The Cabin. Carla Neggers

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СКАЧАТЬ would have been better. She’d been determined to feel a little bit elegant tonight. But Jim had already told her she looked like the Wicked Witch of the East coming in there in her black skirt, sweater and boots, with her long black hair—apparently only her very green eyes saved her. Her coat was black, too, but she’d hung it up and tucked her black leather gloves in her pocket before sliding onto her stool. She hadn’t bothered with a hat since the bar was only a few doors down from Gran’s house.

      “I never feel sorry for myself,” she said. “I looked at all my choices for the evening and decided I’d like nothing better than to ring in the New Year with one of my father’s oldest friends.”

      Jim snorted. “I know bullshit when I hear it.”

      Susanna smiled at him, unrepentant. “You make a pretty good margarita for a Yankee.” She set her glass down. “Why don’t you make me another?”

      “Okay, but two’s your limit. You’re not passing out in my bar. I’m not calling your Texas Ranger husband and telling him I let his wife fall off one of my bar stools and hit her head—”

      “Such drama. I’m not getting myself drunk, and you’d call Gran, not Jack, because Gran’s just up the street, and Jack’s in San Antonio. And I know you’re not the least bit intimidated because he’s a Texas Ranger.”

      Jim Haviland gave her a half smile. “Sixty-eight degrees in San Antonio.”

      Susanna refused to let him get to her. He was the father of her best friend in Boston, her own father’s boyhood friend and a surrogate uncle to her these past fourteen months since she’d been on her own up north. He was opinionated, solid and predictable. “Are you going to make me that margarita?” she asked.

      “You should be in Texas with your family.”

      “I had Maggie and Ellen for Thanksgiving. Jack has them for Christmas and New Year’s.”

      Jim scowled. “Sounds like you’re divvying up dibs on the neighborhood snowblower.”

      “It doesn’t snow in San Antonio,” Susanna said with an easy smile. She’d put an imaginary, protective shield around her to get her through the night, and she was determined nothing would penetrate it—not guilt, not fear, not thoughts of the only man she’d ever loved. She and Jack had done the holidays together last year. That hadn’t worked out very well. Their emotions were still too raw, neither ready to talk. Not that her husband was ever ready to talk.

      “You know,” Jim said, “if I were Jack—”

      “If you were Jack, you’d be investigating serial killers instead of making me margaritas. What fun would that be?” She pushed her glass across the bar toward him. “Come on. A nice, fresh margarita. You can reuse my glass. Hold the salt this time if you want.”

      “I’ll hold the liquor before I hold the salt, and I’m not reusing your glass. Health laws.”

      “There are six other bars within walking distance,” Susanna said. “I have on my wool socks. I can find somebody to serve me another margarita.”

      “They all use mixes.”

      But Jim Haviland didn’t call her bluff. He snatched up her empty glass and set it on a tray, then grabbed a fresh glass. His bar was impeccably clean. He offered one nightly dinner special and kept an eye on his customers, running his bar in strict accordance with Massachusetts law. People didn’t come to Jim’s Place to get drunk—it was a true neighborhood pub, as old-fashioned as its owner. Susanna had always felt safe there, welcomed even when Jim was on her case and she wasn’t at her nicest herself.

      “I shipped Iris and her pals up a gallon of chili,” he said. “How do you like that? Even your eighty-two-year-old grandmother’s having more fun on New Year’s than you are.”

      “They’re playing mahjong until five minutes after midnight. Then they’re calling it quits and going to bed.”

      Jim eyed her again, less critically. He was a big, powerfully built man in his early sixties who treated Susanna like an honorary niece, if a wayward one. “You went home last New Year’s,” he pointed out softly.

      And she’d meant for her and Jack to settle whatever was going on between them, but the one time they were alone, on New Year’s Eve, they’d ended up in bed together. They hadn’t settled anything.

      Exactly one year ago, she’d been making love to her husband.

      Two margaritas weren’t going to do the trick. She could get herself rip-roaring drunk, but it wouldn’t stop her from thinking about where she’d been last year at this time and where she was now. Nothing had changed. Not one damn thing.

      Fourteen months and counting, and she and Jack were still in limbo, a kind of marital paralysis that she knew couldn’t last. Maggie and Ellen were seniors in high school now, applying to colleges, almost grown up. They’d called a couple of hours ago, and Susanna had assured them she was ringing in the New Year in style. No mahjong with Gran and her pals. She didn’t want her daughters thinking she was pitiful.

      She hadn’t talked to Jack.

      “There’s nobody here, Jim,” she said. “Why don’t you close up the place? We can go up on the roof and catch the fireworks.”

      He looked up from the margarita he was reluctantly fixing for her. His movements were careful, deliberate. And his blue eyes were serious. “Susanna, what’s wrong?”

      “I bought a cabin in the Adirondacks,” she blurted. “But that’s good. It’s a great cabin. It’s in a gorgeous spot. Three bedrooms, stone fireplace, seven acres right on Blackwater Lake.”

      “The Adirondacks are way the hell up in New York.”

      She nodded. “The largest wilderness area in the lower forty-eight states. Six million acres. Gran grew up on Blackwater Lake, you know. Her family used to own the local inn—”

      “Susanna. For God’s sake.” Jim Haviland shook his head heavily, as if this new development—a cabin in the Adirondacks—was beyond his comprehension. “You should buy a place in Texas, not in the boonies of upstate New York. What were you thinking? Jesus, when did this happen?”

      “Last week. I went up to Lake Placid for a few days on my own—I don’t know, it seemed like a positive thing to do. I needed to clear my head. I saw this cabin. It’s not all that far from my parents’ summer place on Lake Champlain. I couldn’t resist. I figured if not now, when?”

      “You and clearing your head. I’ve been listening to that line for months. The only thing that’s going to clear your damn head is marching your ass back to Texas and sorting things out with your husband. Not buying cabins in the freaking woods.”

      Susanna pretended not to hear him. “Gran’s practically a legend in the Adirondacks, did you know that? She was a guide in her teens and early twenties, before she and my dad moved to Boston. He was just a little tyke—I’m sure he doesn’t remember. Gran seemed a little shocked when I told her I’d bought a place right on Blackwater Lake.”

      Jim shoved the fresh margarita in front of her, his jaw set hard. He didn’t say a word.

      She picked up the heavy glass, picturing herself standing on the porch of the СКАЧАТЬ