The Cabin (18 page)

since the minute she saw him leaned up against the gar-

goyle in front of her building. He was her husband, the

only man she’d ever loved, and she wanted him to make

love to her.

He positioned one arm around her middle and half

carried her into her bedroom. She could have said no,

they needed to wait and talk in the morning—talk
now.

She could have thought twice, even, about what they

were doing. But she’d been thinking about this moment

for the entire long, dark drive into the mountains once

she knew he was coming after her.

He laid her on the bed, dispatching just with her

pants, then with his own. No niceties. No romance. No

“wooing.” He didn’t have the patience for it, and nei-

ther did she.

“Damn it, Susanna,” he said under his breath, “you

know how to drive me out of my mind.”

They came together furiously, and suddenly it was as

if he were a stranger, not her lover of twenty years, not

the man she’d married just out of college. Susanna

thought of what her daughters had said, that he’d

changed, that there was an edge to him.

The thought vanished, obliterated by the feel of him

inside her, then the suddenness of her own release. She

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hadn’t seen it coming, and she quaked as he stayed with

her, matching her rhythm, her need, not letting up until

his own release came.

“I’d like to lock us in here for three days straight,”

he said, still inside her, his face lost in the dark shad-

ows, “and get things settled between us.”

She placed a hand on his firm, warm skin. “This isn’t

one of our problem areas.”

He lowered his mouth to hers, as if to confirm her

words. “We’re either going to be married or not mar-

ried.” He parted her lips with his tongue. “I’m not going

to fly two thousand miles and drive off into the moun-

tains to have sex with my wife.”

“That’s not why you’re here.”

“Isn’t it?”

He raised himself slightly off her, pushing up her

sweater and unclasping her bra. He took one nipple

into his mouth, and she thought she’d melt into the

blankets, turn completely to liquid. She took his hips

and pulled him back inside her, memorizing the feel of

him, as if this had never happened before and might

never happen again. She lost herself in their move-

ments, and this time when she came, she was aware of

him watching her, as if this was the image that had sus-

tained him during his long, hard, painful drive to Black-

water Lake.

But before she realized what was happening, he was

back on his feet, grabbing his pants. He slipped into

them, then bent down and kissed her lightly. “Hell of a

cure for a lump on the head.”

She eyed him in the dark. “I feel downright wanton.

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149

My God, I didn’t even wait to get undressed all the

way.” She smiled. “Consequences?”

“You knew this would happen when you decided to

sneak out on me. The knock on my head was the only

surprise.” He grinned at her. “I had you a little worried

there when I pitched my cookies.”

“If you’re suggesting I plotted this—that I
wanted

you to drive up here and pounce—” She didn’t finish.

There was absolutely no way she’d win this one, not

after what they’d just done. “There’s a sofa bed in the

loft at the top of the stairs.” This was why she was liv-

ing with Gran, she thought. Who could think straight

with Jack Galway too close? “If you die in your sleep,

it serves you right.”

“At least I’ll sleep,” he said, laughing softly, know-

ingly, as he shut her door on his way out.

When Maggie and Ellen woke up and started mak-

ing noise in the next room, Jack reminded himself that

they didn’t know he had a raging headache. They didn’t

know he’d been knocked on the head and threw up cur-

ried corn chowder and nearly killed himself making

love to their mother. Or that he’d lay awake half the

night, his head pounding, thinking he should at least

have properly undressed her. That would have been

more romantic. There was every chance, however, that

he’d have passed out before he finished, and he’d been

very intent on the lovemaking part.

So had she, as he recalled.

There was also the matter of not freezing to death.

Shivering made his head hurt even more. He only had

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a couple of thin blankets, and if the place had heat, the

loft wasn’t getting any.

“Dad!”

“You made it!”

The girls’ voices reverberated in his head, produc-

ing sharp arrows of pain that sliced into the backs of

his eyes, which were shut. He wanted to go back to

sleep. Desperately. A couple of aspirin and warm

clothes would help, but he could manage just with si-

lence and sleep.

His daughters plopped on the edge of his sofa bed.

“You’re awake, aren’t you?” Ellen’s voice was cheer-

ful, even perky. “The sun’s up. Mom wants to take us

snowshoeing. It’s about four degrees out, but she’s de-

termined. You should come with us.”

“You can rent a pair at the local inn,” Maggie said.

“But you’ll need warm clothes. You can’t go out in jeans

and a cowboy hat. You’d freeze.”

He had to open his eyes. There was no choice. They’d

sit here all morning until he acknowledged their pres-

ence. “Hey, kids.” He managed what he hoped would

pass as a smile. “Do you see me on snowshoes?”

“Sure, Dad.” Ellen’s chestnut hair caught a ray of

light from a window somewhere. It was like a hot nee-

dle in his eye. She grinned at him. “We see you on

cross-country skis, too.”

They were both devils, Jack thought.

Maggie slid to her feet. She had on a sparkly tur-

quoise robe that Rosalind Russell might have worn in

Mame.
“Do you want coffee?”

“I’ll get up.” He managed to ease onto an elbow

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151

with no sign of nausea. That was good. “Just give me

a minute.”

They pounded down the wooden stairs, making far

more noise than seemed necessary. He threw back the

skinny covers and staggered out of bed, pulling on his

pants. He should have slept in them, it was so damn

cold. He shrugged on his shirt, leaving it unbuttoned as

another arrow of pain stabbed both eyes. He hadn’t

packed aspirin. No gun, no aspirin. A hot shower and

fresh clothes would help put him back fully on his feet.

