EDGE (2 page)

“We?”

“I’m going with you.” He reached into his other pocket and whipped out a brochure. “They offer salmon and halibut fishing, hiking, kayaking, whale and bear watching. The list is endless.”

Cache narrowed his eyes. “
We
?” he repeated.

Tom gestured at Cache’s injuries. “Come on. You can’t very well go alone. Think of me as your companion or coworker. No, no forget that. Boss? Yeah, I like that. Think of me as your boss.”

“Think again.”

“Okay, then…what about buddy?”

Cache stared at him for a minute. “What’s really going on here?”

Tom sighed and crossed his legs, his leather wingtips shining in the late afternoon light pouring through the windows. “The starched shirts are worried about you. They know you’ve been to hell and back and want me to make sure nothing more happens to you.”

“In other words, they’re sending you to make sure I don’t fuck it up.”

“Well—” he shrugged “—basically. Come on, Cache, it’s Alaska, and we get to go with the magazine footing the bill.”

Cache reached for the brochure. Massive mountain ranges. Glaciers. Steel-blue Pacific Ocean. Not a forgiving place. How would he navigate this kind of territory in his present condition?

“Turn the page to see pictures of the lodge. I know it looks imposing, but I’ve been assured that they’ve taken handicapped patrons before.”

Cache narrowed his gaze.

“N-not that you’re handicapped in the sense of wheelchair bound. But you can be comfortable in knowing that you’ll be able to navigate the lodge. Plus, they offer sauna and hot tub facilities and have a masseuse on staff.”

Cache reviewed the pictures of the lodge. Rustic sophistication described the nest of log structures connected by a mammoth deck across the front and supported on pilings. Cobalt waters licked at a black sand beach. Wildflowers bloomed in a riot of rainbow colors surrounded by dense forests and rocky cliffs. A sapphire sky topped it off.

The Garden of Eden, sourdough style.

“Think of it as a paid vacation where you can recuperate, and in the process see some great stuff. Besides, we don’t leave until the end of next week, which will give you time to get this place—” he gave the apartment a disgusted look “—fumigated or something.” Tom lifted his shaped eyebrows. “What do you say?”

There wasn’t anything to say. The subject was Amelia Bennett.

Of course he was going.

C
HAPTER
T
WO

For there is nothing hid, which shall not be manifested.

~MARK 4:22

Oh, God. They’d found her.

Mel Bennett fisted the letter from
World Events
in her hand, and hugged the week’s worth of correspondence that the mail plane had just delivered tight to her chest.

Dread crawling up her spine, she glanced left and right, her long golden braid swinging around her neck like a noose. She expected cameras and journalists to pop out of the dense alder bushes. Everything seemed the same. Normal. All that greeted her was the softly lapping surf of the cove, towering spruce trees, and abundance of blooming wildflowers. Yet, fear tore in like a starving brown bear. She swallowed bile bubbling up from her stomach.

How the hell had they found her?

The sound of the mail plane’s engine cut through the buzzing in her ears. She turned and watched as the floatplane moseyed over the placid inlet. It lifted off the surface as smooth as a bird taking flight, with no idea the weekly delivery of mail had shattered her sanctuary at The Edge of Reason Lodge. The plane banked right toward Homer, the sun glinting off the wings like a playful wink as it soared.

How long would it take her to pack?

Her lungs burned from holding her breath while panic rattled through her. She dropped to the graveled beach, hung her head between her raised knees, and concentrated on dragging air into her lungs.

This time there was so much she’d leave behind.

How could she leave all this? But how could she stay and go through all the questions, the morbid curiosity, and the judgment again?

She’d traveled to the ends of the earth already, and yet they’d still found her. If she left, they’d only find her again. How long was it going to take before she finally decided to stand her ground and fight?

Another shuddering breath.

The Edge was home. It wasn’t easy to find the way to the lodge. An intruder would have to charter a plane or a boat, hire a guide, and she’d send them packing. She was prepared. She was armed. She was ready. No longer was she the scared, helpless little girl or the confused, self-destructive young woman.

She was in control.

Mel eyed the envelope fisted in her hand. There was no point in opening it, just slap a “Hell No” on the front with a “Return to Sender.”
World Events
would get the idea. No way would she allow them to write another story and make more money off her horror.

This edge of the world belonged to her. Anyone who snuck in without permission would be sorry. She’d made a family here. Yeah, a family of misfits, but they were
her
misfits.

Her shaking quieted. She chose to ignore the slight trembling of her hands and rifled through the rest of the mail. Normalcy. Doing something normal would give her time to get some color back into her cheeks before she returned to the lodge.

In the bundle was a package of batik fabric she’d ordered. Her latest quilt design had been put on hiatus waiting for the purples and greens she needed to simulate the Aurora Borealis. She shuffled through bills and junk mail, and then her hand paused on a letter from Oregon.

What the hell?
Bad news should be spread out, not delivered in a one-two punch.

The only person she knew in Oregon was her sister. The balmy summer day sent another chill through her. The envelope weighed like a stone in her hand. The last letter Mel had received from Nicole had been news that their mother was dying. That was five years ago. The time before that, word of their father’s passing. Odds were this letter didn’t have anything good to say.

