The Cabin

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 around 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 better-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 altogether—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 on 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.

She and Beau had been married for seventy-nine days. They’d known each other less than five months.

Jack could understand how Alice Parker might have panicked coming upon her first homicide. It was late at night, she was alone, and she was young and inexperienced. But she didn’t just make ordinary mistakes that night—she completely mucked up everything. Instead of immediately securing the crime scene and calling in an investigative team, she took matters into her own hands and contaminated evidence to the point that virtually nothing was of any use to investigators, never mind being able to stand up in court. The classic overzealous, incompetent loose cannon.

But before anyone fully realized the damage she’d done, Alice Parker tried to make up for her mistakes by committing a crime herself. She produced an eyewitness, a drifter who did odd jobs and claimed he’d seen Beau McGarrity crouch in the azaleas and shoot his wife.

That was when her chief of police got suspicious and asked the Texas Rangers to investigate. Jack unraveled Alice’s story within a week. She’d found her drifter, paid him, then coached, threatened and cajoled him into lying.

Jack refused to look the other way. Alice reluctantly admitted to fabricating a witness and plea-bargained herself from a third-degree felony to a Class A misdemeanor, then settled into state prison to serve her full one-year sentence.

As a result of her official misconduct—and incompetence—the murder of Rachel McGarrity remained an open, if cold, case. Jack was convinced there was more to Alice Parker’s story, but she’d kept silent all these months. And now she’d served her time and was a free woman.

A week after he’d finished the Alice Parker investigation, Susanna had headed for Boston. Jack didn’t believe it was a coincidence.

“She’s not on parole,” Sam reminded him. “She can go anywhere, do anything, so long as she doesn’t break the law.”

Jack nodded. “Let’s hope she puts her life back together.”

“She wanted to be a Ranger. That won’t happen now.”

But they both knew it wouldn’t have happened anyway. The Texas Rangers were an elite investigative unit within the state’s Department of Public Safety. There were just over a hundred in the entire state, generally drawn from other DPS divisions, not small-town police departments.

Jack turned away from the patio doors, hearing the closing music to Sense and Sensibility coming from the family room. “Alice Parker was in over her head as a patrol officer.”

“Maybe not as much as we think. Maybe little Alice wanted us to believe she’s incompetent. Maybe she did it—maybe she killed Rachel McGarrity herself.” Sam drank more of his cold tea, obviously giving this idea serious thought. “A year in prison on a plea bargain beats the hell out of a lethal injection for premeditated murder. Admit to incompetence and produce a phony witness, draw attention away from what you really did—shoot a woman in the back in her own driveway.”

Jack shook his head. “No motive, no evidence, and I don’t think it’s what happened. Alice knew the victim. She knew the husband. That’s one of the hazards of small-town police work. She had the whole case figured out in her own head and thought she could make it all come together, put Beau McGarrity in prison and maybe get a little recognition for herself.”

“Didn’t work out that way, did it? Dreams die hard, Jack.” Sam set his tea glass in the sink. “Watch your back.”

Jack knew this was the real reason Sam had come to his house on New Year’s Day, not to rehash the Alice Parker investigation, but to communicate his misgivings about what Alice Parker might do now that she was free. Sam Temple had good instincts. He’d graduated from the University of Texas and joined the Department of Public Safety, earning his master’s degree in criminal justice on the side. He was tough-minded, decisive and naturally suspicious, but also fair. People liked Sam—they’d probably make him governor of Texas one day, if he ever decided to leave law enforcement.

He was frowning at the kitchen counter. “What the hell is that?”

Jack followed his gaze. “An espresso machine. The girls gave it to me for Christmas.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Come on, Sam, you know what an espresso machine is.”

He grinned. “You start drinking lattes, Lieutenant Galway, and they’ll throw you right out of the Rangers.” But he turned serious again, calm. “If Alice Parker tries to stick her nose back into the McGarrity case or come after you—”

“We’ll find out. She’s not stupid. She knows she has to put this behind her and move on.” Jack started back toward the family room, clapping one hand on the younger Ranger’s shoulder. “You’re just looking for things to think about so you won’t have to eat any more watercress sandwiches.”

“Not me. You’re the one who needs distracting. Susanna was down here for New Year’s last year. Bet last night was a long one for you.” Sam laughed, then said out of the blue, “It’s cold in Boston, you know. High of twenty today. Wind chill’s below zero.”

“Good.”

“If that was my wife, I’d go fetch her.” Sam’s black eyes flashed. “I’d bring my cuffs.”

