The Cabin Read online

  "We remember," Jim said gently.

  "They were cute babies, Maggie and Ellen. Adorable. They're fraternal twins—they're not identical."

  But Jim and Davey already knew that, too. Her chest hurt, and she fought a sudden urge to cry. What was wrong with her? Margaritas, New Year's Eve, a cabin in the mountains. Not being with Jack.

  Jim Haviland checked each champagne glass to make sure it was clean. "They were damn cute babies," he concurred.

  "That's right, you'd see them when we were up visiting Gran. Her place was always my anchor as a kid— we moved around all the time. It's no wonder I came here when push came to shove with Jack and me."

  She shut her eyes, willing herself to stop talking. When she opened them again, the room was spinning a little, and she cleared her throat. If she did pass out and hit her head, Jim Haviland and Davey Ahearn would seize the moment and call Jack. No question in her mind. Then Jack would tell them a concussion served her right.

  Susanna's heart raced. "This is only the second time Maggie and Ellen have flown alone." She narrowed her eyes to help steady the room, imagining Jack there with one of his amused half smiles. She couldn't remember when she'd had two margaritas in a row. He'd take credit. Say she was lonely. Missed him in bed. She gave herself a mental shake. "I was a nervous wreck the first time they flew alone."

  "Doesn't look like you're doing much better this time," Davey said.

  She had to admit that a third margarita would put her over the edge. She was hanging by her fingernails as it was. That was why Jim Haviland had glowered and chatted with her and served her up the chili—not just to give her a hard time, but to keep her from freefalling.

  "What if Maggie and Ellen end up going to college in Texas?" She gulped for air, looking over at Davey. "What if I stay up here? My God, I'll never see them. And Jack—"

  Davey drank some of his beer, wiping the foam off his mustache. "Are there colleges in Texas?"

  His wisecrack cut through her crazy mood. "That's not funny. What if Texans came up here and made stupid assumptions about northerners?"

  "What, like we're all rude and talk too fast? Maggie and Ellen tell me that all the time. Some of us also eat saltines with our chili." He winked at her, knowing he'd made his point. "And you're a northerner, you know, Suzie-cue. I don't care how many times you moved as a kid. Your dad grew up right here on this street. When Iris can't keep up with her place anymore, he and your mom will move in with her. They'll board up the gal

  lery in Austin before you know it."

  "That's the plan," Susanna admitted.

  "A plumber, a bartender and an artist." Davey shook his head in amazement. "Who'd have thought it? Although Kevin always was good with the graffiti."

  Susanna smiled. Both her parents were artists, her mother also an expert in antique quilts. They'd surprised everyone seven years ago when they opened a successful gallery in Austin and started restoring a 1930s home, a project seemingly without end. But they still spent summers on the New York shore of Lake Champlain. When Susanna was growing up, they'd moved from place to place to teach, work, open and close galleries and otherwise indulge their wanderlust. They'd been a little shocked when Susanna had gone into financial planning and married a Texas Ranger, but she'd always gotten along well with her parents and had liked having them close by in Austin. They didn't interfere with her relationship with Jack, but she knew Kevin and Eva Dunning didn't understand why their daughter was living with Gran. Their response to both Susanna and Jack had been the same: they'd come to their senses soon enough.

  Jim examined a frosty bottle of champagne and said idly, as if reading Susanna's mind, "You've never explained what it was that made you come up here. Did you and Jack have a big fight, or did you just wake up one day and decide you needed to hear a Boston accent?"

  "Maggie and Ellen had already planned to spend a semester up here—"

  "Like it's Paris or London," Davey said. "Their semester abroad."

  "Their semester with Gran," Susanna corrected.

  "Yeah, now it's a year," Jim said, "and it doesn't explain you."

  "There was a stalker." The words were out before she could stop them. "I suppose technically he wasn't a stalker—he turned up where I was a couple of times, but I can't prove he followed me. I didn't even know who he was until he showed up in my kitchen. He said things."

  Davey Ahearn swore under his breath. Jim stared at her, grim-faced, neither man kidding now. "What did you do?" Jim asked.

  Susanna blinked rapidly. What was wrong with her? She'd never told anyone this. No one. Not a soul. This was a secret, she thought. "I tried not to provoke him. He wanted me to talk to Jack on his behalf. He said his piece and left."

