But now they needed wood. Outside, she held her coat closed while crossing the garage to the door leading to her woodpile. She should have brought the carrier, but in the sudden need to be away from Jason, had forgotten it.
The snow was falling faster. If clearing the tree had taken much more time, they wouldn’t have gotten back up the mountain. By dark, their tire tracks would be covered. If it kept up like this, they would have to fight the front door open in the morning.
She loaded up her arms and turned. Smiling, Jason stood behind her. The urge to frown at him overcame her, and she didn’t know why. “Grab an armload and we won’t have to come back out tonight.”
“Will this be enough?”
“Yes.”
“For all night?”
Cass stopped in the doorway. She’d picked up more than she could hold and didn’t want to drop it right now. It hung in her arms like lead. Her shoulders ached. “I’ve lived up here for five years. I know how much wood we’ll need to get through a night.” She shoved past him.
“No reason to get snippy,” he called after her.
Inside, she stacked the wood in the box by the fireplace. The fire had died down, but there should be enough embers to bring it back up. She was being snippy. It welled out of her like oil seeping from the ground. She set a small split log on the embers. If she wanted to chase Jason away, this would do it. Have great sex with him and then snap at him. It was becoming a pattern.
Balancing a huge armload of wood, Jason walked in, looking wary.
“Here, let me get some of that.” She stood up and took the top pieces off his stack. “I’m sorry. This is not something I normally do.”
“Snap?”
She felt herself turning red. Sleeping around probably didn’t seem like a big deal to him, but she’d seen Almost Famous. He lived it. “Have affairs.”
“I didn’t think so. If you had, some smart guy would have grabbed you up by now.” He eased the rest of the wood into the box.
Cass put another piece of wood on the fire. A joke. That’s all this was to him. A joke and a passing fancy. Anger welled up again, and she needed to cap it before it got away from her. This should be light, not an ugly scene. She needed to stop making this more than casual sex between consenting adults. He was not going to fall madly in love with her and decide to take her away from all this, and she had to stop herself from falling in love with him. “I’m going to go take a shower before I get dinner.”
“Sure.” He frowned, but didn’t say anything else. As she walked into the bathroom she heard him noodling on his guitar. He wasn’t playing “I’m Looking Through You,” so she felt safe enough to step under the water.
* * * *
After her shower, Cass brought out the hanging grill for the fireplace. Jason’s eyes lit up when he realized how she planned to cook dinner. While eating his hamburgers and baked potatoes cooked in the fireplace, he acted like a big, happy kid. Afterward, they sang campfire songs for a while, then put in a movie and cuddled on the couch. While she lay back in his arms, he seemed comfortable, just watching the movie and holding her. Michael had never wanted to do that. He’d either critiqued the acting and directing or told her the movie was a waste of time, and wouldn’t she rather go see a play? Not until her first winter on the mountain had she been able to watch movies again. That first long winter, when she’d discovered she could stand on her own.
“Why do you call it In the Pines Campground?” Jason asked as she took the DVD out of the player.
“I named it after a song my dad likes.”
He brightened. “Can you sing it?”
“I’m sure I have it on a CD here someplace.”
“I want to hear you sing it.”
Her father had sung it to her since she was a baby. The words should be encoded in her DNA. “In the pines, in the pines where the sun never shines and you shiver when the cold winds blow. True love, true love, won’t you write to me, not even your mammy knows.” Then her mind went blank. She was singing for a singer. Her down-home, untrained, amateur voice sounded fine around a campfire, but he knew how to sing. “I forget the rest. Something about being in jail, I think. Maybe getting married. Those were the popular themes. My dad could sing it for you.”
“Sing the tune for me again.” He picked up his guitar.
She snapped the DVD back into its keeper case.
“Come on, you’ve been singing all night,” he encouraged. He picked out a couple of notes. “In the pines, in the pines where the sun never shines…”
Because she had no choice, she sang the small bit she remembered so he could pick out the tune on his guitar. He played the bit again. “I could call my dad and ask him what the rest of the words are,” she offered.
“Ah, but then he might catch on,” Jason said. “I don’t want to be the guest of honor at a shotgun wedding, remember?”
“True.”
The notes spun into the air as he started picking the tune out again. “I’ll track it down. I just wondered. I’m not much for tree watching, but I know a pine when I see it, and you don’t seem to have any.”
“No, it’s mostly elms, oaks, beeches and maples around here.” His fingers had played across her skin the same way they now strummed the strings. Masterfully, confident...almost lovingly. Remembering it, everywhere on her tingled. Her phone rang, startling her. She darted across the room and got it on the second ring. “Hello?”
“Cassie, are you all tucked in for the storm?”
“Oh hi, Mom. I am.” Cass leaned against the wall. At times, her mother seemed psychic. When she was a child, she’d been sure of it, but later realized she just lived in a small town with lots of eyes. Times like now she wasn’t so sure it was only nosy neighbors who clued her mother in to her wrongdoing.
“How about your guest?”
“He’s fine.”
“I wish you weren’t having this storm while he was up there. I don’t like to think about novices in this weather.”
