EDGE (3 page)

Linnet mumbled something under her breath and grabbed another dish.

While Linnet finished the chore, Mel filled her in on the letter she’d received. At least the one she’d opened. Linnet wasn’t one to pry…much. If Linnet knew Mel had received a letter from one of the world’s most famous and revered magazines it would start a line of questioning that would ruin the life Mel had made for herself on The Edge.

“You have a sister?” Linnet raised a brow, which immediately narrowed into calculating thought. “Does she cook?” Linnet draped the dishtowel over a birch cabinet door to dry. She reached for two mugs with comical moose faces hand-painted on the sides and filled them with coffee.

“She’s got a degree in Home Economics, so I suppose she does.” Mel reached for the mug Linnet handed her.

Linnet sat across from her with a sigh, obviously grateful to be off her feet. “I could use some help in the kitchen this summer. I’m getting tired of cooking all day for the men who come here with bottomless stomachs. How old did you say the daughter was?”

“Sixteen, I think.”

“You don’t know how old your own niece is?”

“Nicole and I aren’t…close. Long story.” She rushed on before Linnet could ask, “We never got along as kids.” Which was an understatement.

“Maybe, with her here this summer, you can make amends.”

Not likely. “No butting your nose into it, Linnet.”

“I wouldn’t think of it.” Linnet gave her a wide-eyed look of innocence, the one thing she definitely was not. “Your niece could help with the beds and washing. The boy could help with the chores outside. The boats, chopping wood. That would free you up some too.” Linnet took a sip of coffee and then nodded. “This could actually work to our benefit as long as we can find a place to put them. I’m getting too old to work this hard and working as hard as you do is making you old before your time. You might find more time to spend with Garrett. A girl like you needs a man and some kids pulling on your own apron.”

The chances of meeting a man willing to live life on The Edge and raise babies out here in the wild would be slim, if not impossible. “Garrett won’t be around much once the fishing starts.” Besides, they didn’t have that kind of relationship. Mel took a drink of the bitter coffee and added three spoonfuls of sugar.

“I still can’t believe you hooked up with a fish cop,” Linnet said with a shake of her head.

“It’s not like Garrett and I are ‘together’ really. Just scratch each other’s itches when the need arises.”

“That’s the best kind of relationship to have in my opinion.” Linnet punctuated her words with a snickerdoodle she’d picked off the plate in the middle of the table. “Anything that involves more is just too much work and too much loss of freedom. Now the man, he’s the only one who benefits from anything more serious.” She bit into the cookie.

“Sometimes I wouldn’t mind having someone to curl up with on those cold winter nights.” Mel helped herself to a cookie and dunked it into her coffee, then nibbled.

Linnet shook her head. “I disagree. You might get someone to share things with, but then he takes everything you own and calls it his, and expects you to wash and clean and put out whenever he wants a little nookie, and then he’s only after his own pleasure.”

“If that’s the case, why have you been married six times?”

“Because I’m an idiot, and I like to learn things the hard way. You won’t be seeing me take that long walk down the aisle again. No, sirrie. Mark my words. Never again.” Linnet dusted cookie crumbs off her fingers.

“Aren’t you technically still married?”

“Yes, but only for eighteen more days. Then Jake-the-rake will be considered legally dead, and I’ll be free with a healthy life insurance policy to keep me company. Believe you me, I plan to enjoy every dime of it. It will serve that miserable miser right. He could pinch a penny until old Abe Lincoln cried uncle.”

Mel finished off her cookie and went for another. “Do you ever regret not having children?”

“I didn’t have to physically bear a child to have one.” Linnet reached across the table and laid her hand over Mel’s. “My child came and found me.”

“Oh.” Mel’s eyes filled suddenly with moisture, surprising her. She quickly blinked them away.

“Now, don’t go and start the waterworks. We have too much to do to get ready.” Linnet got to her feet, and Mel thought she saw her wipe at her own eyes before she turned and gave Mel her back. “I’ve got to finish the list of food we’re going to need. Sergei and I are headed to Homer in the morning. If there’s anything you want, better get it written down. At least your sister was considerate enough to schedule her flight close to the time those two men from New York are arriving. It will save you an extra trip to Anchorage.”

“Like she had any way of knowing that.”

“Just saying, you might want to keep an open mind. Can’t believe she’s in the best of places. At least when my marriages went caput, there weren’t any children involved.”

Mel got up, rinsed out her cup, and set it in the drainer to dry. No way was she ready to feel compassion for Nicole. Her sister had made her bed. “I’ll start cleaning out that old storage cabin on the hill. I figure that’s the best place to house our uninvited guests.”

Linnet hummed. “It’ll work, but it won’t be the most comfortable of accommodations.”

Exactly. They weren’t paying guests, and it wasn’t like Nicole had given them much advanced notice. “You have a better idea?”

Linnet pursed her lips in thought. “No, I guess it’ll have to do. I’ll see what I can find in Homer tomorrow to help brighten up the old place.”

Mel was about to tell her not to bother, but figured that would raise more questions than she was comfortable answering.

“Don’t be unloading that cabin by yourself,” Linnet said. “Get that old coot to help you. If he’s going to continue to hang around The Edge, he ought to make himself useful.”

“Yes, ma’am. I promise to not overtax myself.”

“Don’t you go and get flippant with me, young lady, or I’ll put broccoli on the menu.”

“Hell, anything but that.” Mel shuddered, leaving the cabin to the sound of Linnet’s laughter, knowing that she wasn’t aware of the real reason for Mel’s aversion to broccoli. Her stomach cramped. It had been twenty years since she’d been forced to eat nothing but broccoli, collard greens, and flaxseed. Just the memory sent bile rising in her throat.