  Jim looked tense. "Then what?"

  "Then…nothing. I decided to come up here with Maggie and Ellen. Stay a few weeks." She almost smiled. "Clear my head."

  Jim Haviland held his champagne bottle to one side and studied her closely while she ate more of her chili, barely tasting it now. Finally, he shook his head. "Jesus. You didn't tell Jack about this bastard in your kitchen."

  "I know it sounds irrational." She set her fork down and sniffled, picking up her margarita glass, noticing the slight tremble in her hand. "I mean, Jack's a Texas Ranger. You'd tell him if you had a stalker, right?"

  "Goddamn right. It's one thing not to tell Jack about buying a cabin in the mountains, but a stalker—"

  "It seemed to make sense at the time."

  Jim inhaled sharply, then breathed out. "Tell him now. You can use the phone in back. Call him right now and tell him."

  "It's too late. It wouldn't make any difference."

  "This guy's in jail?"

  She shook her head.

  Jim narrowed his gaze on her. "Dead?"

  "No, he's never been charged with anything. He's a free man."

  "Because you never told anyone he was stalking you—"

  "No, no one would be interested in my stalking story. He'd just explain it away. Coincidence, misunderstanding, desperation. The authorities would never touch it, now or then." She sipped her margarita, the melting ice diluting the alcohol. "They wanted this guy for a much bigger crime than spooking me."

  This got Davey Ahearn's attention. "Yeah? Like what? What else did he do? Kill his wife?"

  "Yes, as a matter of fact, Davey, that's exactly what he did." Susanna stared up at the television and watched the clock tick down to midnight. Four minutes to go. Three minutes and fifty-nine seconds. Happy New Year. "He killed his wife."

  Two

  Jack Galway woke on New Year's Day to an empty bed, a raging headache and dark thoughts about his wife. Push was coming to shove between the two of them. He didn't know when or how, but it would. Soon. He was tired of waking up alone in bed. He was tired of being pissed off about the things she hadn't told him. Susanna and her secrets.

  He'd celebrated last night with his daughters and about a million of their friends. No alcohol. They were under twenty-one, and he had to drive a bunch of them home. He was in bed by one. Alone.

  Last year was better. Maggie and Ellen had gone to a friend's house, and he and his slim, dark-haired, green-eyed wife had headed straight for the bedroom. He supposed they should have worked on some of their "issues" then. But they hadn't. The emotions between them—the anger and frustration—were still too volatile. They were locked into their silence, stubborn. And it had been too many weeks without making love.

  Jack gritted his teeth. There was no point in dwelling on last year, but the truth was, he'd thought a night in bed with him would at least keep his wife from going back up to Boston. Wrong.

  Steeling himself against his pounding head, he rolled out of bed and pulled on jeans and an ancient sweatshirt. With Susanna in Boston making her damn gazillions, he tended to keep his jeans and sweats in a heap on the floor. What the hell difference did it make?

  He headed down to the kitchen for aspirin. Maggie and Ellen, wide awake and dressed, whirled aroun
d him, pots and bowls out, the mixer, eggs, milk, lemons, a five-pound bag of sugar. Then he remembered their New Year's Day Jane Austen fest. Tea, scones, lemon curd, clotted cream, watercress sandwiches and one Jane Austen movie after another. It was an all-day event. They'd invited friends.

  Jack stifled a groan and gulped down two aspirin. He could feel his headache spreading into his eyes.

  Ellen pushed past him with the scone bowl and set it in the sink. She was athletic and pretty with chestnut hair that was so like Iris Dunning's before hers had turned white. Ellen's eyes were dark like his, and she was bet-ter-tempered than either parent, a people person and a rugby player with a perpetual array of bruises on her legs.

  She turned on the water into the bowl. "We've decided to start with the Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson Pride and Prejudice. That makes sense, don't you think, Dad?"

  Jack nodded. "Sure."

  "You can watch it with us if you want—"

  "Ellen." Maggie swung around from the stove. She was dark-haired and willowy like her mother, hardheaded like both parents, but, somehow, she'd managed to inherit Kevin and Eva Dunning's artistic streak. She, too, had her father's dark eyes. "Dad is not invited. Remember? You know what he's like. He'll make comments."

