The Cabin (24 page)

Loserville, Texas.

Her cell phone trilled. She grimaced, knowing it

was Beau.

She grabbed her phone from the night stand where

it was recharging. “Hey, Mr. Beau—that you?”

“You’re in the Adirondacks,” he said. “You followed

Susanna after you searched Iris Dunning’s house last

night.”

His words took Alice by surprise. She shivered, sud-

denly cold. “Are you in Boston?”

“Did you find the tape?”

If she said yes, she had no reason to be in the Adi-

rondacks. Nothing to keep him from tracking her down

and beating her to death. She sat on the edge of the bed.

Her damp towel had turned cold. She dropped it on the

floor and tucked her bare feet up under her, folding her

bathrobe over them. She couldn’t let her teeth shatter.

He’d assume it was nerves.

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He wouldn’t take well to her shenanigans with Des-

tin Wright.

“No,” she said. “I have reason to believe she keeps

it with her. That’s why I’m up here.” A lie, she thought.

A dangerous lie.

“It’s not in San Antonio.”

Alice’s heart seemed to stop beating, then start up

again with a jolt, rushing blood through her system so

fast and hard it hurt. Her fingertips were purple and

cold now, no longer warm from her bath. She furrowed

her brow, making herself concentrate. “Beau, Jesus,

what are you doing? You broke into the Galway house

in San Antonio? Are you
nuts?
You said Sam Temple’s

keeping an eye on you—”

“Not that close an eye. You don’t need to worry about

me.” He paused, a tactic, she knew, to ratchet up the ten-

sion. His voice never changed, making it impossible to

read him, whether he was dead serious or just testing the

waters. “Not in that way.”

“You’re supposed to stay home and trim your roses

and let me do the dirty work. That’s what you’re pay-

ing me for.”

“Miss Parker, if you have presumed in any way to

play me for a fool—”

“Now, don’t be silly, Mr. Beau.”

But she thought of the tape sitting in her battered suit-

case and Destin Wright down in front of the fire, prob-

ably yammering to the innkeepers about how he had a

hundred grand in the bag to start over. His angel money.

Beau would probably consider both of these playing

him for a fool.

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Carla Neggers

“You’re the smartest man I know,” she told him. “You

got away with murder. I’d never try to trick you.”

“I’ll be in touch,” he said, clicking off.

Alice pulled the quilt up over her and sat cross-leg-

ged in the middle of the bed. Now what? Susanna Gal-

way was a sane woman with a perfectly good ten million

in her name, and here Alice was, messing with a mur-

derous sociopath for a lousy fifty grand. Probably half

that. Beau’d never pay her full asking price.

It was too late to backtrack on her deal with him

now. If he found out she’d lied to him, never mind what

he’d pay. She’d be lucky if he didn’t chop through the

ice on Blackwater Lake and heave her in.

She wanted Australia. In Australia, she would know

only nice people.

Susanna had shut her book and was staring at the fire,

heat radiating out to her from its orange flames. Maggie

and Ellen had gone upstairs to take turns reading
Pride

and Prejudice
aloud to each other. It was how desperate

they were, they’d said. Susanna didn’t think so. She could

tell they were enjoying this time together, away from the

distractions of their lives in either Boston or San Antonio.

Gran had gone up to her room, too. Susanna had

asked if there was anywhere she wanted to go, anything

she wanted to see while they were on Blackwater Lake.

“The cemetery,” she’d said.

Susanna hadn’t argued. “Okay, Gran. I’ll take you to

the cemetery in the morning.”

She imagined her grandmother in her room, think-

ing about the people whose graves she’d visit tomorrow.

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201

She tucked her blanket around her. The fire crackled,

and she bit back sudden tears. She didn’t know what was

wrong with her. Her family was right there with her, and

yet she’d never felt so alone.

Jack came in from the mud room, brushing melting

snow off his hair. “It’s coming down hard now.” He

walked over to the fire, and Susanna could feel the cold

coming off him. “Where is everyone?”

“Upstairs. I think they’re making themselves scarce.”

He glanced back at her, his dark eyes narrowed.

“Good.”

He sat next to her on the couch and took a corner of

her blanket, scooting closer. She loosened her grip on

the blanket and gave him more of it. “Your hands are

freezing,” she said, taking one and sandwiching it be-

tween her palms, sharing some of her body heat. She no-

ticed they both still wore their wedding rings. They’d

been so broke when they’d bought them. They were

simple white gold bands, inscribed with their initials and

the date of their wedding.

“If I’m going to sleep in the loft,” he said, “I’ll need

another damn blanket.”

“You can use the electric blanket from my bed.”

“You have an electric blanket?”

She smiled at him. “I’m not surprised you didn’t no-

tice last night.”

He grabbed one of her hands, circling his fingers

around hers. “You have an electric blanket
and
a down

comforter?”

“Nice, huh? That way I can warm up the bed with the

electric blanket before I get in.” She tossed her head

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Carla Neggers

back, cutting her eyes at him, having fun. “I don’t like

a cold bed.”

“Holding out on me on a stalker is one thing, but

holding out on an electric blanket—” He dropped her

hand and slipped both arms around her, drawing her

against him, his cool fingertips reaching the bare, hot

skin of her lower back. “There’s no forgiving and no for-

getting on that one. You let me freeze last night.”

“Well, you weren’t exactly freezing when you left me.”

He leaned into her, his mouth finding hers as he whis-

pered, “You didn’t need either your electric blanket or

your comforter last night, did you?”

