Mountain Lumberjack

by Sienna Chance

  “I—I think I’ve already fallen,” I said to him, feeling helpless as I spoke the words. He tilted his face in to kiss me and I let him, kissing him back. I tasted his mouth for a long time, touching his cheek, holding his face close as the ski lift pulled up to the mountain. We almost missed getting off but stood up just in time, laughing as we made our way up the mountain.

  “Last time we did this, I hurt myself,” I said. “Do you remember?”

  “I remember,” he said, with a half-grin on his face. “It was very cute.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’m sure it was.”

  “That was a good night,” he said, and I blushed when I remembered it. That was the first time I’d been completely out of control of my own body with Logan, and it had taken me until last night to realize how much I’d loved it.

  “So what are we doing up here if we’re not skiing?” I asked him.

  “We’re climbing,” he said, pointing to a higher peak than the one we were at. “I want you to see this whole place.”

  I bit my lip, looking up at the higher mountain. The difference to me seemed tremendous. But he took my hand and I found I was calm as we started hiking our way up, slowly marching through the snow. It was beautiful on the mountain—the snow perfectly white, crisp and fresh. The green of the trees stood out among the pale surroundings, making the whole place look inherently festive.

  It took us some time to climb to the top and, after a few breaks, we finally made it. Logan reached down and helped me up the last step, then pulled me against his side, wrapping his arm around my waist.

  “Look,” he said softly into my ear. “Look at your home, Lily.”

  I stared out, my lips parted in wonder, finding it almost hard to breathe. The view from here was more than picturesque—seeing the retreat below and everything that came with it, covered in snow and dancing with lights, looked like a scene straight out of a snow globe. It was beautiful—massive and grand, all deep red wood.

  “It’s beautiful,” I said to him. His eyes were on my face and he put his hand on my cheek, turning my face to his.

  “Stay with me, Lily,” he said, looking into my eyes. “I love you. I loved you the moment I saw you.”

  I chewed on my lip.

  “What if it doesn’t work out? What if—what if this is just supposed to be a fling?”

  “It’s not,” he said, kissing my lips. “It’s not, angel. I love you.”

  “I love you too,” I said to him and found myself smiling despite my reservations.

  I wanted to stay there, wanted to live on the mountain, spend my days with Logan and stop worrying so much about my job or moving up. If I wanted to work, I could work anywhere—I didn’t have to be in California. I breathed him in, kissing him for a long time as we overlooked the retreat. It was cold, but I barely felt it as I stood there with him, and the bright sun warmed my skin while we stood close together. We didn’t start back down the mountain until it started to get dark, making our way down to the lower level.

  I didn’t notice that anything was wrong until Logan stopped, peering at the lift.

  “What is it?” I asked him.

  “It’s not moving,” he said, walking toward it. He looked up at the giant machine, squinting at the falling sunlight.

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  “It means I have to call over to the other side. Somebody must have stopped it.”

  “Oh,” I said, but I felt my heart speed up. “Okay. Are you going to call?”

  He looked at me, frowning. “It’s okay,” he said reassuringly. “I’m going to call now.”

  I nodded, crossing my arms over my chest for warmth. The sun seemed to be setting quickly, and it was getting colder and colder on the mountain. Logan put the phone to his ear and cursed under his breath, looking down at the screen.

  “What?” I asked him, feeling slightly panicky at the look on his face.

  “No signal,” he said, looking down at his phone. “Don’t worry, Lily,” he said. “Just give it a couple of minutes and it’ll start again. They’re probably just switching shifts.”

  I nodded, snuggling up close to him, shivering in the cold. He wrapped his arm around my body, holding me close.

  “It’s okay,” he said, kissing the side of my head, but it didn’t feel okay. Nor did it get better as a half hour, then an hour passed in the freezing cold. Logan tried his cell phone endlessly, growing more and more impatient as time went by. We settled on the ground in a spot where the snow had already melted, and though it was wet, it was better than standing because we could huddle into ourselves. I felt my jaw trembling after a while, my fingers and toes going numb as we sat there.