  Ellen bit her lower lip. "Oh, yeah. What was I thinking? Dad, you're not invited."

  "Good," he said. "I'll go for a run and make myself scarce."

  He headed back to his bedroom and changed into his sweats, drawing on years of training and self-discipline not to fall back onto his bed and dream about his wife. He could hear East Coast tones slipping into Maggie and Ellen's speech. At least they'd done Jane Austen fests and high teas before they'd moved north. He hadn't objected to a semester in Boston, a chance for them to live with their great-grandmother and really get to know her. Iris Dunning was a special lady. But he did object to Susanna heading up there—not that he'd asked her to stay or come back. Not explicitly. But she knew what he wanted.

  He hadn't expected Susanna to last past the first hard frost. She was used to life in south Texas. It was home. She knew she belonged here, but she was just fighting it, hanging in up in Boston, because it was easier than fighting him. Easier than admitting to her fears, dealing with them.

  Easier than coming clean with him.

  He knew he'd contributed to the impasse between them. He'd tried to deny it for months, but now he couldn't. He was still contributing by not talking to her, not telling her what he knew. What he feared—not that he was supposed to be afraid of anything. He definitely had his own sorting out to do.

  He pushed thoughts of his wife to the back of his mind. Maybe some action was called for on his part, but he didn't know what. The status quo was aggravating, but doing something stupid and losing Susanna alto-gether—that was unthinkable.

  He slipped out into the bright, warm San Antonio morning, breathing in the slightly humid air and making himself hear the birds singing. He started on his ten-mile route through the pleasant suburban neighborhood where he and Susanna had raised their twin daughters. Everything about his home said "family man." Husband, father. Their house had a big family room, a nice laundry room, pictures of sunflowers and chickens in the kitchen. He remembered teaching the girls how to ride bikes on this very street. Maggie hadn't wanted any help whatsoever. Ellen had accepted all help but still managed to bust herself up a few times.

  He hated to see them fly back to Boston in a couple of days. He knew he could go with them. He was due some time off.

  His headache dissipated after the first agonizing mile of his run. Then he went into a kind of zone, jogging easily, not thinking, just putting one foot in front of the other. That was what he'd done in every area of his life for the past fourteen months. Put one foot in front of the other. Steady if not patient, pushing ahead but always coming back to where he started, never getting anywhere.

  "Damn it, Susanna."

  He wasn't waking up next New Year's without his wife. Hell, he didn't want to wake up tomorrow without her.

  Probably he should tell her as much.

  He came home sweating, breathing hard, purged of his bad night and recharged to enjoy his last two days with his daughters. He peeked in the family room, where Maggie and Ellen and two friends had set up their Jane Austen fest. They all held crumpled tissues and had tears in their eyes. Jack smiled. They'd be running the world in a few years, but right now they were crying over Darcy. Maggie shot him a warning look. He winked at her and retreated to his bedroom.

  He showered, put his jeans back on and turned on a football game. If he could make it to the kitchen and back without someone offering him a watercress sandwich, he'd fetch himself a beer.

  Ellen knocked on his door and told him they'd voted to invite him to tea, after all. "We all agreed we want to see you try lemon curd."

  "I went to Harvard," he said. "I've tried lemon curd."

  "Come on, Dad. We feel terrible having tea without you."

  There was no way out of it. He'd had two perfect weeks with his daughters. He'd taken time off and did whatever they wanted. Shopping, visiting colleges, going to movies, tossing a rugby ball around the yard— it didn't matter. They'd spent Christmas Day in Austin with his in-laws. Kevin and Eva didn't understand what was going with their daughter's marriage, but they determinedly stayed out of it.

  "Do you want Earl Grey or English Breakfast?" Ellen asked.

  "There's a difference?"

  He was kidding, but she took his question seriously, as if her father couldn't possibly know tea. "English Breakfast is more like regular tea. Earl Grey has a smoky flavor—"

  "English Breakfast."

