Cold Dawn

by Carla Neggers

“Clever.”

  “We’ll collect most of the sap in buckets. Guests can participate if they want to. We’ll bottle the syrup in mason jars and sell it at the lodge. Any profit will go to our local mountain rescue team.”

  “A nice little cottage industry.”

  “I hope so. There’s an outdoor fireplace, so we can do some boiling outside. That’s really more for atmosphere. The fireplace is made from local stone. I love that, don’t you?”

  His eyes were on her as he smiled. “A lot of rock in Vermont.”

  Rose laughed. “Something to keep in mind when you try to argue with one of us.” Suddenly warm, she unzipped her jacket. “Nick, if there’s someplace you need to be—”

  “There isn’t.”

  “It’s supposed to get above freezing today. Of course, you’re spoiled from living in Southern California and might not realize what an event that is. When are you going back?”

  “Sometime. Not today. You forget I haven’t always lived in a high-rise condo. Some days…” But he didn’t finish his thought and nodded to the open door. “Go on and do what you came here to do. Pick out maple trees, whatever. I’ll be right here.”

  “Scott will want to talk to you.”

  “No problem.”

  Rose felt the snow melting in her hair, dripping onto her forehead. Nick struck her as a rich Californian who didn’t belong in the middle of the Vermont woods, but maybe it was just her. She’d first met him five years ago, when she was starting out in search management and he and Sean had just formed Cameron & Martini and were struggling to make it work.

  Nick had been fearless, confident and sexy, but it hadn’t occurred to her to sleep with him.

  He’d had his share of close calls fighting wildland fires. She’d run her fingertips over burn scars when they’d made love in June. She’d realized he could be vulnerable, could suffer and bleed. He’d continued to do the work he loved even after he’d taken a hit.

  She resisted saying anything else and headed back outside. Jim and Baylee were helping their mother dig snow out of the fireplace. “We have a lot of work to do,” Lauren said, her cheeks pink with cold and exertion, “but I think we’ll make it before we seriously start collecting sap.”

  “We should have some warm days coming up to drill tap holes.”

  Lauren smiled through her obvious uneasiness. “Excellent.”

  She was clearly holding her breath, hoping Derek’s death had been a terrible accident and Robert had simply panicked given the violence of the past few months.

  The lodge didn’t need another Cameron in the middle of more violence.

  Rose heard someone coming through the woods, but it was just Scott Thorne, arriving along the same path she and Nick had taken from the lane. He wore his state trooper’s parka over his uniform, his expression tight and serious as he approached the old fireplace. “No sign of Feehan,” he said.

  Lauren herded the kids into the sugar shack with her. Rose, feeling the cold again, rezipped her jacket and told Scott about her encounter with Robert Feehan. Nick joined them outside and related what little he’d witnessed.

  Scott glanced up at the cloudless sky once they finished. “All right,” he breathed, then sighed at Rose. “If you see Feehan, call 911. Don’t approach him.” He shifted to Nick, whose eyes were unreadable. “You, either.”

  “Scott,” Rose said, “do you have any reason to believe Robert’s a danger to anyone?”

  “You mean other than you?”

  “I told you—”

  “Just do as I ask, Rose,” he said. “No argument, okay? For once?”

  She smiled. “Sure, Scott.”

  He trudged through the snow back to the path. Rose watched him disappear around a curve before turning to Nick. “You look cold,” she said.

  “That’s because it’s twenty-six degrees out.”

  “It’s a beautiful winter day. Lauren and I will be fine. Don’t let us keep you.”

  “If I got lost, would you come find me?”

  “You won’t get lost.”

  “Bet you’re a good skier. I’m okay with snowboarding and alpine skiing, but Nordic skiing—that’s work.”

  “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you? You think we’re quaint.”

  “Quaint?” He sputtered into incredulous laughter. “No, not quaint. I’d put A.J. up against any Los Angeles businessman I’ve ever dealt with. Three Sisters Café would clean up on Wilshire Boulevard.” He placed a foot on the icy, rough edge of the stone fireplace. “And you, Rose. I know you’ve been offered jobs in Southern California.”

