on the kitchen table next to a bottle of Baileys, Louisa’s boots dropped haphazardly by the darkened fireplace.

  Reyna checked the log of calls on her phone. Marceline hadn’t reached out to her.

  “What about my divorce?” She repeated the question, only half paying attention to their conversation.

  “Because of your cheating husband, your life as you knew it for nine years was suddenly over. Didn’t you have a hard time?”

  This was the first time they had explicitly talked about her long-ago marriage, her feelings, other than anger at Garrison’s role in its dissolution. She didn’t like talking about it at all. Especially not with Garrison.

  “It was hard, yes. But what happened to me then is nothing like what’s going on with Marceline. Ian didn’t drive me running off into danger without any concern for myself. He hurt me, but I never once thought of hurting myself because of him.”

  Garrison made a noise, as if he was pleased by what she said. Reyna looked at him with suspicion. But his face was as calm as ever. She realized then that her panic over Marceline had lessened somewhat. She was able to think more clearly. Reyna cast another narrow-eyed glance at Garrison, knowing then that distracting her had been his intention all along.

  “We should leave,” she said. “I don’t know where she is, but she’s obviously not here.”

  She checked her phone again, making sure it was on both vibrate and the highest possible volume. Fighting another flare of worry, she called Marceline, only to hear her friend’s phone ringing in the next room. Evening was coming, bringing with it the colder temperatures and cutting wind that Marceline hated.

  Garrison waited for her at the door. They stepped into the cold together. While they’d been inside the cabin, it had started snowing again, light flurries that swirled in the air.

  He grunted and pulled his gloves higher above his wrists then adjusted his already tight scarf. Reyna allowed herself a small smile of amusement. He obviously hated the cold.

  “Why would she even be out in this weather?”

  “Emotional turmoil makes people do desperate things, especially when they’re in the middle of a contentious divorce.”

  “You would know,” Reyna murmured.

  “As would you.”

  She bit the inside of her cheek. The snow was coming down even harder as they stood on the front steps of the cabin, considering which direction to go. It was Garrison’s hand on her elbow that compelled her to move, urging her toward a path flanked by high trees that had a set of larger cabins beyond it.

  “I just can’t believe it.” Reyna said the words through trembling lips. “Marceline has always been one of the strongest women I know.” When she’d met and fallen hard for Daniel Keller, a handsome football player for the New York Giants, Reyna thought that would add joy to her life, not ruin it. “It must be the divorce. It must be.”

  “She could have been so in love with him, she didn’t know what to do with herself once the relationship was over. Love can be a poison.” Garrison spoke like someone who’d never had intimate and real experience with love, someone who only saw it as an abstract and awful notion.

  Although Reyna half believed what he said, she wasn’t ready to hear it.

  “Have you been poisoned like that? Because unless you have, you really don’t know.” She hastened her footsteps through the snow-thick forest, deliberately breathing in the icy air to calm herself. “You can’t understand.”

  “I’ve never been poisoned by that ridiculous emotion, thank God.” He looked truly relieved. “But I have empathy. I didn’t have to be in an abusive relationship to understand its impact on the victim.”

  She scoffed. “How? From television?”

  “My mother, for one.” His expression seemed deliberately mild. “Also some of my pro bono clients who are now homeless, thanks to the so-called love they once had.”

  Garrison didn’t give Reyna the chance to feel sorry for him, or even be impressed that someone of his obvious status gave his services away free without batting an eyelash.

  “We should check the back of the resort by the fence.” He pointed to a snowy path leading deeper into the woods. Only a few footprints marred the trail. It was the same path she had walked just last night, where Garrison had kissed her.

  Reyna opened her mouth to agree with him when she remembered something. The honeymoon cabins. Not long after their marriage, Marceline and her ex had come up to the resort. Her friend had gushed about her honeymoon cabin experience, the happiness in her face almost too bright for Reyna to bear.

  “The honeymoon cabins!” Reyna grabbed Garrison’s jacket. “I think she’s there.”

  Those cabins were at the back of the property, often reserved by couples who valued their privacy. Most of them didn’t even bother coming outside once at Halcyon, simply taking advantage of the breathtaking views, romantic surroundings and peace and quiet to make love all weekend. The next time she had seen Marceline, her friend was glowing and talked nonstop about the new meaning Halcyon had for her.

  Reyna texted her friends to let them know where she was going, then she took off at a run with Garrison by her side. Night crept ever closer, the biting winds turning Reyna’s cheeks to ice.

  Garrison ran slightly ahead of her as they made their way toward the opulent honeymoon cabins that Reyna had only seen in catalogs and online. They were so far from the rest of the cabins that it seemed to take forever to get there, pushing through the freezing winds and calf-high snow.

  Despite their reason for being there, the path to the honeymoon cabins seemed enchanted. The snowfall was lighter there, the path protected by high pine trees that swayed hypnotically in the wind and flooded the air with their crisp scent. White blanketed the landscape. The outline of the half dozen isolated cabins appeared through the snow. Lights burned through windows. The smoke from chimneys trailed into the sky.

