The Cabin (17 page)

all heaped their snacks onto the counter, Susanna paid

and they piled back into the car, the temperature notice-

ably colder, the night very dark. As they headed further

north, the highway narrowed to two northbound lanes,

and the ambient light from nearby towns and cities dis-

appeared, leaving only the stars, a sliver of a moon and

their headlights to guide them.

For long stretches, theirs was the only car on the road.

Gran, Maggie and Ellen drifted off to sleep, and Susanna

stayed focused on her driving, trying not to think about

Jack somewhere on the road behind her. Huge outcrop-

pings of rock and tall evergreens showed up on the edges

of her headlights, and she was on alert for moose and

deer, ice patches, sleepiness. All in all, she should have

stuck to her plan and waited until morning.

Three hours north of Albany, she finally turned off

on their exit, taking the winding, narrow road into the

village of Keene Valley. This was the High Peaks region

of the Adirondack State Park, a preserve of six million

acres of state and private land in the northern reaches

of New York state. It was the largest wilderness area in

the continental United States, bigger than Yosemite,

Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons—thirty thousand miles

of rivers and streams, more than two thousand lakes

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and ponds, with forty mountains over twenty-five hun-

dred feet.

Blackwater Lake was deep, cold and acidic, located

near the resort villages of Saranac Lake and Lake Placid.

Iris roused, as if she sensed they were close to her

childhood home. “The air’s different here. Can you tell?”

“I can, actually.” Susanna smiled at her grandmother.

“It’s a hell of a lot colder.”

Gran nodded. “People believed the air helped relieve

their tuberculosis. Saranac Lake was a health resort for

people who suffered from tuberculosis. Before antibi-

otics, thousands came here, rich and poor alike, for the

mountain cure. They were required to be out in the air

for eight to ten hours a day, four seasons a year. It didn’t

matter if it was twenty below.”

“And it worked?”

“For many,” Gran said quietly.

They came to Blackwater Inn, a rambling lakefront

house that Gran’s parents had owned when she was a

child. The Dunnings had come to the Adirondacks in the

early nineteenth century as trappers. The rugged moun-

tains and the harsh, inhospitable climate generally kept

permanent settlers away, even the native Iroquois who

hunted and traveled the waterways but seldom stayed.

Susanna made her way up along the lake and turned

off the main road onto a narrow, frozen dirt road. The girls

jerked awake as the car began to bounce over the hard

ruts. “Oh, man,” Maggie breathed, “it’s so dark up here.”

“How cold is it?” Ellen asked. “It has to be below

zero. Dad’s going to croak when he gets here.”

Susanna could hear the eagerness in her daughter’s

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voice. Despite the circumstances, she and Maggie were

both excited to see their father. Intellectually, they un-

derstood their parents’ stalemate had nothing to do with

them—they’d done nothing wrong. But they loved and

missed their father.

The dirt road fingered off into three driveways, and

Susanna took the left-most, which lead straight to the

back door of her cabin. There was no garage. She parked

and turned off the engine, feeling the silence around her.

Maggie leaned forward in the back seat and whispered,

“Gran, I can’t believe you grew up here. It’s
creepy.
”

“That’s because you’re not used to it,” Gran said. “I

thought Boston was creepy when I first arrived. All

those buildings and people, all that light blocking out the

stars.” She drew a deep breath, pushing open her door

and peering up at the starlit sky. “It’s just as I remember.”

Susanna had more prosaic concerns. She jumped out

into the cold, very dry air and unlocked the back of her

all-wheel drive wagon, starting the girls on unloading.

The cabin was open, her property manager having seen

to cleaning and stocking the cupboards.

Maggie shivered in the still, frigid air. Susanna shook

her head. “You’d be warmer if you weren’t wearing a

coat from 1957.”

“Don’t worry, I brought all my winter jock clothes.

I don’t plan to freeze to death up here.” Maggie grabbed

a backpack and hoisted it on one shoulder, then grabbed

another. “This is going to take a million trips.”

Ellen swooped in and loaded up as much as she could

in one trip. “Let’s get inside and turn on some lights.”

She and Maggie rushed toward the back door, Gran

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141

following at a slower pace. There was no wind, no sound

coming from the nearby dark woods or the expanse of

snow-covered lake.

Lights came on in the cabin, and the girls whooped

in pleasure—Susanna could hear them running around,

checking out the big kitchen, the stone fireplace in the

living room, the windows overlooking Blackwater

Lake, the downstairs bedroom. They pounded upstairs

to the loft and the two bedrooms there. Susanna fol-

lowed her grandmother through the mud room, into the

kitchen with its warm colors. “Why don’t you go on to

bed, Gran? We can unpack in the morning. You can take

the downstairs bedroom—”

Iris shook her head. She had on her red knit hat, but

looked tired after their long trip, showing all of her

eighty-two years. “No, I’ll sleep upstairs. You and Jack

might want your privacy.”

“Gran—”

She smiled. “I said ‘might.’”

Maggie and Ellen banged back down the stairs.

“Mom, this place is great,” Ellen said. “I can’t wait to

build a fire. Look at this fireplace! When you said it was

a cabin, I though you meant
Little House on the Prai-

rie
or Daniel Boone. The pictures don’t do it justice.”

“It’s really beautiful here,” Maggie said, more re-

strained but, Susanna could see, equally pleased with

her mother’s choice.

They’d heaped most of the stuff from the car on the

kitchen floor. They grabbed their backpacks out of the

mess, looking tired after their long trip. Ellen scooped

up Gran’s suitcase, and Maggie took her grandmother’s

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arm. “I’ll spot you on the stairs. You wouldn’t want to

fall your first night here. They’d probably have to air-

lift you to a hospital.”