Mel paused and looked at the old cabin up the hill. They’d been using it for storage since the time she’d arrived at The Edge of Reason seven years ago, having bought half interest in the lodge. She and Linnet had discussed having power wired to it and running pipes for water, but didn’t have the woman-power to take care of more guests than the lodge itself held.

Cleaning the small cabin for Nicole and her kids made sense. They’d have their own space, but not the comfort of running water or electricity. Mel smiled. It served her prima donna sister right for dropping on Mel’s doorstep with only a few days’ notice. It wouldn’t hurt Nicole one bit to rough it for a while. It kind of made her look forward to her sister actually showing up.

C
HAPTER
T
HREE

But all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

~HEBREWS 4:13

Cache gazed out the small window of the 737. Snow-topped mountains stacked as far as the eye could see. Gray-blue glaciers ran like silent, frozen rivers down majestic mountain valleys. Why hadn’t he ever traveled to Alaska before? He sure as hell had seen the rest of the world, many times over.

He’d swapped his crutch for a cane, his leg not strong enough to walk without aid. The doctor had told him it mightnever be. He’d let the knowledge poison him into thinking he’d never hike, run, or ski again. It was a lot to give up. It meant a different way of life for him.

It might mean a different job.

Others could have filled in for him on this assignment, even though Tom had said only he could do it justice. Cache agreed. He’d broken Amelia Bennett’s story when he’d been green, right out of college. That one snapshot had powered his career.

They’d be touching down in an hour, and it couldn’t be soon enough. His leg flamed with pain burning up his thigh and into his hip. He’d tried to get up and walk, but the airplane wasn’t made for strolling. Tom had arranged the itinerary so they would have the shortest layover time between flights. He would have appreciated a night over in Seattle before this final trek to the Last Frontier.

Tom leaned over and pulled Cache’s attention away from the formidable landscape thirty thousand feet below them. “Before we land, there’s something you need to know.”

Cache had been waiting. The closer they’d gotten to Alaska, the more Tom had fidgeted. At first, Cache had thought Tom’s new designer duds were bothering him. Who knew Versace carried an outback line?

“What’s up?” Cache asked.

“Amelia Bennett doesn’t know we’re coming.” Tom looked back to the magazine he’d been thumbing through as though what he’d said was no big deal.

A feeling of dread sunk into Cache’s bones. “She didn’t agree to a story?”

“Well, not exactly.”

“Either she did, or she didn’t. Which is it?”

“She didn’t respond to my offer at all.”

“So why the hell are we traveling five thousand miles to see her?”

“For the fishing?” Tom tried for the funny, but it only resulted in Cache wanting to smack him.

“Cut the crap, Tom.”

“I figured once we got there, you’d be able to sweet-talk her into it.”

“How do you figure that?” He was in no shape to sweet-talk anyone.

“Remember Achmed what’s-his-name? You got him to give you an exclusive when he refused to speak to anyone else.”

“That egotistical maniac wanted his picture in the magazine. We promised to give him a four-page spread. If any of the other magazines had promised that or more, he’d have spoken to them.”

“Right. Forgot about that.” Tom clicked the end of the pen he’d been using to jot down notes in the margins of the magazine. “Well, you’ll figure out something.” He cleared his throat. “The starched shirts are counting on it.”

“You told them the story was in the bag before you got an okay from Amelia Bennett?”

He shrugged. “Who would have guessed she wouldn’t have jumped at the opportunity?”

“Anyone who knew anything about what the press has already put her through. What possessed you to take the chance, and the expense, to fly us up here?”

Tom crossed his legs and bent closer to Cache. “Listen, she’s already sent home a few enterprising journalists. One she even dumped twenty miles from the nearest village, making him walk out. The man barely made it out alive.”

“Bears?”

“Oddly enough, no. Mosquitoes. I guess they were so thick there was hardly enough blood left in him to get him to a hospital.”

Cache gave him a look that said he had another leg to pull.

“Seriously, Cache. The woman has a mean streak.”

“Do you blame her? Do you really think she’s chosen to live as far from civilization as she can because she likes her space? The woman wants to control her environment. She wants to make sure nutcases like you don’t get close to her.” Cache elbowed Tom, nearly sending him out of his chair and into the aisle.

“She can’t be too upset with her life being made public. Remember the movie about her kidnapping? She had to have given the okay for that, and it was graphic.”

“She was under age. Makes you wonder how much say she actually had in it.”

“Doesn’t matter. We have to get her to agree or at least do an unauthorized exposé.” Tom slid the magazine into the seat pouch in front of him and whipped out a notepad from the over-inflated pocket of his cargo pants. “What was the name of that crazy guy who kidnapped her?”

“Jedidiah Dawson.” Just saying his name had Cache clenching his teeth.

“Murdered in prison by a lifer, wasn’t he?” Tom scratched notes on the pad. “Now, he was leader of the Assumption, right? Or was it the Assertion?”

“The Ascension.”

“That’s right, the Ascension. Be interesting to know what happened to them.”

“Many ended up in jail for their part in the kidnapping. Any of the others either dismantled or are going by another name. Once Dawson was killed, and the movie came out, no one wanted to be associated with them.”

“We should line up an interview with one of them. You know, get the full picture.”

“Not going to happen.” At least, not by him.

“This is the way I see it,” Tom said. “If Amelia doesn’t give her consent, you can get some candid shots and write something up. If we don’t come back with a story, we’re through.”

“You might be finished, but not me.” Besides he’d already been thinking of taking his career in another direction, and this conversation was telling him that he was on the right track. The magazine’s idea of getting a story, any way you could, was no longer his.

“You can’t mean that, Cache. I can’t lose my job. How would I pay for my Carrera?”

Cache shifted in his seat. “Not my problem.”