“Sam—”

He held up a hand. “I know. None of my business.” He sauntered into the family room and gave the girls more grief about the guy from Die Hard.

“His name is Alan Rickman,” Maggie said coolly.

Sam shook his head. “You and Ellen have been up north too long. You’re starting to sound like Teddy Kennedy.”

Jack smiled from the doorway, listening to his daughters give as good as they got from a Texas Ranger more than fifteen years their senior. They weren’t shrinking violets. Neither was their mother, although sometimes Jack thought his life would be easier if Susanna would be a little more of a shrinking violet, at least once in a while.

Not long after Alice Parker was arrested, it became apparent that Beau McGarrity wouldn’t be charged for his wife’s murder anytime soon. People were even starting to feel sympathy for him, believing he was innocent, the victim of police corruption and a rush to judgment.

Jack felt the familiar mix of anger and frustration assault every muscle, every inch of him. His entire body stiffened. He was mad at Susanna, mad at himself—but he knew what he had to do. One of these days, he and his wife were going to have to have a talk about Beau McGarrity.

* * *

Maggie and Ellen joined him on his run the next morning. They all did five miles before Maggie pooped out, declared she was on vacation and flagged down a neighbor to drive her home. Ellen would have hung in for the full ten miles, but Jack wasn’t up to it himself and veered off on a shortcut that took them back home, settling for a solid seven-mile run.

After lunch, the girls did their laundry and started packing for their trip back to Boston in the morning. They sat folding clothes in the family room, the Weather Channel detailing the frigid temperatures still gripping the northeast.

Ellen plopped a laundry basket on the floor and sat down cross-legged, pulling out a rugby jersey to fold. “Dad,” she said, “Maggie and I have been talking, and we’ve decided—well, we haven’t said much about you and Mom...”

“We’ve tried to stay out of it,” Maggie added.

Here it comes, Jack thought. He eased onto a chair, still feeling the seven miles in his calf muscles. Thus far, his daughters had generally avoided lecturing him on his relationship with their mother. But he knew they had opinions. He could at least listen to what they had to say. “Go on,” he told them.

Ellen took a breath, as if she were about to confess to something awful or embarrassing. “We think Mom wants to be wooed.”

“Wooed?” Jack nearly choked. This was a million miles from what he’d expected. “How many Jane Austen movies did you watch yesterday?”

“We’re serious, Dad,” Ellen said.

Maggie was sorting through a stack of her vintage clothes. She and Ellen and their friends had combed through every secondhand store in San Antonio, raving over sacks of clothes they’d picked up for a few dollars. Most looked like rags to Jack. “We know Mom’s independent and supercompetent and makes tons of money and all that,” Maggie said, “and she’ll watch football with you and talk murder and stuff—”

“But she needs romance once in a while,” Ellen finished.

“Wooing,” Maggie added with a glint in her eye that said she wasn’t as intensely serious about this conclusion as her sister was.

Jack shoved a hand through his hair. It was dark, more flecked with gray than it used to be, and not, he decided, just because he was forty. Life with three females had taken its toll. When the girls headed off to college, he was getting a dog. A big, ugly, mean, male dog.

“Girls,” he said, “your mother and I have known each other since we were college students.”

Ellen pounced. “Exactly! Dad, nobody likes to be taken for granted.”

“What does that mean?”

She groaned, shaking her head as if her father was the thickest man on the planet. She was in shorts and a rugby shirt, the bruises on her legs finally faded. The San Antonio sun had brought freckles out on her nose and cheeks, lightened her chestnut hair. As far as Jack knew, neither she nor Maggie had any long-term boyfriends. Fine with him. He was in no hurry to see guys “wooing” his daughters.

Maggie folded a pair of old-man striped golf pants, circa 1975, one of her favorites. “Everyone wants to feel they’re special.”

“This isn’t about blame,” Ellen said. “It’s not about who did what wrong. It’s about how you can take the bull by the horns and...and...”

“Woo your mother back,” Jack supplied, deadpan.

Ellen frowned up at him. “Yes.”

Maggie sank back against the couch. “This isn’t a double standard. We’re not expecting you to take on the wooing because you’re a man, but because it’s so obviously what Mom wants, and it’s so—Dad, come on. It’s so simple.”

Nothing involving Susanna Dunning Galway had ever been simple. Jack shook his head. “What kind of classes have you two been taking up in Boston?”

Neither girl was backing down. Ellen said, “You were distracted in the weeks before we moved north. Remember? You had that police corruption case. You hate corruption cases, you didn’t want to talk about it, and I think it affected you more than you or Mom realized at the time.”