“There’s a hospital right in Saranac Lake,” Gran said.

Ellen started across the living room, but turned back

to her mother. “Should we wait up for Dad?”

Susanna shook her head. “No, you all go on up to

bed,” she said. “I’ll wait for your father.”

��

Nine

While she waited for Jack, Susanna dragged her suit-

case into the downstairs bedroom and unpacked every-

thing into the oak dresser and closet. The queen-sized

bed was already made, with an electric blanket and a

fluffy down comforter folded at its foot. There was an

adjoining full bathroom with sage-colored towels and

woodsy scented candles. She laid out her toiletries and

debated whether she had time for a bath. She decided,

though, it wouldn’t be smart, having Jack find her in the

tub when he still had up a good head of steam.

She pushed the image aside and ignored the jolt of

desire, concentrating instead on relaxing into her cabin.

She could come up for a stretch in the summer and

paint and replace rugs, buy new furniture—make it her

own. Her parents would be over on Lake Champlain.

Thinking that far ahead was difficult, a toe in the

water to see what her life might be like in four or five

or six months. What did she want it to be like?

She heard the rattle of a truck engine, and headlights

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sliced into her bedroom window. She quickly slipped

back into the kitchen and looked out the window over

the sink. Davey Ahearn’s truck came to a hard stop be-

hind her car. The driver’s door opened and banged shut.

She could see Jack’s tall silhouette as he walked to-

ward the cabin.

He didn’t knock. The mud room door creaked open

and thudded shut, and he materialized in the kitchen

doorway. No coat, no hat, no gloves, every muscle in

his body rigid—but he was pale.

Susanna took a step toward him. “Jack, what is it?”

He held up a hand, stopping her. Without a word, he

went to the sink and heaved. Not a lot, but with violence.

She swore under her breath and ran back through her

bedroom into the bathroom, wetting a face cloth with

cold water. Her own stomach felt a little queasy.

When she returned to the kitchen, he had the sink

rinsed out and his head under the faucet, cold water

running over his hair and face. He took five gulps of

water in a row, rinsing out his mouth. “Fucking curried

corn chowder. I should have known it’d come back up.”

He pulled his head out from under the faucet and

sank against the counter, taking the face cloth from her

and putting it behind his ear, holding it there while water

dripped from his dark hair, down his neck, into the col-

lar of his denim shirt.

“Jack…Jesus, what happened?” Susanna saw the

caked blood on his fingers and touched the face cloth,

easing it back, wincing at the one-inch gash and nasty

lump. “You drove like this? You could have a concus-

sion. You should have gone to the emergency room.”

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145

“I should have paid better attention.” His eyes, pain-

racked and very dark, drilled into her. “I was thinking

about you instead.”

“Cursing me, you mean. Do you want ice?”

“No.” And he added, without softening, “But

thanks.”

Susanna dropped her hand, but stayed close. “Was it

Alice?”

“I don’t know. I was hit from behind, the hall was

dark—I didn’t get a description. By the time I got to my

feet, whoever it was had cleared out.”

“Where did this happen?”

“Your bedroom.”

She could feel her own face pale. “At Gran’s? You

were attacked—”

“Yes. I was attacked in Iris’s house. I went over there

when you didn’t show at Jim’s Place. Someone was up-

stairs—two people, from what I could tell.” He dropped

the face cloth in the sink. His face had more color after

the dunk under the faucet. “They got out before I could

catch them.”

“Did you call the police?”

“On my way out of town. They’re not happy with me

for clearing out, but they’ll get over it. They won’t find

anything. For all I know, I walked in on a couple of Iris’s

friends and they took me for the intruder.”

“But you don’t believe that,” Susanna said, stiffen-

ing so she wouldn’t start shaking.

“No.”

“I should have been there. I feel so guilty—”

His gaze burned into her. “Good.”

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She nodded. “I deserved that.”

“Damn right.” But this time, his voice softened, if not

his eyes. “Don’t you ever consider consequences?”

“All the time. Day in and day out in my work, with

Maggie and Ellen, Gran. Just not with you.”

And that did it.

He hooked an arm around her middle and pulled her

to him, using his free hand to trace her mouth. “Su-

sanna…damn…” A gleam came into his eyes. “I suppose

I shouldn’t have said I’d hunt you down. Iris told you?”

“Oh, yes. She told me every word you said. It was a

provocative comment, but—” She stopped, gulping in

a shallow breath when he threaded his fingers into her

hair, then cupped the back of her head with his palm.

“Don’t you have a concussion?”

“Probably.”

He spoke into her mouth, drawing her against him.

She could feel that he was fully aroused already, within

minutes of walking into her kitchen and throwing up in

her sink. He kissed her, a hard, deep, hungry kiss. He

tasted of spring water now, and as she responded to

him, she had to contain a moan of pleasure. After so

many years together, he knew all her responses, all her

defenses. He knew just how to kiss her, just how to

touch her.

“We shouldn’t…” she whispered. “Your head…”

“It’s pounding. It’s been pounding for three hundred

and fifty miles as I thought about what I’d do when I

got to you.”

“Was this it?”

“This was just the start.” He curved both hands over

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her hips and drew her against him, thrusting, as if he

were inside her. His eyes were impenetrable, and if he

were in any pain from the lump on his head, he wasn’t

paying any attention to it. “Where’s your bed?”

“Jack…we should…”

But he wasn’t listening, and she pointed to her bed-

room, shaky with desire. This was what she’d wanted