Jason was playing something softly and note perfect. Her mother probably assumed it was a CD. “I’m sure he’ll be fine. I’ll keep a watch on him,” Cass said. Without missing a note, Jason looked over his shoulder and winked at her.
“Your father and I were just talking about you taking winter guests. If you had good weather, it wouldn’t be so bad. You know, Sue could get you a pack of guests in the winter. She always has people clamoring for her retreat things, and those folks always want to be left alone anyway. But I worry about this weather.”
“I guess this will make a good test run.” Head down, eyes closed, Jason had turned back to his playing. Cass doubted she would be treating the regular guests the way she treated him. Or anyone, actually.
“I should warn you, Finn Runningwater is just wild with jealousy.”
“Why?”
“He’s sure something is going to happen between you and your guest.”
Cass rolled her eyes, and for once her mother didn’t seem to hear it.
“Not that I would blame you.”
“Mother!”
“Oh, honey, you’re a grown woman and I must tell you, that Jason is quite nice to look at.”
“Dad isn’t around, is he?”
Jason turned around, frowning curiously.
“No, he’s watching television downstairs, but he did defend you to Finn. He told him it was your choice what you did and he, Finn that is, had no claim on you.”
“When did this happen?”
“At Ida’s this afternoon. We went in for lunch. You know, I don’t think Paul likes Finn much.”
Cass put her hand over her eyes. Ida’s, which meant Ida had been there as well as Finn, her parents and Paul, and an assortment of townsfolk. As far as they knew, nothing was happening on the mountain, but they were making something up anyway. Heaven help her if they ever found out what was going on. “Why don’t you think Paul likes Finn?”
“Well,
they got into it today. Paul said you knew what you were about and Finn should keep out of it, and Finn said if you’d gone off with Michael then you must not know what you were about so somebody had to keep watch over you. Well, you know Paul and Paul was right there with you. He just about went through the roof.”
Paul rarely controlled himself when he could go full hissy fit, and if her mother said ‘through the roof’ it must have been Paul classic, complete with broken dishes. The town would be talking until spring.
“Paul told Finn he had best keep his opinions to himself because he wasn’t there and didn’t know what happened. He said he doubted even you knew all of what had happened between you two.” Shirley paused for a beat. “What do you suppose he meant by that?”
Her stomach lurched. Living next door to her and Michael in New York, Paul had gotten a front row seat to every fight, heard every slammed door. He’d also seen their comings and goings, and who with. Michael didn’t think she’d known how often he’d held private rehearsals with the beautiful and exotic Sasha, whose real name was Sarah, and who worshipped Michael. Sasha’s number had appeared often on Michael’s phone, but Paul no doubt knew Sasha had been in their apartment many times when she hadn’t been home. And about the other women who’d come and gone, whose names were still a mystery. Huh, Paul was a better secret keeper than she’d given him credit for. “I have no idea,” she said, and hoped it fooled her mother.
“Oh, well, you know how dramatic Paul is.”
Growing up, Cass had thought dramatic meant homosexual. In college, she’d learned dramatic and homosexual were synonyms only in her mother’s thesaurus. No way to tell if her mother was referring to Paul’s sex life or his penchant for screeching and giving people the hairy eyeball.
“He broke Finn’s mug.”
So, broken dishes, after all. Apparently her mother was using the theatrical sense of the word. “Is that so?”
“He did. Paul just snatched that mug out of the case and threw it against the wall. Ida told him, Finn that is, not to worry about it.”
“Mom, I’m amazed at how you all can take nothing and turn it into high drama.”
“It’s a gift, sweetheart. We talked to Bill Wernick today, too.”
“Did he get to witness the mug smashing?”
“Yes, he was there. We asked him about that pasture.”
Though not keen on her parents running her business, if it got her mother off the subject of what might be happening on the mountain, she had to encourage it. Besides, she wanted to know what was going on in Bill’s mind. “And he said?”
“You know he’ll decide in the next few days. He’s getting so old, Cassie, and the price of mutton is just bottoming out. He said he might wait until after lambing and sell the flock and that pasture. His daughter wants to move home to take care of him, and her husband has a horse stable where he rents horses to tourists. They thought it might be a good thing around here, and they’re getting squeezed out, where they are. Too many other people in the business. Plus, his daughter would be right on hand to take care of him in his infirmity. We told Bill that he had to give you first crack if he did sell. He said he’d call you after the storm passed.”
“Good, as long as the lines don’t go down, I’ll be right here.”
“If the lines do go down, you’ll be right there, too. Do you have your cellular phone charged up?”
Damn. In all the arguing with Finn, running down the mountain for condoms and having sex in the hall, she’d forgotten to check her cellphone. “No, I didn’t. I’ll go get it right now.”
“Okay, honey, I just wanted to make sure you were all right.”
“We’re fine.” Cass bit her lip at the slip. We? As if the whole town didn’t already have her trysting with Jason.
“That’s good. You keep warm and don’t forget about your cellular phone.”
“’Bye, Mom.” She hung up and headed for the dining room cupboard, where she kept the phone.
“What’s the big news?” Jason asked.