Mel steadied herself and slid open the envelope. Her jaw tightened as she read.

Amelia,

I’m in a bind. My marriage is over, and the kids and I need a place to stay this summer where I can figure out what to do next.

I know this is an imposition, and I’m asking more than I have a right to, but I don’t have anywhere else to turn.

I’ve enclosed a copy of our itinerary.

Nicole

Hell’s bells. The only upside to the letter was that no one had died, but Nicole and the kids coming
here?
For the whole summer?

Mel shook out the itinerary and jumped to her feet with a curse, the package and the rest of the mail landing in a heap in the sand.
Three days!
They’d be here in three days. Looked as though Nicole hadn’t changed her manipulating ways, and here Mel had begun to feel sorry for her. She could easily leave her sister rotting at the airport in Anchorage.

But the kids…

She couldn’t leave them stranded. Not when she knew firsthand the terror of what happened when kids were stranded.

Mel paced the section of beach in front of the lodge. The mountain range behind her had been formed from thousands of years of volcanic and earthquake activity rising impassable beyond the large log structure, the ocean in front barred an easy escape.

She focused on the wildly blooming flowers along the shoreline, mentally trying to name each one.

Lupine, chickweed, devil’s club
...

She stopped in her tracks.
She’d
chosen to live here on The Edge for a reason.
She
controlled who came in and out, whether it was unwanted family or prying journalists. It was
her
choice to pick up Nicole and her kids. Nicole couldn’t find her way to The Edge on her own.

Mel slowly folded the letter and tucked it into her back pocket along with the one from
World Events
. She’d show up in Anchorage. She’d be there for the kids. However, her sister had better keep her mouth shut when it came to the past. No one on The Edge knew anything about the victim Mel had once been.

And it sure as hell would stay that way.

“Put down that fork and step away from my pie, you old codger!” Linnet yelled.

“Don’t be leavin’ it out for anybody to taste if you’re wantin’ to save it,” Ramsey fired back.

Mel stopped outside the kitchen door of the lodge and thought twice about entering as Linnet and Ramsey traded insults with each other.

Kuspuck, Ramsey’s scarred old mutt—half wolf, half only God knew what—lay in front of the screen door. Rinka, Mel’s purebred Siberian husky, with her rusty bandit-painted face, gave him a nudge, making more room for herself to cuddle up next to him. Kuspuck yawned and laid his one remaining ear back, closing his eyes in obvious pleasure.

The noise increased inside. Mel stepped over the dogs and pushed her way into the kitchen to play referee. “All right you two, back to your corners.” She pushed between the opposing forces and rescued the fresh-baked salmonberry pie from Ramsey’s hands. The sweet, spicy smell rose and tempted. She wanted a piece herself.

Linnet stood with her hands on slender hips, her age a mystery. Linnet was at least twenty years older than Mel’s own thirty-two years, because she talked of the seventies with knowledge of having lived it firsthand as a teenager. Her thick dark hair, without a whisper of gray, smooth skin, and sharp green eyes dared you to think of her as older than forty.

On the other hand, Ramsey’s face was lined like the leather binding on a well-read book. The salt and pepper beard—trimmed once a year whether it needed it or not—could rival any Alaskan sourdough’s. For a man who looked old enough to retire, he shouldn’t be able to accomplish the physical demands that his life required.

“I tell you what, why don’t we sit and each have a big slice of pie?” Mel suggested. “I could rustle up some vanilla ice cream I made the other day.” She glanced back and forth between the two. Neither relaxed their stance. “Come on, what do you say?”

“The last pie I made was stolen.” Linnet glared at Ramsey.

“Don’t look at me. I didn’t take it.”

“Baloney. I was saving this pie for Sergei,” Linnet said with a little pout to her full, painted lips.

“I knew it! As soon as I met that Russian, I knew you’d be trying to get him into your bed.” Ramsey leaned over Mel, glaring daggers at Linnet.

“It’s no business of yours who I invite to my bed.”

“Why you ungrateful—”

Mel raised a hand to stop the flow of insults. “Okay, I’m calling this a draw and taking the pie with me. Ramsey, I’m sure there’s something more productive you could be doing. Linnet, we need to discuss a letter I received. It might affect our vacancies this summer.” Mel stared them both down until Ramsey huffed and slammed out the screen door, swearing as he tripped over Kuspuck and Rinka.

“I’m telling you, we should push that man off The Edge.” Linnet folded her arms over her impressive bosom. “All he does is judge and condemn everything I do.”

“Why is that, do you wonder?” Mel set the pie back on the shelf to finish cooling.

“I don’t know. The man has plagued me since I’ve known him. Always looking, always judging.” Linnet snapped up a dishtowel and began drying the dishes stacked in the drainer. A dishwasher was a luxury they didn’t have on The Edge. Too much of a power drain.

Mel took a seat at the kitchen table, her package of material still waiting for her. Unfortunately, she’d lost the desire to dive into it with the prospect of Nicole’s arrival. “One day you’re going to tell me the real story between the two of you.”