  “Only two jobs, both in emergency management.”

  “But you don’t want to leave Vermont,” he said quietly.

  She shivered from a sudden light breeze, but her mind was on the other side of the continent, on a hot, dry, windy day in June. Without looking at Nick, she said, “We did what we could to save Jasper. We all did. If his death is related to Lowell Whittaker’s network of killers and Derek somehow found out and that’s why he freaked out when you showed up—”

  “We don’t know that Feehan was telling the truth.”

  Rose pulled her hat out of her pocket and put it back on, yanking it down over her ears. “I don’t know. I wish I did.”

  Nick frowned at her. “Your knee hurts, doesn’t it?”

  She hadn’t noticed but realized her right knee did, in fact, ache. “Some. I must have twisted it when Robert shoved me.”

  “You should ice it.”

  “Thanks, Dr. Martini, I will.”

  “I have EMT training.”

  But he didn’t press the issue as Lauren emerged from the sugar shack. “A.J.’s meeting us with the car out on the road,” she said. “He’s got the lodge on alert for Robert Feehan. No sign of him as yet.”

  She tucked her snowshoes under one arm and got the kids back on the toboggan, which Nick pulled as they hiked back to the dead-end lane. Rose spotted Brett Griffin out on Ridge Road with her brother and went ahead of Nick, Lauren and the kids. A.J. gave her a quick glance as he ran down the lane to his family.

  Brett was decked out in winter gear, his camera hanging from a cord on his neck. “I just told A.J. that Robert Feehan flagged me down a few minutes ago.”

  “Where?” Rose asked.

  “Up the road, not far from the place I’m staying. He jumped out of the woods. Scared the hell out of me. He asked about you. He said he wanted to talk to you. I know he’s upset about Derek, but he really wasn’t himself. I told him he might want to calm down before he saw you.”

  Rose grimaced. “Too late.”

  “Ah. He found you already. I wondered. I gather it didn’t go well.”

  “As you saw yourself, he’s on edge. Do you have any idea where he might be now?”

  “No, sorry. He ran up the road. I didn’t follow him. I think he might have had a car up there. I heard an engine start.”

  “He didn’t drive back by you?”

  Brett shook his head. “He must have gone in the other direction. I don’t have a cell phone—I borrowed A.J.’s and called 911. I know the police want to talk to him about Derek’s death.”

  “Robert could be anywhere.”

  “I wish I could have delayed him but I had no idea what was going on.” Brett tilted his head back and sighed. “You don’t look so good, Rose. Did Robert hurt you?”

  “No, but he was out of control.”

  “Yeah. It’s crazy. I think he wishes now he hadn’t gotten mixed with up Derek, too, but Derek had his good qualities. He thought he could do anything.”

  “He could put on the charm,” Rose said tightly, “but he could turn it off in a heartbeat. Brett, you’re house-sitting just up the road. Could Robert have come out here this morning to talk to you, too?”

  “I suppose so.” Brett fingered a button on his camera. “I got the feeling he was hiding in the woods and jumped out on impulse when he saw me. I wish I could be more help. Robert didn’t say so in as many words, but he obv
iously thinks Derek went to the Whittaker place to kill himself.”

  Rose’s stomach twisted, but she said nothing.

  “So that you would find him,” Brett added.

  “Did he say why he thought Derek might be suicidal?”

  Brett shook his head. “He really wasn’t making much sense.”

  “If Robert knows anything,” she said evenly, “he should tell the police.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  She followed his gaze down the road as Nick walked out from the lane carrying the empty toboggan. A.J. was behind him with a child on each arm, Lauren next to him.

  “I hope Derek didn’t commit suicide,” Brett said. “I hope he just wanted to talk to you, and the fire was an accident—just one of those dumb things. From everything I hear, Lowell Whittaker’s the type to leave flammable stuff around.”

  Would he put a volatile, highly flammable liquid into a kerosene lamp and just leave it for anyone to light? Rose shuddered at the thought. “Given what else he’s done, I suppose anything’s possible.”