  Through the wind, Reyna heard the sound of sadness.

  She turned to Garrison, breathless from their run. “Do you hear that?”

  They hurried toward the noise. Before she saw Marceline, Reyna knew what she would find. Her stomach twisted with relief and pity at the sight of her friend huddled on the front steps of the farthest honeymoon cabin. She was dressed for the snow in boots, thick pants and a hooded jacket. But it looked as if she had been sitting in the same place for a long time. She shivered with cold.

  Marceline hugged herself and rocked from the force of her tears. The sound of her sobs racked the air. When she and Garrison saw her, he stepped back and Reyna rushed toward her friend and hugged her.

  “We’ve been looking everywhere for you!”

  As soon as they touched, Marceline gripped Reyna around her waist as if she would never let go.

  “It’s Valentine’s Day!” she sobbed. Her face was cold and wet against Reyna’s. “I don’t have anybody.” She trembled in Reyna’s arms, teeth chattering in a way that made Reyna hug her tighter. “He brought me here for our first Valentine’s Day together and told me he’d give me the world. But instead he took everything away from me!”

  “You’ll get through this, Marceline. You will.” She pulled Marceline to her feet. “Let’s go, honey. It’s getting too cold for you to stay out here.” Her friend shuddered and stumbled
against her.

  Reyna met Garrison’s eyes over Marceline’s head. “She’s freezing!”

  Before she could protest, he unzipped his thick jacket and gave it to Reyna. “Put this on her.”

  Once the jacket was firmly zipped over Marceline’s small frame, he easily lifted her. “Let’s get her back to your cabin.”

  While he walked quickly ahead of her, Reyna called her friends and let them know Marceline had been found. The door to the cabin flew back into the wall as Garrison strode inside with Marceline in his arms.

  “She needs a hot bath and her friends.” He rested her gently on the couch then retrieved his jacket. “I’ll leave you alone. I think my presence is the last thing she needs right now.”

  He paused as if he wanted to say something else, but he only pulled on his jacket, nodded at Reyna and left. By the time she drew a bath for Marceline and coaxed her into the water, Louisa and Bridget were bursting through the cabin door. She heard their noisy entrance as she sat on the floor next to the tub, the water steaming around Marceline’s form curled in the water. Marceline’s cheek rested on her upraised knees, and she rocked back and forth in the water, crying.

  Bridget ran into the bathroom. “Oh, my God! Is she all right?”

  “I don’t think so,” Reyna said.

  Louisa came in at a more sedate pace. She sat on the toilet seat and smoothed a hand over Marceline’s hair. “Honey, you just can’t do something like this without telling us.”

  “We’d actually rather you not do it at all,” Bridget muttered. She sat down on the floor next to Reyna.

  Marceline raised her head. “I’m sorry.” Her voice shook. “I didn’t mean to—”

  “Shh, honey. It’s okay.” Reyna narrowed her gaze at Bridget. “Take all the time you need.” With the small bowl on the edge of the tub, she poured hot water over Marceline’s shivering frame.

  They used to joke that, maybe other than Louisa, Marceline was the toughest of the four women. In college, she’d had a boyfriend she caught cheating and simply threw bleach on the clothes he’d left in her dorm room, then refused to deal with him anymore despite his pleas for forgiveness. Then she was out dating another boy within a month, equally carefree and fierce as if the first betrayal had never happened.

  Marceline had always bounced back from anything the world threw at her. She talked things out with her three best friends, processed all the hurt then got over it. But not this time.

  This shivering and helpless version of Marceline scared Reyna. If she, the strongest of them, could be brought so low by a relationship, then what chance did the rest of them stand? She saw the same worry in Bridget’s and Louisa’s faces.

  “Don’t worry, honey,” Reyna murmured. “We’ll take care of you. You don’t have to be strong tonight. We’ll be your strength.” She poured more hot water over Marceline’s back.

  Bridget gathered a robe for Marceline while Louisa left the bathroom. Reyna soon heard the sounds of the kettle in the kitchen, the dim flare of the gas stove.

  “Let’s get you in bed,” Bridget said, holding up the robe.

  They dried off an unprotesting Marceline and guided her from the tub and under the covers. Louisa brought hot tea spiked with rum for all of them and sat on the edge of the bed.

  The women stayed with Marceline deep into the night, speaking softly of trivial things while the specter of her breakdown and grief surrounded them all. Although she knew what she was afraid of, and knew that Louisa and Bridget were scared of the same thing, Reyna didn’t know how to say it. Or even if she should. The selfishness of her thoughts, however, kept her mouth shut.

  The three women sat around their friend as if they were at a wake, keeping vigil over her sunken spirits. They drank their tea and stroked Marceline’s back, distracted each other with nonsense until they all eventually fell asleep.

  Reyna jerked awake sometime later, an abrupt motion that slammed her head into the headboard. She groaned silently, her mouth tasting of stale tea and sadness. She had fallen asleep on the bed with the other women. The queen-size bed was barely big enough for their twisted bodies—Marceline spread out under the covers, Bridget in a fetal position at the bottom of the bed, Louisa next to Marceline with her arms around her waist.