He looked out the loft window at the impressive land-

scape of snow-covered lake and mountains. The sky

was clear blue, no clouds. He could feel the cold seep-

ing through the glass. How the hell had he ended up

here? He’d learned a long time ago that with green-

eyed, black-haired Susanna Dunning Galway, his life

didn’t always go as he planned. She liked curves and

side trips, surprises and secrets.

But not telling him about Beau McGarrity was irra-

tional. Even dangerous. Bolting last night—the same.

He didn’t care if it was an instinctive reaction to having

murder—his work—affect their lives this directly.

Of course, he hadn’t confronted her about McGar-

rity. He’d found out by accident, talking to his neigh-

bor a few days after Susanna had run off to Boston.

Wasn’t that Beau McGarrity at his door last week?

Wow, that must have pissed you off.

Susanna apparently had gotten rid of McGarrity as

fast as possible, and Jack knew she’d have told him if

Beau had said or done anything the detectives conduct-

ing Rachel McGarrity’s murder investigation could use.

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She had been in Boston, safe. Maggie and Ellen were

with her, safe. Alice Parker was on her way to prison,

and Jack knew—everyone knew—she’d made a com-

plete mess of the Rachel McGarrity murder investiga-

tion. It would have been a hard enough case to unravel

without her incompetence at the crime scene and sub-

sequent misconduct.

Still, he was madder at Susanna for her silence than

he was at himself for his silence. Easier that way. Some-

times he wondered what he’d have done if she’d told

him about McGarrity that rotten day he’d confronted

Alice with the evidence against her, told her police

chief, arrested her. If he’d come home and found out

then that Beau McGarrity had scared the hell out of his

wife, what would he have done?

Not that he for one moment thought Susanna had

kept her silence just to spare him.

He shoved such thinking to the back of his mind and

made it downstairs without falling on his face. Maggie

glanced up from her spot in front of the fireplace. “Mom

and Gran got up early and built the fire.”

“Where is she now?”

“Mom? She went into town for some things she forgot.”

“She said not to wait for her if you have stuff to do,”

Ellen added.

“Uh-huh.”

“Gran’s out on the porch looking at the lake,” Mag-

gie said.

Jack went into the kitchen. There was coffee made.

A plate of muffins on the counter. He found a mug in a

cupboard and poured himself coffee, sinking onto a

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153

chair at the big oak table. There was a window with a

view of the driveway and the woods and a lot of snow.

Iris came in from the porch and sat with the girls in

front of the fire, discussing possible snowshoe routes. She

glanced over at him, and Jack guessed from her serious

expression that Susanna had told her grandmother about

the intruder. But Iris would give him a chance to have a

cup of coffee before she asked him about last night.

Alice Parker. The intruders in Iris’s house. The walk-

ing stick to the head. Beau McGarrity and his murdered

wife, Rachel Tucker McGarrity. Jack reminded himself

those were his reasons for being up north. Not sex with

his wife, regardless of what he’d said and done last

night. Not vacationing with his daughters and Iris. This

was Susanna’s cabin—her space. First things first.

The coffee humanized him. He refilled his mug and

grabbed a blueberry muffin.

Iris joined him at the table. “How’s your head this

morning?”

“I’ll be fine. I might have cracked your walking stick.”

She waved a thin hand. “Oh, I have a dozen of those

things. The students I used to take in all loved to give

me walking sticks as presents.” She took a chunk of his

muffin and began tearing it apart with her fingertips,

staring at a fat, juicy blueberry. “There’s something you

should know, Jack. I didn’t think of it until this morn-

ing when Susanna told me what happened. I gave Au-

drey—Alice Parker—a key to my house the other day.”

Jack said nothing, drinking his coffee, watching her

tear apart her bit of muffin. There were crumbs all over

the table.

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“I asked if she could look after the house for me

while we were up here,” Iris said. “I hemmed and hawed

about whether I would come. You know how I am about

traveling.”

“Jim Haviland said a lot of people have keys to your

house.”

“That’s because I’ve rented to so many students. It’s

never been a problem.” She raised her vibrant eyes to

him. “I hate to think it was Audrey who snuck up on

you, that I was the cause—”

“You’re not the cause of any of this, Iris. Alice Par-

ker is responsible for the choices she makes. You aren’t.”

“I thought she was my friend.”

“We’ve all been fooled by people at one time or an-

other.”

Iris shook her head. “This time it was dangerous.

What if you’d been killed last night?”

“I wasn’t.”

She smiled weakly, trying to rally. “Can you imag-

ine, a Texas Ranger killed with an old woman’s walk-

ing stick in his wife’s bedroom in Massachusetts? Do

you think your pals back in Texas would put together a

posse and invade?”

“Iris…”

But her eyes gleamed with mischief, and he remem-

bered this woman was a survivor. She was absorbing the

blow of who her new friend had turned out to be.

“You’re no fun at all, Jack Galway. I suppose you’re

here for answers?”

He thought of Alice Parker. His wife. “Oh, yes. And

that’s just for starters.”

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155

* * *

ted him in downtown San Antonio, probably because of

his notoriety as a real estate developer and a murder

suspect.

Now, Susanna wasn’t sure about any of the assump-

tions she’d made about Beau McGarrity. She wasn’t

sure about anything.

She’d pulled into a scenic overlook on the river not

far from her cabin. A snowbank kept her from getting

too close to the fence above the waterfall with its mas-