“Oh, Finn is wild with jealousy about you being here on the mountain and he got into a fight with Paul about it at the diner today, probably while we were working at that tree. Anyway, Paul smashed Finn’s mug, which is sort of like being banned from the diner.”
“Sounds like a tribal ritual.” His lips thinned. Paul wasn’t the only one who didn’t like Finn.
“Sort of. Paul made an unfortunate comment to the whole world about me and my ex-husband.” She plugged in the phone on the sideboard. When she turned around, Jason stood behind her. He looked furious.
“What did he say?” His eyes narrowed to match his thinned lips.
“He just said he didn’t think I knew everything that went on between Michael and I. Paul lived next door, so he got to hear and see a lot. There was another woman or two.” Cass looked down. Michael’s cheating still humiliated her. She could read all the books she wanted on how it hadn’t been her fault, but if that were true, whose fault was it? If she had been a better wife or a better lover, Michael wouldn’t have had to go looking, would he?
“Your husband cheated on you?” Jason stood up.
Biting her lip, she nodded.
“What a bastard!” he shouted, which made her flinch. He put his hand on her shoulders. “Cassie, why did you let him do that? Why didn’t you kick him to the curb?”
“I wouldn’t say I let him.” She’d only left the apartment for hours, told Michael when she would return. When he’d straggled home after “late rehearsals” with cat hair on his clothes and the smell of cigarettes in his hair, she just hadn’t asked.
She’d just never stopped him.
“Cassie,” Jason said, “how could he?”
“Maybe he was missing something at home.” Cass gnawed her lip.
“What? Great sex? Home cooking?” His voice hitched. “Companionship? Come on. Cassie, as much as I know you, I know he had plenty of that with you. Did he tell you he was missing something?”
She shook her head.
“You can’t make a promise like marriage and not mean it.”
“I meant it,” she snapped. She’d stood at the altar, sworn to love and honor through sickness and health, for richer or poorer ’til death, meaning every word.
“You did, but he didn’t. He can’t have ever loved you. If he didn’t want to try and if he didn’t talk to you about what he wanted, then he didn’t fucking try.”
“He said I wasn’t cut out to be married to an actor.”
“Why?”
“I hated parties. We had to go to a lot of them to socialize and I hated it. He would leave me alone in a booth, and I’d spend the whole night miserable.”
“Why did he leave you alone?”
Cass opened her mouth and then closed it. She’d never wondered why Michael left her alone, he just had. While he networked, she nursed a Shirley Temple and talked to people who felt sorry enough for her they sat with her for a little while. “Didn’t Stella leave you alone?”
“We’re not talking about Stella, and no, she didn’t. She wore me on her arm like a giant piece of jewelry. The point is, I wouldn’t have left you alone. No gentleman would. He was a jerk, Cass. You’re better off without him.”
“Why do you care?”
Jason let her go and turned away. She waited for a long time, hoping he would turn around and say something stupid about how he’d fallen madly in love with her and wanted to take her away from all this. Or he wanted to stay here with her forever. Or just how he’d fallen madly in love with her. They could work out the details later. He walked to the fireplace, and leaning on the mantle, watched the flames. Moments passed, then he said, “I guess because I have four sisters. Two divorced. I learned all the names girls call rotten guys, and pretty much had it beaten into me that being one of those wasn’t acceptable.”
“I don’t think you are.”
He snorted, but continued to stare into the flames
. Cass laced her fingers together. Maybe he was thinking about Stella again. Should she do something about it?
The set of his shoulders warned her off. He’d put up a barrier she couldn’t cross, one she couldn’t bear to live with for another moment. “Jason?”
“What?”
Good question. “Are you mad at me about something?”
“No.”
He sounded angry. “Are you sure?” Sweat drenched her palms, and she felt kind of sick that he might be angry because she hadn’t worked hard enough to save her marriage. There were things she could have done. She could have been more social at parties and more discerning about her taste in movies and plays. Made herself sexier. Confronted Michael about the other women and asked him what he got from them that she didn’t give. She could have learned to be the kind of woman Michael wanted even if that woman wasn’t her.
Would Jason want her to become someone else to please him? Or would he be happy with who she already was? Would great sex, home cooking and companionship be enough for him? Since he wasn’t staying anyway, none of that would probably matter.
“I’m not angry at you.”
He muttered something else under his breath, but she couldn’t summon the courage to ask him to repeat himself. “Well, I’ve got some work to do.” She shuffled into the kitchen and located the index cards. Working on the summer schedule would at least distract her. The papers together, she set everything on the dining room table. He was still standing by the mantle staring into the fire. The air crackled with tension, which could be coming from him, or her worrying about him.
She sat down. Michael used to give her the silent treatment, and it always made her feel small and worthless. Picking up the first blank card, she stared at it. She’d done this for the last three years yet couldn’t remember how to start. Sinking into a small dark place where all she could do was struggle not to cry was all too familiar, though.
“Stop it.”
Chapter 11
Cass was on her feet listening to the chair bang into the cabinet behind her before she realized she’d shouted. Jason whirled around, eyes wide and mouth open. Her chest heaved with unshed tears. For a long moment, nothing moved but the fire.
Heaven Beside You Page 14