  “He puts a whole new spin on the term ‘gentleman farmer.’” Brett gestured toward Nick as he loaded the toboggan into the back of A.J.’s SUV. “Who’s that? Got a new boyfriend, Rose?”

  Rose squinted at Brett in the strong midday sun. “That’s Nick Martini, my brother Sean’s business partner.”

  “What’s he doing out here? Is Sean with him?”

  “Sean’s not with him, no,” she said carefully.

  “Wait, is this the guy who was with you yesterday when you found Derek?”

  “Nick was there, but we weren’t together.”

  Brett blew out a breath, shaking his head. “What a mess. Well, I should go. I told the police I’d meet them up where I saw Robert. I’ll leave you to your family.”

  Rose watched him cross the road and head past the trail up to the falls. She was still looking in his direction when she felt Nick next to her. “I’m walking back to the lodge,” she said. “You can ride with A.J., Lauren and the kids—”

  “I’ll walk with you.”

  She didn’t argue with him. A.J. muttered something to her about hoping she knew what she was doing and headed off with Lauren and their now tired children.

  “I think I’m getting used to the cold weather,” Nick said as he started up the road. “Feels good in its own way.”

  “The low humidity today helps,” Rose said.

  She walked with him up the quiet road, telling him about Brett’s encounter with Robert. Nick stopped abruptly and took her by the arm, not ungently. “Do you ever ask yourself if you’re too brave by half?”

  “I’m not reckless, Nick.” She faced him as he continued to hold on to her. “Black Falls and my family have had their problems this past year, but I’ve never felt unsafe here.”

  “Problems? A woman was blown up in the lodge parking lot—”

  “A killer, killed by the man who hired her to murder people, including my father. Yesterday…” She pulled her arm free of Nick’s grasp, aware of her reaction to him, the same mix of physical and emotional sparks that had landed him in bed with her eight months ago. “We don’t know what happened to Derek.”

  “A kerosene lamp exploded and burned him to death.”

  The raw words rocked her back onto her heels.

  Nick didn’t relent. “You’re an amazing woman, Rose, as well as brave, but you’re fighting demons. You won’t let anyone help you. Your brothers, your friends—me.”

  “I don’t even know you, Nick.”

  He took her scarf, hanging loosely down her front, and tied it warmly under her chin. She felt the brush of his bare hands on her skin. “Maybe that’s why I’m here,” he said. “So you can get to know me.”

  Her breath caught but she shook her head. “You’re here because of Jasper. If he hadn’t died last June…” She didn’t finish, shaking off any thought of the tragic death of the arson investigator. “What if Lowell Whittaker filled the kerosene lamp with Coleman fuel with the plan of killing his wife? I could see Vivian walking into the shed, lighting the lamp—”

  “I never wanted to hurt you,” Nick said next to her.

  She pretended not to hear him. “Fire scenes are difficult forensically. We might never know how the Coleman fuel—assuming that’s what caused the fire—got into the lamp.”

  “Rose. Stop ignoring me.”

  She plunged down the road, feeling the scarf rub against her chin, but stopped after a few yards, turning back to him. “You didn’t hurt me, Nick,” she said. “We had a good time together that night. Let’s not beat ourselves up over it.”

  “Easy to say.” He walked up the road to her. “You were still dealing with your father’s death and Elijah’s near-death. You’d done some difficult searches. You almost didn’t get to the missing boy in time. The search for him put you dangerously close to the flare-up that killed Jasper.”

  “You’re right about all that, Nick. I still have no regrets.”

  “If I took advantage of you—”

  “You didn’t. You’d just lost a friend yourself.” She raised her hand and skimmed her knuckles across his cheek. “I hope I didn’t take advantage of you.”

  Nick winked at her, his serious mood over, or pushed down deep. “Sweetheart,” he said with a grin, “you can take advantage of me like that anytime.”

  She groaned, shaking her head. “You started this conversation. I’m not letting you off the hook with a joke and off we go. You’re Sean’s best friend. We were both still reeling from some tough stuff that’d happened to us. There’s no way you and I could have made anything real happen.”

  His dark eyes flashed. “What happened between us was very real.”

  “We had a moment in time that came and went. We were there for each other. That’s how I think of what happened.”