  “It’s okay, Lily,” Logan said to me, and I could tell that his voice was shaking as well. The wind had picked up and started to blow, sending a chill through my body. I’d never been colder in my life, never felt anything like this before. I huddled close to Logan, burying my face in his neck, but even the skin there was cold to the touch.

  “Logan,” I said. “I don’t think—”

  “Shh,” he said softly, holding me tight. “Any minute. It’ll start any minute now.”

  I closed my eyes, knowing it wasn’t true. I felt myself falling asleep, felt the world grow dark around me as I curled up close to him.

  “Don’t fall asleep,” he said, pulling me upright, touching my cheek with his hand. “Not a good idea, angel. You can’t fall asleep, okay?”

  “Okay,” I said to him, but I yawned anyway, my eyes watering with exhaustion. He rubbed my skin frantically up and down, staring at my face with anxious eyes. His face snapped up then and he shook me.

  “What?” I asked him, my words slurred, eyes unable to open.

  “Someone’s coming,” he said. “Wake up, Lily. Someone’s coming over here.”

  I opened my eyes, turning my head to see a helicopter whirling through the air in our direction. I gaped at it, keeping my eyes on it as it landed in the snow about a hundred meters away from us. I tried to move toward it but I stumbled, falling into the snow, my legs unable to carry me. Logan lifted me into his arms and carried me over to the chopper. A man stepped out, all bundled up, clearly a police officer.

  “Lilian Jackson?” he asked. I nodded, staring at him with wide eyes.

  “You’re under arrest,” he said. “I—”

  “She’s fucking freezing to death,” Logan hissed at the cop. “Can we please get on the helicopter?”

  The cop gave him a dry, bored look, then nodded. We climbed onto the helicopter and I immediately felt warmth wash over me when they closed the doors, the heat working at my skin, numbing my body. I tingled all over, my skin prickling uncomfortably as the feeling came back to it. Logan rubbed my limbs in his hands as I stared at the two cops on board.

  “Why were you two up there if she’s freezing to death?”

  “We got stuck up there. Somebody disabled the lift from the other side,” Logan said.

  “What kind of establishment are you running here, Mitchells?”

  Logan didn’t say anything. His eyes turned to the retreat and his brow furrowed.

  “The power’s off,” he said, shaking his head and sighing. “Jesus. That means the heat is cut.”

  “Oh,” I said softly. Logan held my hand as the helicopter landed, but before we could climb off, the cop took my arm.

  “You’re coming with us,” he said, leading me off the helicopter.

  “She didn’t do anything,” Logan protested quickly, taking my arm. “She didn’t. Her friend Marilyn—”

  “Who’s Marilyn?” the cop asked.

  “She’s the one who killed Michael,” I told him.

  He stared at me blankly. “This is your place, right?” he asked Logan. Logan nodded and I gave him a confused look.

  “What?”

  “I, uh—I own the retreat,” he said, glancing away from me. I stared at him, full of questions, but he looked back at the retreat.

  “I’ll go
in and get Marilyn,” Logan said to the cop. “Please. You need to talk to her.”

  “How long is this going to take?” the man asked impatiently.

  “Just a few minutes,” Logan said, already starting to make his way back into the building. He glanced at me before he went inside. “I’ll be right back.”

  “We’ll be here,” said the cop in an annoyed voice. I watched as Logan walked back into the building, a knot forming in my stomach for reasons I didn’t quite understand. The retreat looked ominous, looming and cursed with all of the lights off. I shivered just looking at it, swallowing my fear. It was irrational, I knew. There was no such thing as a curse. Still, I thought about what Logan had said about the previous owners who’d died here, the people who’d disappeared.

  “I think—” I started to say, but was interrupted when the front door to the retreat burst open and the sounds of screams could be heard as people started pouring out of the building, running in every direction.

  “Wait,” said the cop, holding his arm out to stop someone. He opened his mouth to ask a question but it was then that we heard gunshots inside—three, loud and aggressive in the cold stillness of the night. I gasped, staring at the cops as they both pulled out their guns.