  They had the good china set up on the coffee table in the family room, with Susanna's favorite cloth napkins, small china platters of crustless sandwiches and warm scones, little bowls of clotted cream, lemon curd and strawberry jam. There were two teapots, one with Earl Grey, one with English Breakfast. Very elegant, except the girls were in jeans, jerseys and sneakers, all but Maggie, who favored what she called vintage clothing and had on a housedress Donna Reed might have worn. She was on the floor, her back against the couch, studiously avoiding looking at her father. Her nose was red. Ellen would cry at movies in front of him, but not Maggie.

  The Emma Thompson Sense and Sensibility was playing. Susanna had dragged him to it when it first came out. One of the sisters was in bed sick. The sensibility one, as Jack recalled.

  "You've all seen this movie a dozen times," he said. "How can you still cry?"

  All four girls waved him quiet. "Shut up, Dad," Maggie said.

  It was the sort of "shut up" he could let go because he'd asked for it and she wasn't three anymore. But her time up north had sharpened her tongue. He was convinced of it.

  Ellen handed him a china cup and saucer and a plate with a scone, lemon curd and a tiny watercress sandwich. "You know, Dad, you should rent some Jane Austen movies for yourself. You might learn how to be more romantic."

  "I know how to be romantic."

  Both daughters rolled their eyes. He drank some of his tea. The watercress sandwich was bearable, probably because it was so small. The scones were okay. The lemon curd had lumps that he didn't mention.

  "What about me isn't romantic?" he asked.

  "Everything," his daughters and their two friends said in unison.

  He was spared further analysis of his romantic nature by the arrival of Sam Temple. Maggie and Ellen liked to pretend they didn't notice him, but every woman in Texas noticed Sam. He was in his mid-thirties, a Texas Ranger for the past three years, and he was unmarried, good-looking and smart.

  He sauntered into the family room and glanced at the television. "Isn't that the guy from Die Hard? He's something. Remember when he shot that cokehead weasel?"

  Maggie snatched up the remote, hit the pause button and glared coolly at the two men. "There ought to be a law against Texas Rangers watching Jane Austen movies."

  Sam grinned at her. "I thought you wanted
to be a Texas Ranger."

  "That was when I was eleven."

  She eased onto her feet, elegant even in her quirky Donna Reed dress and black sneakers. Jack glanced at Sam, who was wisely showing no indication of noticing that Maggie Galway wasn't eleven anymore. She put her hands on her hips. "Why don't you two get all your comments out of your system? Then we can finish watching our movie in peace."

  "What comments?" Sam asked, pretending not to understand. "That's the guy from Die Hard, isn't it?"

  Ellen started refilling teacups. Their friends weren't about to say anything. "Dad and Sam actually want to watch Jane Austen movies with us, Maggie, but they're afraid they might cry."

  Sam's grin only broadened. "Hey, I read Jane Austen in high school. What's the one with Darcy? I remember that name. Holy cow. Darcy. Can you imagine? It's a girl's name now."

  Maggie exhaled loudly and refused to respond. Ellen fixed her dark eyes on Sam. "You're referring to Pride and Prejudice. We have the 1940 version with Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson and the 1995 miniseries with Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth, if you're interested."

  "Oh, man. You girls are tougher than I am."

  He grabbed a couple of watercress sandwiches and headed for the kitchen. Jack went with him. Sam hadn't stopped by just to rib his daughters.

  Sam pulled open the refrigerator. "I need something to wash down these lousy sandwiches." He glanced back at Jack, grimacing. "What was that, parsley?"

  "Watercress."

  "Jesus." Sam took out a pitcher of tea, poured himself a glass without ice and took a long drink. Then he settled back against the counter and looked seriously at

  Jack. "Alice Parker got out of prison yesterday."

  "Happy New Year."

  "She's renting a room in town."

  "Job lined up?"

  "Not yet."

  Jack stared out at his shaded patio, remembering how petite, blond Alice Parker had pleaded with him to look the other way when he'd come to arrest her just over a year ago. She was convinced Beau McGarrity had killed his wife—she just couldn't prove it. McGarrity was a prominent south Texas real estate developer with political aspirations. Alice was the small-town police officer who answered the anonymous call to check out the McGarrity ranch and found Rachel McGarrity dead in her own driveway, shot in the back after she got out of her car, presumably to open the garage door. The automatic opener was broken.