  “Were you also on the rebound from Derek Cutshaw?”

  She bristled involuntarily, his question catching her off guard—as he’d intended, she realized. She kept her tone steady. “No, I wasn’t.”

  “Fair enough.” Nick took off a glove and with one finger pushed strands of hair off her face, then let his fingertip trail across her cheek to her lower lip. “Anything you need or want, I’m here in the sticks with nothing to do.”

  Without answering, she continued down the road at a brisk pace.

  “Come sit by the lodge fire with me,” Nick said, easily keeping up with her. “We can play Scrabble. Join Ranger.”

  “I have work to do. You must, too.”

  “Yeah, sure. Calls to make, asses to kick.” Clearly he didn’t believe her. When they reached the lodge, he said, “I’ll be upstairs. Lunch?”

  She nodded in spite of herself. “I’ll meet you in the dining room.”

  As he trotted up the stairs, she noticed the shape of his hips, the energy with which he moved and the same sheer, unbridled masculinity she’d experienced during their night together.

  She found Ranger right where she left him, enjoying the fireplace in the lobby. “Not a word, puppy dog. Not a word.”

  Nine

  Nick bought a decent winter hat and rented cross-country skis at the lodge shop, a short walk down from the main building, and headed for the groomed tracks in the meadow. Rose hadn’t joined him for lunch. He couldn’t say he blamed her. She’d disappeared with Ranger down a hall past the front desk, presumably to discuss winter fest plans with her sister-in-law. After seeing the old sugar shack, he’d decided he wouldn’t mind checking out winter fest. He’d pictured galvanized buckets hanging from maple trees, steam rising out of a bubbling pot, snow and bonfires.

  Could be fun.

  First they had to find Robert Feehan. Accosting Rose and avoiding questioning by the police weren’t helping him. He’d already bolted when Nick spotted him. He’d focused on getting to Rose, making sure she wasn’t hurt. He hadn’t gotten a good look at Feehan, but Scott Thorne had shown him a photo.

  Not a glimmer of recognition, Nick
thought as he put on his skis. He doubted he’d run into Feehan in California or anywhere else.

  The air was brisk but not frigid, with little wind. Nick couldn’t ski worth a damn, but he did all right on groomed and backcountry trails. All right enough, anyway. He wasn’t skiing for the fun of it.

  He needed to think.

  He had the meadow to himself. No other lodge guests were on the trails. He skied hard, pushing himself. He remembered Rose last June during the frantic search for the missing eleven-year-old boy, and then for Jasper Vanderhorn. She’d been dedicated, tireless, determined and professional.

  And also eaten alive by her own limitations.

  Nick had thought he understood then, but he did even more so now that he’d been to Black Falls. She hadn’t been able to save her father. She’d been helpless when her brother Elijah was shot in Afghanistan. According to Sean, Rose had buried herself in her work that spring. When she arrived in Los Angeles in June, Nick had considered her off-limits, but that was nothing new. She was mountain man Sean Cameron’s little sister. A Vermonter. A search-and-rescue type. Nick had dated real estate agents, decorators, actresses and producers, but he’d been too devoted to his work with Cameron & Martini and as a smoke jumper to have a serious relationship.

  In the aftermath of his long, hot days on the fire line and Jasper’s tragic death, there was Rose with those incisive blue eyes. That tight, fit body.

  Sexy. Very sexy.

  And there’d been vulnerability, need, heat—and a night of nonstop sex.

  By daylight Nick had come to his senses. He had seized the moment with her in an attempt to distract himself from his own anger and grief. They’d both encountered death in their work, but Jasper’s death was different. He’d been an intense, dedicated arson investigator, and everyone knew he’d been targeted that day—murdered.

  Nick could rationalize his behavior, but only to a point. Rose had needed him to keep his distance, and he hadn’t.

  Now he wondered if she’d also been struggling to put whatever had happened between her and Derek Cutshaw behind her.

  Nick paused at the top of a curving downhill stretch, with woods to the left and a snow-and-ice-encased rock outcropping to the right. He noted a spot in a drift off the trail where someone had obviously taken a tumble.