  “Stay outside,” one of them warned me, leaving me behind as they both rushed into the building.

  I only paused for a moment before I hurried after them, catching sight of their feet as they made their way up the stairs. I crept through the building, which was eerie and empty in the lobby after everyone had run out. I looked upstairs to see the cops disappearing onto the second floor and made my way instead to the basement, my heart pounding when I found the door unlocked.

  18

  Logan

  “Richard,” I said, my hands up in front of me, my eyes on the body in the corner. “Calm down.”

  Richard shook his head at me, a dry grin on his face.

  “Oh, no,” he said. “No, I’ve tried everything else up to this point. This is the only other choice that I have.”

  “What do you mean, you’ve tried everything?”

  “I did the best I fucking could to get you out of this place,” he hissed. “I’ve been trying to get you to sell for weeks.”

  “You set the fire,” I said. I wasn’t surprised. It was what I’d suspected, but I didn’t know how any other pieces fit in. I heard a sniffling noise then and turned my head to see a woman—Marilyn, huddled in the corner crying. She looked up at me with red-rimmed eyes.

  “Help me,” she said in a soft cry, her eyes turning up to look at Richard.

  “What else have you done, Richard?” I asked, looking over at Jerry’s body. “Why did you kill him?”

  “Jerry was working for me. Working with me. He was a part of the plan all along,” Richard said. “See, I thought that if you thought you had a ghost problem—”

  “The man downstairs,” Logan said. “The one that Lily saw—”

  “Jerry has been staying down here at my behest,” Richard said. “Causing trouble at the worksite, doing what he can to scare you off. But nothing worked. Not even threatening your precious Lily.”

  I swallowed hard. “What did you do to Lily?”

  “I warned her to stay away from you. I did it more than once. But she just wouldn’t stop. That’s where Marilyn here came in.”

  Marilyn started to cry harder.

  “This isn’t what I wanted,” she said. “I didn’t want anybody to die.”

  “You wanted Lilian to die,” Richard spat.

  “No,” said Marilyn. “No, I just wanted—I just wanted to make her suffer.”

  “Marilyn was the one who turned me on to Lilian in the first place,” Richard said. “I caught her one night following Lily, threatening her.”

  “I wasn’t—” said Marilyn, but she cut herself off, crying again.

  “What were you going to do to Lily?” I asked.

  “Oh, I thought that sending her to jail might be enough,” Richard said, but then he glanced over my shoulder and my heart sank in my stomach. I turned to see Lily standing in the doorway, her eyes wide as she stared at the gun that Richard was holding. Her gaze turned to the body on the floor and she gasped, backing out of the room.

  “Not so fast,” Richard said, gesturing for her to enter. “Come in, Lilian. Come on.”

  “Don’t,” I said to Lily. “Go, Lily.”

  She shook her head, stepping into the room.

  “What do you want, Richard?” I asked him. “You want your money? You want me to sell this place?”

  “It’s too late for that now,” said Richard. “No, all I want at this point is good old-fashioned revenge for ruining my life.”

  “So kill me,” I said as he pointed the gun at Lily. I stepped close to him. “Just kill me. Let her go.”

  Richard shook his head, pulling Lily against him quickly and holding the gun to her head. She stared at me with wide eyes, eyes that pierced my chest and ripped my heart from me.

  “Let her go, Richard,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm as I stepped toward them. “Just let her go, you’ll get your money, we can move on. I won’t tell the cops about this, okay? We can say—we can say that all of this was Jerry.”