  Only Reyna was still wearing her day clothes, the two layers of thermal shirts, pants and thick socks. It was late. Nearly midnight, according to the clock peeking from behind Louisa’s shoulder.

  Reyna crept from the bed and to her own room. There, in the privacy of her empty bedroom, she sat in the dark and allowed the sadness to engulf her. Seeing Marceline like that brought painful memories of her own divorce rushing back. As she’d told Garrison earlier that day, she hadn’t been destroyed by the divorce, but it had deeply shaken her foundations.

  She wondered now, though, how close she had been to losing herself.

  Over the past few months, she had watched Marceline shrivel in confidence, question her life and shut herself off from the rest of the world, as if that would somehow help deal with what happened with her husband. The shutting off was understandable. Reyna had done it herself. No man had gotten close to her in the years since her divorce. But to take withdrawal and pain as far as Marceline had? Reyna shuddered.

  No. She would not be that. She would not.

  Chapter 7

  A knock on his cabin door pulled Garrison from a sound sleep.

  He rolled over and squinted at his watch on the bedside table. Almost two in the morning. He blinked again at the time. Who the hell…? He threw aside the heavy blankets and rose from the bed, hissing when the relatively cool air washed over his bare chest and stomach.

  “Who is it?”

  The voice on the other side of the thick wood shocked him into quickly opening the door. A blast of cold chilled his skin, and he shivered, although he wasn’t sure if the shiver was from the cold or because Reyna stood in his doorway at a very suggestive time of the night.

  “Good morning,” he said with a hint of irony. But his heart began a thick, heavy beat in his chest.

  Her gaze flickered over his bare skin with surprise, lingering on his stomach, then on the pajamas hitched low on his waist before coming back to his face. “Can I come in?”

  He pulled the door open wider. “Please.”

  Reyna looked tired. The corners of her mouth drooped with sadness, and her shoulders hung low. Dark semicircles smudged beneath her eyes. As she walked in, she scanned the cabin’s main room, the fire he’d allowed to blaze while he slept, the files he’d left in a neat pile on the wooden coffee table. He’d kept the old-fashioned log cabin clean enough, just as efficiently tidy as his own apartment. But he’d made himself at home, setting up his iPod and mini speakers so he could play the music he liked without the restriction of earphones.

  “It’s hot in here,” Reyna said. Her voice was soft, much lower than he had been used to hearing it.

  “I like it hot.”

  “No kidding.” She took off her jacket and gloves and pushed up the sleeves of her sweater. Her eyes dropped again to his bare chest before she turned away.

  Her gaze on him was like a warm touch on a cold day. Distracting and infinitely welcome. He excused himself to get a sweater from the bedroom, quickly pulling it on before joining her again. “Can I get you something to drink?”

  “So formal.” She raised an eyebrow, though it was only a shadow of her normal attitude. “Maybe a glass of lemonade. It feels like a Georgia summer in here.”

  “I was going for more of a Florida winter.” He grabbed a pitcher of iced cider from the kitchen. It was the same one they served at the resort. Once he’d tasted it that first day, he couldn’t get enough. He’d asked the attendant to make him a batch to last him the entire weekend. As he poured a glass for Reyna, he thought it could very well be a metaphor for how he felt about the woman herself: one taste, and he wanted more.

  When he returned to the living room, she’d already made herself comfortable. She a
dded a fresh log and stoked the fire with a poker, her butt tilted up in the air. He paused to appreciate the view.

  “You don’t have to do that,” he said. “I know it’s a bit warm for you.”

  “Warm isn’t necessarily a bad thing.” She smiled briefly over her shoulder before continuing with the fire. “You know, this is the cabin we usually get every year. It’s got the biggest master bedroom and best view of the sunrise.”

  He sat on the thick rug in front of the fire and put Reyna’s cider on the hardwood floor near him. “My secretary booked it for me, probably months ago.”

  Garrison leaned back against the couch and admired the play of firelight over her serious face, the length of her throat, the curl of her fingers around the iron poker. Reyna was truly, truly beautiful. Since he saw her on the train, it had taken an act of will to control his reactions to her, both physical and emotional.

  He’d faltered the few times when he kissed her—and she kissed him back—but here, in the isolation of his cabin, knowing that she had come to him, he released his control and simply enjoyed the madness that she evoked in him. His body hummed with his attraction for her. He imagined he could smell the faintly sweet lotion she’d used on her skin, the warm and feminine essence of her.

  “You’re a lucky man. This place holds a lot of great memories for me.” She picked up her cider and sat next to him with her legs curled beneath her. “Thank you for this.” She lifted her cup.

  “My pleasure.”

  He waited for her to speak, simply enjoying the vision of her in his cabin, sitting quietly in front of the fire and watching the flames while taking occasional sips of her drink. “It tastes good cold,” she finally said.

  “Yes, it does.” Garrison nodded in agreement. But he was sure she hadn’t come over to his cabin in the middle of the night to talk about the flavor of his cider. He opened the conversational door. “How is Marceline?”