The Cabin (20 page)

life right along with her own. Not that he wasn’t mak-

ing his own decisions. She couldn’t let his blond, preppy

good looks throw her off. He wanted a hundred thou-

sand dollars and a fresh start. He’d helped her sneak into

Iris’s house last night. He was ready to put the squeeze

on Susanna, however Alice saw fit. He seemed to see

Susanna as his savior, Alice as his smart and equally

desperate cohort.

Except she knew she wasn’t that smart. She’d learned

that the night Beau McGarrity had tried to frame her for

his wife’s murder. She was probably going to learn it all

over again, using the likes of Beau and Destin to fund

her new life in Australia.

“I don’t want to drive over to Susanna’s cabin with

my Texas tags,” Alice said. “You’ll have to hike in.”

Action appealed to him. “Great. I can snowshoe or

cross-country ski—I can break a trail if I need to. I did

a lot of winter sports before I had to give up my condo.”

And I did a lot of things before I had a criminal

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record, Alice thought. “Life’s a bitch. Make Susanna

feel your urgency this time, not just hear your despera-

tion. Trust me. This is just the first step, but maybe it’ll

work—maybe we won’t have to ratchet up the pressure.

Just don’t panic, okay? We’ll get the money out of her.”

He grinned. “Damn right.”

They just had to keep Jack Galway from catching

them and Beau McGarrity from figuring out she’d tried

to double-cross him about the tape.

Destin left, shutting the door softly behind him, and

Alice flopped onto the bed with its soft, pretty quilt. All

in all, manipulating Susanna Galway into giving them a

hundred thousand dollars was the easy part. If she had a

hundred grand, Alice thought, she’d give it to Destin her-

self, just to shut him up. Well, she’d give him ninety

grand. Ten she’d keep for herself and Australia. She could

make do with ten just fine. She didn’t need Beau’s fifty.

Susanna’s fantasies of her week in the Adirondacks

with her daughters took another blow when they tried

out their new snowshoes. She’d rented snowshoes over

the Christmas break and had little trouble getting hers

on, but Maggie and Ellen were having fits with theirs,

both losing patience with the labyrinthine traditional

bindings and fine adjustments. The cold air didn’t help.

With the sharp cleats, Susanna didn’t want them using

the mud room.

Jack was watching them, sipping a cup of coffee at

the mud room door.

“I’ve got snow all over these
stupid
straps,” Maggie

muttered, bent over her snowshoe as she tried to shove

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her boot in tighter, fussing with the bindings in increas-

ing frustration. Finally, she jerked up straight and gave

her foot a good kick. The snowshoe flew off and buried

itself in the snow. “Good. It can stay there and
rust.
”

Ellen had one glove in her teeth and was following

one strap across the toe of her boot with her bare hand,

figuring out how the bindings worked. “Ah-ha! I get it!”

Susanna retrieved Maggie’s snowshoe and handed it

to her. “Do you want me to help?”

“No. I’m going to freeze to death before I figure this

out. What are the signs of hypothermia?”

“Maggie,” Susanna said, reining in her own impa-

tience, “you’re making this harder than it is.”

Jack stepped out onto the shoveled walk. “God for-

bid you girls should read the directions.”

Maggie scowled at him. “It’s not as easy as it looks.”

“And you’re making it ten times harder.”

Ellen had managed to get one snowshoe on properly

and tested it, gently kicking out her foot. When it didn’t

come flying off, she let out a victorious whoop, which

only drew another scowl from Maggie. Ellen ignored

her and started on her other snowshoe, getting it on

within seconds now that she had the hang of it.

“I hate you, Ellen,” Maggie said, deadpan, “I really do.”

Jack dumped his coffee in the snow and squatted

down to help her. “You’ve got everything all out of

whack.”

“How do you know? You’re a Texan, too. You don’t

snowshoe.”

He glanced up at her. “I read the directions.”

Both girls, at least, Susanna thought, were dressed

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167

properly for the winter conditions, although Maggie

had added a 1940s purple orchid pin to her jacket. Jack

secured her left snowshoe, and when she realized what

she’d been doing wrong, she tackled the right one her-

self. She tested them in the driveway. “Oh, this is so

cool!” She laughed, tramping after her sister toward the

lake. “I love it! Dad, you’ll have to get a pair!”

He hadn’t told them about the lump on his head.

“That’s okay,” he said.

Susanna watched Maggie make her way along

Ellen’s broken trail and felt a sudden wave of affection

for her twin daughters. “They’re not so different than

when they were six.”

Jack stood next to her. If he was cold in his suede jacket

and cowboy boots, he didn’t show it. “Maggie threw her

bike the first time she tried to ride it, remember?”

“You were patient with her then, too.”

He glanced at her, his eyes very dark against the

snow and blue sky. “I’m not as patient as I used to be.”

His voice was low and intense, but he shifted, squint-

ing out at the girls’ trail to the lake. “You’d better go.

You’ll get cold standing here.”

But Susanna couldn’t yet bring herself to move. She

thought about earlier, staring out at the waterfall, replay-

ing that day with Beau McGarrity in her kitchen. She’d

bit back tears on her way back to the cabin, and Jack

must have noticed her red eyes. But he’d said nothing,

and now she had on snowshoes and wasn’t saying any-

thing, either. She cleared her throat. “Gran’s making hot

chocolate for when we get back. She feels terrible about

Alice—”

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“It’s not her fault.”

“You mean it’s mine.”

He shifted his gaze back to her, expressionless.

“No. Mine.”

“Jack—”

“Go snowshoeing, Susanna. Enjoy your vacation.

I’ll figure out what to do about Alice Parker.”

