The Cabin. Carla Neggers

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      “I’d never lecture you, Iris,” Jimmy said. “What are you drinking with your stew?”

      “I think I’ll have merlot tonight. I haven’t had wine in ages. Alice, what about you?”

      “Oh, no, ma’am, I don’t drink. I’ll just have a Coke.”

      “And don’t skimp on the beef when you dip up my stew, Jimmy. I had a low-fat lunch.”

      He still didn’t seem too happy.

      Iris sighed at him, her green eyes vibrant. “Jimmy, I know about women on their own. They’re either widowed, divorced, broke, on the run or ex-cons.” She turned her bright gaze to her new friend. “Am I right, Audrey?”

      Alice laughed. “One or more of the above.”

      “There. I knew it. I guess that’s better than ‘all of the above.’”

      * * *

      Tess Haviland sank into the soft leather couch that Susanna had bought when Tess had moved out of their shared office space the summer before. She still had the remnants of her tan from her holiday in Disney World with Andrew Thorne, her architect husband, and seven-year-old Dolly. Harley Beckett, Dolly’s reclusive babysitter, had stayed home and worked on Tess’s nineteenth-century carriage house. She took possession of it last May and promptly found a skeleton in the cellar—something that hadn’t sat well with Jack Galway, Texas Ranger. Not that Susanna had told him about her involvement. The girls had let it slip. She remembered his call. “You and Tess Haviland crawled around in a dirt cellar looking for a body?”

      “We didn’t find it.”

      Small consolation.

      Tess’s move to the North Shore, her marriage and new family seemed to agree with her. Her blond hair was longer these days, her dedication to her graphic design work still high but not as all-consuming. She’d hired an assistant. She had balance in her life. She also had strong opinions, which made her more like her pub-owner father and plumber godfather than she would ever admit to.

      She’d brought her own latte, Susanna’s coffeemaking abilities the only source of conflict between them. She had on her business-in-the-city clothes. “I like the leather,” she said, sweeping a critical glance over the conversation area Susanna had set up in Tess’s vacated half of the office. A contemporary leather couch and chairs, an antique coffee table and three orchids painstakingly chosen for their forgiving natures. Tess smoothed one hand over the soft leather. “I didn’t think I would. I really wanted you to go with a Texas theme. At least it’s not stuffy.”

      Given that her office was on the fourth floor of a late nineteenth-century building overlooking Boston’s oldest cemetery, Susanna had rejected a Texas theme. She hadn’t bothered to confront her friend on her ideas of what a Texas theme would entail—all spurs and Lone Stars, probably.

      “Susanna, do you mind if I speak frankly?”

      Susanna sat on one of the chairs, the sky outside her tall windows gray and gloomy. She’d worked at her computer most of the day. She smiled at Tess. “Since when would it make any difference if I minded?”

      Tess didn’t return her smile. “Your computer’s dusty,” she said.

      “That’s what you wanted to tell me?”

      “It’s part of a larger pattern.” Tess leaned forward, holding her latte in both hands. “It’s like your brain’s gone inside your computer and won’t come out. It can’t. It’s all filled up with numbers and money things.”

      “Money things?”

      “Investments, annual reports, interest rates, bond prices—God only knows what. I’ll bet you know to the penny what each of your clients is worth.”

      Susanna took no offense. “That is my job, Tess.”

      She shook her head, adamant. “You go beyond what the average financial planner would do.”

      “Good. I’d hate to be an ‘average’ financial planner.” Susanna glanced over at her desk, her monitor filled with numbers, which was probably what had unnerved Tess. “I want to be very above average.”

      “You see? You’re driven. You’re a perfectionist. It’s causing you to lose perspective on the rest of your life.” Tess set her jaw, aggravated now. “Damn it, I’m making a good point here. Your life is out of balance.”

      Susanna slid to her feet and walked over to the table where she had her coffeemaker, a tin of butter cookies, pretty little napkins and real pottery mugs for herself and her clients. “I’ve hired a part-time assistant,” she said. “She comes in two mornings a week.”

      “You should have at least two people working full-time for you. You told me so yourself last fall.”

      “Did I?”

      “Yes, you did.”

      Susanna poured herself a half cup of stale, grayish coffee and turned back to her friend. “All right, I’ll dust my computer. Promise.”

      Tess groaned. “You are so thick.”

      “Hey, that’s my line. That’s what I tell Jack—”

      “There. Jack.” Tess set her latte on an antique table Susanna had picked up at an auction, a nice contrast with the more contemporary pieces. Balance, she thought. If Tess approved, she didn’t say. She narrowed her blue eyes on Susanna. “You haven’t told him how much you’re worth, have you?”

      “Why would I? He pays attention to money even less than you do.”

      “Susanna, you have to tell him!”

      Susanna returned to her desk, feeling stubborn now that they were talking about her husband. “Why?”

      “He’s going to find out, you know. That’s what you’re afraid of, isn’t it? He’s a guy’s guy. He might not like having his wife sneaking around making millions.”

      “It’s his money, too.”

      “Uh-huh. And he’s a Texas Ranger. You’ve always said it’s all he’s ever wanted to do, even when he was at Harvard. Suppose he’ll think you’ll want him to quit?”

      Susanna frowned. “I’d never tell him what to do, anymore than he’d tell me.”

      “Yeah, what about all the other Texas Rangers? What will they think if one of their own’s suddenly worth eight million?”

      “Ten,” Susanna corrected.

      “Ten million? Damn, Susanna. Maybe it’s time to hire bodyguards—or make peace with your husband. Talk about armed and dangerous.”

      “Nobody knows how much I’m worth. You, my accountant and my attorney.” Susanna could feel her heart pounding, but she kept her tone breezy, as if none of this really bothered her. She knew Tess wasn’t fooled. “It’s not as if I’ve radically changed my lifestyle.”

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