  Richard laughed, opening his mouth to speak, but was cut off by a loud shriek as Marilyn threw herself against him, knocking both him and Lilian over. They all tumbled to the ground in a pile of limbs. Marilyn thrashed against Richard. Lilian tried to wrestle herself free from his grip. I ran over to them and grabbed hold of Lilian, pulling her away and free. She scrambled backward and away from where the two were grappling on the floor. I watched as Richard climbed on top of Marilyn, wrapping his hands around her throat. He started to choke her and I rushed over, yanking him off, throwing him hard against the wall. He hit it but didn’t fall, managing to stumble back onto his feet. I saw him glance at the floor and my eyes followed, seeing that he’d dropped the gun in the fight with Marilyn. I didn’t hesitate to dive for it, grabbing it in my hand, rolling away from him as he tried to fight me.

  “Give it up,” I said, getting to my feet and pointing the gun at his head. He smiled at me, lunging forward, and I didn’t know what I was doing before I pulled the trigger.

  The room went silent and still, the only noise was the sound of Richard’s body hitting the ground. The blood began to pool around him and I stared, gaping at him, watching as the puddle grew. The door flew open and the cops appeared there, both pointing their guns, holding them outright as they looked at the bodies on the ground.

  “There’s your killer,” I said to them, pointing down at Richard’s body.

  “He’s the one who pushed Michael Banks?” the cop asked.

  “Yes,” said Marilyn from the corner. “Yes, he—he did it. I saw him.”

  “Why did you tell people that it was Lilian Jackson?” the cop asked.

  “Because—he threatened me. He told me that he would kill me if I told.”

  The cop stared at her, then turned his eyes to Lily.

  “Is this true? Richard killed Michael Banks?”

  “Yes,” she said. “He told me not to tell, too. I thought—we thought he was going to kill us.”

  “Who is that?” asked the cop, pointing to Jerry’s body.

  “That’s the kid,” I said. “The one who went missing.”

  “The one who doesn’t exist?” the cop asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “Yep,” I told him, giving him a cold look. I looked over at Lily, who was shivering in the doorway, her eyes fixed on the body on the ground.

  “Can she go warm up and go to bed?” I asked them.

  They both looked at her, then nodded. “We can question her tomorrow,” they said.

  I went to Lily then and wrapped my arm around her waist.

  “Come upstairs, angel,” I said to her softly. “Come wait for me in my room.”

  She didn’t say anything as we got on the elevator, only took my hand and held it, squeezing it tight. I brough
t her up to my room and undressed her, then laid her down othe bed under the covers.

  “I’ll be back soon,” I said to her softly, kissing her lips, her cheek, her neck. She looked up at my face, stroking my lips with her fingers.

  “Is the curse broken?” she asked. I smiled at her, nodding.

  “Yes, angel,” I said to her, leaning down to kiss her eyelids, which had already fluttered shut. “It’s done.”

  19

  Lilian

  I stared out the window, watching as the waves lapped at the beach. I sighed, my eyes zoning out past the horizon, wishing desperately to be outside and not cooped up in my stuffy office. I sighed, looking around the place and grimacing. I’d found since I’d been back that I hated it here, resented every part of being in California. But I didn’t have a choice, so every day I dragged myself to work until it was time to go home again, and sometimes I’d manage to have enough energy to stop by the beach on the way home. The beach—California itself—was the only thing keeping me sane now that I was alone here. It was the only thing keeping me from losing my mind, getting caught up in all of the racing thoughts that seemed to captivate my mind at any given moment.

  “Lily,” came a voice from the door. I looked to see Marilyn, and my face lit up in a smile. I stood up and she crossed the room to me, wrapping me in her arms.

  “I’m so glad you’re back,” I said to her, looking into her eyes. She looked tired and worn, like she hadn’t slept in days, but she looked better than she had when I’d last seen her at the retreat, just before I’d left.

  “How are you, Lily?” she asked, studying my face.

  “I’m kind of miserable,” I said to her.

  “Oh, honey,” she said softly. “I know you are. But I swear it will get better.”

  I sighed. “I know.”

  “You should go home for the day,” she said. “Go to the beach, go home, drink wine, go to sleep. Relax.”

  I laughed. “I just got back from a vacation.”

  “You deserve another vacation,” she said, grinning at me, then glanced over her shoulder. “Seriously, go home. I’ll totally cover for you.”