Her answer was lost in their kiss, a long, slow, deep

kiss that made her forget she’d ever felt alone in her life,

never mind a few minutes ago. He eased one hand from

her lower back to her front, moving his palm up her

stomach, until he reached her breast.

“I know you think I can handle anything, Susanna,”

he said, “but I can’t. I can’t handle being alone in San

Antonio.”

“I never meant to stay in Boston—”

“You were scared and confused. So was I.” His tone

was matter-of-fact, as if he was used to admitting to fear

and confusion. “If we’d tried to deal with this sooner—

well, who knows.”

“I know this is going to sound weird, but it’s like

these past months, this cabin—all of it’s part of my des-

tiny, somehow, something I had to go through. We did.

I don’t know. Maybe it’s just that a part of me knew I

needed these months with Gran, and this hasn’t all been

just about us and that son of a bitch Beau McGarrity.”

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203

But Jack wasn’t listening, not really. He was letting

his hand drift down her abdomen, and he pulled back

the stretchy fabric of her pants, easing his hand lower,

until he was between her legs, touching her in ways

only he ever had. It had been so long, she almost

moaned with pleasure, then remembered her family

upstairs. But he knew, and he probed deeper, not stop-

ping when she couldn’t get a decent breath, when she

shut her eyes in an effort to maintain this moment, pro-

long it.

“Come to bed with me,” she said in a ragged whisper.

“Not yet.”

He stayed with her, letting her quake silently against

him, not stopping until she collapsed onto his chest and

breathed in the scent of him. “Jack, I swear—no elec-

tric blanket,” she said, her face buried in his shirt. “You

don’t deserve one.”

“I don’t know about that.” He gave a low, deliberate

laugh. “I’d say I’ve earned a lot more than an electric

blanket.”

“Bastard.”

He laughed again.

But she didn’t lift her head from his chest, feeling an

unexpected wave of embarrassment, as if this was the

first time they’d done something like this and she’d got-

ten ahead of herself.

She quickly pulled away from him, avoiding his eyes

as she took as much of the blanket with her as she could,

wrapping it around herself. “It’s this stretchy high-tech

fabric. It’s a danger. These pants are comfortable,

but—” She didn’t finish, letting it go at that.

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Carla Neggers

Jack was clearly not the least bit embarrassed, even

for her sake. She snuck a sideways glance at him, but

his dark gaze gave her no break whatsoever. He was, she

thought, decidedly amused.

She swept to her feet with her blanket around her, as

if that might stop him from guessing she was aroused

all over again. He was obviously aroused. Not that he

cared a whit if she saw.

She muttered good-night and headed for her bed-

room, hoping to make it without tripping over the ends

of her blanket and falling on her face. Damn near forty

years old, married forever, two kids on their way to col-

lege, a super-successful financial planner worth ten mil-

lion last she checked—and she was feeling self-

conscious over a spontaneous romantic encounter with

her husband.

Except she didn’t think it was spontaneous. She

thought he’d planned it.

“Counting snowflakes—ha!”

She thought of him back on the couch in front of the

fire and ducked into her bedroom, turning her electric

blanket to the highest setting. She shot into the bath-

room, tearing off her clothes and jumping into the

shower, still not able to get a proper breath.

If Jack wanted his chance, she’d handily left the next

move up to him. She didn’t know how wise that was.

He had her off-balance, thoroughly aware of his phys-

ical presence—of her own.

She lathered herself with lavender soap, leaving her

hair dry when she rinsed off. She stepped out of the

shower, dried off with a big towel and put on her full-

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205

length blue plaid flannel nightshirt. She looked like a

mountain woman.

The wind had picked up, slapping snow against the

window, steamy from the heat of her shower.

When she returned to her bedroom, she immediately

noticed that the thermostat on her electric blanket was

off. She assumed it must have heated up and some kind

of safety feature had kicked in, but when she rubbed her

hand over the blanket, her bed was ice cold.

From a dark corner, Jack said, “I figured we should

start out with a cold bed. It’ll give us a fighting chance

not to get too hot.”

He had already taken off his clothes, and he walked

over to her bed and pulled back the covers, sliding be-

tween the sheets as if it were the most natural thing in

the world.

Susanna knelt on her side of the bed. “Jack, are you

sure this is what you want?”

“You have no idea how sure.”

“We should probably talk some more—”

“Not a chance,” he said. “Not tonight.” He looked up

at her, his eyes as hot as the fire in the other room, a sexy

half smile destroying the last shreds of her self-control.

“Are you going to run me out?”

He knew the answer already, but she shook her head,

smiling. “Not a chance.”

She lifted her nightgown over her head, but before

she could cast it to the floor, he was there, smoothing

his hands up over her hot skin, following with his

mouth, his tongue, his teeth. He eased the nightshirt off

and tossed it, lowering her to the bed. She eased her legs

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Carla Neggers

apart, feeling the hard length of him, but he didn’t come

into her right away, and she knew tonight would be dif-

ferent from the other times they’d made love during

their long months apart.

He kissed her, a kiss that seemed meant to imprint

on her everything she loved about him. Every touch,

every stroke, every taste and shudder reached deep into

her mind, body and soul. When he came into her, there

was none of last night’s fury, although his passion was

just as deep, his need as insatiable. And her own. He set

the pace, as if he were bringing her to the edge and mak-

ing her look over and see what was on the other side,

where she would be in one year, five years, ten years, if

she didn’t figure out how she fit into this man’s life, how

he fit into hers.

They came at the same time, free-falling off the edge

of the world together.

They cooled down in each other’s arms, and when