An Accidental Woman (12 page)

“Okay,” Poppy tried. “Forget Griffin. Tell me what
you
know. You hired Heather when she first came to town. Where was she before here?”

“Atlanta.”

Atlanta. Poppy had never heard Heather talk about Atlanta.

“She worked at a restaurant there,” Charlie said, “but only for a few weeks. She needed money.”

“For what?”

“To live. To come here.”

“Why here?”

“I don't know.”

Poppy needed a reason. It would give Heather credibility. “Small town? Lake? Loons? What?”

“I don't know.”

“Didn't you ask?”

“Poppy,” Charlie chided, “this was fourteen years ago. I probably did ask at one point or another, but the fact is I was more interested in whether she could waitress.”

“Did you check out a reference before you hired her?”

“I sure did. The guy who owned the restaurant gave her a glowing one, just like the one I'd give her if I was asked.”

That brought Poppy back to Griffin. “He'll ask. He'll prod. He may be working on something else, but guys like that keep their fingers in lots of pies at once. Trust me. He'll get things from you that you didn't think you knew.”

“Maybe that'd be good—you know, if I can remember something that'll help Heather. It sure is a help to me, Griffin's being on Little Bear. It's at the far end of nowhere. I wasn't looking forward to traipsing out there to check on the place.”

At last the words registered in Poppy's mind. “Griffin's on Little Bear? But Little Bear's all closed up.”

“Yes, it is.”

“The place must be frozen solid.”

“Yup.”

“He won't get water.”

“Not this time of year.”

She heard his smile, and suddenly it seemed fair game that a guy who had enough money in the bank to stick his nose into other people's business at will should be stuck out in the cold with a minimum of amenities in the depth of winter. Unable to resist a momentary satisfaction, she said, “You're bad, Charlie,” and let slip a small smile of her own.

* * *

He felt hamstrung. Forget his thumb, which throbbed, and knuckles that were raw from the cold. Legs, arms, back—he ached all over. He would have killed for a hot shower. Hell, he'd have killed for a
warm
shower. Barring both, he yearned, positively
yearned,
for the sleeping bag that was stashed in the closet of his bedroom in Princeton. It was top of the line and good to twenty below. Even with the woodstove generating steady heat, the cold had so penetrated everything in the cabin that it made the stove's job twice as hard.

Normally, he'd have passed an evening at home watching television, surfing the Web, even writing Hayden's bio, but he couldn't do any of that here. Nor could he run down the street to the pub to catch a Knicks game or have a beer with friends. Charlie's café was the closest anything came to a pub; it was closed for the night, and even if it hadn't been, he wasn't running anywhere. Not tonight, not in the pitch-black, with the wind kicking up and the air outside the cabin colder than anything he'd ever known in his life. The air inside the cabin wasn't much better.

And all that was before he thought of the truck. Oh, it had heat. He had felt that on the drive out to this godforsaken end of the lake. But it was stuck in the snow, likely to be frozen solid by morning, which would make things interesting, particularly with his cell phone useless.

Of course, he'd been set up. No
doubt
about that. He figured there might be folks in town at that very minute, sitting around Charlie's after hours, chuckling at the idea that the city boy was freezing his butt off in the dark, with no running water, no electricity, no phone. He wondered if Poppy was there, but rejected the idea. Truth be told, he didn't want to think she took pleasure from his discomfort.

Besides, having driven for seven hours, then trekked through snow and cold, he was beat. So he took cushions off the sofa, laid them out
near the woodstove, then took blankets from the bedroom, which was the only other room in the cabin. Stretching out on the cushions in front of the woodstove, he covered himself, but he pushed the blankets back off seconds later. They were nearly frozen themselves. Relying on the direct heat from the stove, he curled into a ball and let determination ease him to sleep.

* * *

Dropping the piping, he went into the new addition. With his back to the kitchen side, he faced the office side, studied the pile of papers on her desk, and felt the start of panic. The papers were in folders, neat and orderly as Heather's mind worked, but Micah's mind didn't work that way. He knew that the folder labeled “ART” held sketches of the new logo as it would appear on the labels they planned to use on syrup tins, and that the folder labeled “VAC” held information on the vacuum system they had just installed to draw more sap from the trees. There was paperwork to be done for that, and then there was the folder labeled “EVAP,” which held details on loan payments for the new, larger evaporator that they had bought and used the season before—the efficiency of which had told them they could handle more syrup, which was why they had bought the vacuum system, ordered new labels, and put on the addition.