She decided not to argue about who’d do what, not

now. She could feel the cold against her face, and al-

though there was very little breeze, she knew she needed

to get moving to stay warm. “If anything had happened

to Gran—if Alice—”

“Nothing happened.” He took her by the arm, his

eyes serious but with a warmth that hadn’t been there

since he’d arrived in Boston. There’d been a lot of heat

last night, but not much warmth. “Nothing will.”

Susanna managed a quick smile. “And you with a big

fat lump on your head.”

He shrugged. “The lump’s gone down. It’s just a

cut now.”

“Another scar.”

He winked at her. “You like my scars.”

“Jack, for God’s sake.” But he’d made her laugh, and

she started along Maggie and Ellen’s trail, glancing

back at him. “If you’re planning to stick around, you can

go into town and buy yourself some winter clothes.”

“Good. I’ll put them on your credit card.”

“I can’t believe Gran grew up here,” Maggie said

when they stopped at a fallen tree above Blackwater

Lake. “She’s such a city person now.”

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Ellen stared down the steep embankment at the icy

lake. “I keep imagining her at our age, clomping around

out here in the wilderness. She just had those big old fur-

trapper snowshoes in those days.”

“Gran’s pretty amazing,” Susanna said. They’d set off

on a snow-covered path along the lake, moving easily

on their snowshoes among the tall pine and spruce trees,

their branches drooping with snow. “She wants to go

snowshoeing one day while we’re here.”

“Do you think she can?” Maggie asked.

“I don’t know,” Susanna said. “The snow’s fairly deep,

but maybe if we break a good trail, she can make it.”

“She and Dad could go together.” Ellen laughed at

her idea, shaking a clump of snow off her snowshoe.

“Can you see
him
out here?”

“Snowshoeing falls under the ‘any idiot’ category,”

Maggie said. “I mean, the hardest part’s getting the

things on your feet.” She grinned. “Listen to me, the ex-

pert after thirty minutes.”

Susanna didn’t tell them she had no idea if Jack was

staying or leaving. He would do what he wanted to do.

He might discuss his decision with her—he might not.

He was in just that sort of mood.

The path looped back through the woods, away from

the lake, and Susanna let the girls swoop on ahead of

her. They were almost eighteen, strong and agile. She

thought of Gran out here at eighteen, alone, unmarried

and pregnant. She couldn’t just pull a cell phone out of

her pocket and dial 911. She’d endured hardships and

moved to Boston, alone with a young son, absorbing the

changes in her life and ultimately thriving.

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Carla Neggers

Susanna took in the snow drifting against the naked

beeches and birches, the clouds hovering over the

mountains in the distance. She couldn’t stay stuck in

neutral, she thought. It wasn’t fair to Maggie and Ellen,

it wasn’t fair to Jack—or even to herself. She had to

move forward before the standstill in her marriage

solved matters on its own, like the old, rotten tree that

all at once crumbled, without any wind, any axe, any-

thing at all to spur it on.

The truck Jack had borrowed from Davey Ahearn

was gone when she tramped back down the hill, through

the woods, to the cabin. He might have left a note in-

side saying where he’d gone—to town for winter gear,

back to Boston, after Alice Parker—but Susanna didn’t

count on it. She peeled off her snowshoes and sank onto

the bench in the mudroom. The twins had gone in ahead

of her and their snowshoes were leaning up against the

rough-board wall, the clumps of snow melting onto the

floor. Their wet socks and gloves were scattered, their

boots stood in muddy pools.

Susanna didn’t blame them for leaving a mess. She

was dead tired herself. She eased off her boots, still

caked with snow, and pulled off her outer layers. Her

nose was running, her hair was crackling with static

electricity and, impossibly, she was sweating.

She couldn’t wait to go out again.

“Hey, there. Anybody home?”

“Destin!” Susanna jumped up, landing in a cold pud-

dle in her stockings as she stared at Destin Wright in the

mud room doorway. “What are you doing here?”

He brushed snow off his cashmere coat, grinning, his

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171

cheeks red from the cold. “Man, it’s cold. I thought hik-

ing’d warm me up, but I’m still freezing.”

“That’s because you’re not dressed properly. Des-

tin—”

“Relax, Susanna. Don’t go getting your nose out of

joint. I’m checking out the Winter Olympics training fa-

cilities in Lake Placid. I want to try the luge and bob-

sledding, maybe try the ski jump. I haven’t skied

Whiteface in a while. Hell of a mountain.”

“How did you find me?”

He shrugged. “It wasn’t hard. I heard people talking

at Jimmy’s, figured it out.” He frowned at his pants, wet

from the knees down. “Hope they don’t freeze solid on

my way back.”

“On your way back where? Destin, you’re not stay-

ing on the lake—”

“What?” He didn’t seemed prepared to give her an

answer. “Hey, look, I’ve got a life. I can come up here

the same time as you if I want.”

Susanna eyed him as the cold water seeped into her

socks and the cold air blew in from the open door. If she

asked Destin to shut the door, he might think he was in-

vited in. She didn’t want that. “You must know I don’t

believe you,” she said. “I think you’re here to try to get

me to give you money.”

He licked his lips, his expression—a mix of panic

and irritation—telling her she was right. “My window

of opportunity’s closing, Suze. I have to do something.

I can’t—it’s a great idea. If you’d just look at the damn

business plan. I worked my ass off to do one up after

you told me I needed one.”

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Carla Neggers

“You don’t need me, Destin. If your idea is as good

as you think it is, take it to venture capitalists, network,

work your contacts. It’ll fly.”

“You’ll regret this,” he said.

There was an edge to his tone that drove her back on

her heels. “Destin, are you
threatening
me?”

“What? Nah, I’m just telling it like it is. You know

this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, Suze. It’ll make

your ten million look like petty cash—”

“My ten million?” She stared at him coolly, but her

mouth had gone dry with tension. “What makes you