Information on all of it was in the computer, which sat there like an ugly troll on the desk, and then there was e-mail. E-mail was Heather's major link to suppliers and customers.

Micah was an expert with a chainsaw, a drill, and a bit, but he was in over his head when it came to a computer. Heather wasn't. Hardware . . . software . . . she got it all. She knew about everything on this desk. It all had to do with his business. If she didn't get back soon, he'd be in big trouble.

Breaking into a nervous sweat under his parka, he returned to the house, but Heather's touch was everywhere there, too. Copper pots hung in the kitchen from the frame she'd had him mount on the ceiling; plants thrived in the greenhouse window she'd had him install behind the sink. The sofas were draped with afghans she had knitted. Half-made dresses for the girls in pretty patterns were folded on the sewing machine.

Unwilling to see more, he shut off the lights and returned to the bedroom. Sitting there in the dark, he felt numb, though certainly not from the cold. The house was plenty warm, thanks to a furnace that spread heat through the rooms.

He hadn't had the furnace when he first met Heather. He had a blower system then that worked off the heat generated by the woodstove, and the system had been fine, assuming the woodstove stayed lit. Letting it die out had been a source of constant contention between Marcy and him. She didn't think it was her job to hang around the house just to keep it going, not when she had a husband who was in and out of the place all day long—and she was right in a sense. He certainly was nearby. Even when he was doing renovations or additions for other people, his jobs were local, so he was home for lunch. During sugaring season, he was around even more.

His side of the argument said that she was the one
in
the house. She was strong and healthy, and it wasn't like he was asking her to chop down the tree, cut and split the logs, and carry armloads at a time to the hearth. He did those things. All he was asking was that she add one or two logs to the stove when the flame got low.

What he really meant, he had realized after she died, was that he didn't see why she had to be out all the time. Having babies hadn't slowed her down. She simply strapped the girls into the car and took off to see friends, shop, do whatever struck her on a given day. She had a kind of frenetic energy, and he'd found it exciting at first. Born and raised on the
Ridge, she was like a bright light that was never still. He had tried to follow it, but in the end, he had failed. He was too much a creature of habit.

Habit? Necessity. He had inherited the sugarbush from his father, and the sap season was short. He had to make the most of every minute, couldn't slack off. And when it was done, when the sap was boiled down and bottled and sent to the many dozens of stores in northern New England that sold it through the year, he had to earn money another way. Frenetic energy was a luxury he couldn't afford.

That frenetic energy had killed Marcy. No one had said it in as many words, but it was clear as day. She'd been driving too fast on icy roads. Always too fast, too eager, too ready to get somewhere.

Heather was the opposite, with her soft, steady voice, her clear silver eyes, and her common sense. She loved being at home. She loved sugaring. She loved the girls. Though he was guilt-ridden each time he thought it, she set a far better example for them than their mother had. He had always trusted Heather with them, had never worried when she was with them, not once, not even at the start.

A small whisper of sound came from the door. He looked around just as Star slipped into the room. She didn't say anything, simply ran softly around the bed and came to lean against his thigh.

As he stroked her hair, he felt a catch in his throat. She was a beautiful child inside and out, and so knowing. He didn't have to ask why she was awake. Her worries might be fewer than his, but many of them were the same.

Where's Momma? Why isn't she here? When will she be back? Why did she leave?

She hadn't left, he wanted to say. She would be back in the morning, he wanted to say. But he didn't know whether either was true. Feeling as lost as Star, he scooped up the child and held on until the frightening moment passed. Then, needing to be alone with his confusion, he carried her back to bed.

* * *

He told himself that. He told himself he was paying his dues. He told himself he was getting on Charlie's good side.

Using this thought as a mantra, he dozed off, but he was awake again two hours later. The wind had picked up and it wasn't the howling that bothered him, though it was an eerie sound, so much as the way the cabin shook with each swirling gust. He thought about the trees that were surely swaying, wondered if any might fall and how he would summon help if he were trapped inside here.