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If she’d had any hope this was all a mistake, it evaporated the second Ben opened his mouth.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Ben had said with unmistakable fury. He’d never looked at her like that before, talked to her like that before. He’d always been happy to see her. If he wasn’t happy to see her, it was because that pretty lady holding the door open and looking at him, then looking at her and then looking back at him, wasn’t some well-dressed cleaning lady, but his wife. And Ben’s wife was having as bad of a day as Ben’s girlfriend was.
“Surprise” was the only word Joey could think to say. Shannon had a few other choice words to say and Joey heard them all as she walked to the curb where her cab waited just in case Ben hadn’t been home. As the cab pulled away, Joey had turned around to see Ben running toward her. She couldn’t read the look on his face—not fury, but not regret, either. She didn’t care why he ran after her. Didn’t care at all. She was numb with shock and grief. She felt nothing and would never feel anything but nothing again. At least that’s what she told herself as she fixed her makeup in a bathroom in the Portland airport. If she never loved again, she’d never hurt again and wouldn’t that be lovely?
After doing the best repair job she could on her face, she picked up her luggage and the rental car. It was nice doing normal things, nice to do boring human things. Life went on. Cars still needed renting. Luggage still needed picking up. Brothers still got married. Sisters still went to their weddings. The world didn’t end just because a man told a lie. That was good. The world would have ended a long time ago and many times over if it did.
The drive from the airport to her family’s old cabin near Lost Lake on Mount Hood was about two hours. Two beautiful hours once she was out on Highway 26 and heading west. She passed over a subtle ridge and what little was left of the city disappeared. There was nothing around for miles but the mountain, a billion trees and low-hanging clouds that brushed the treetops and rolled through the forest like gentle smoke. While Oregon was known for its evergreens, the forests had deciduous trees aplenty and they’d all gone wild with autumn colors—red and orange and lemon yellow. Even in her grief, Joey admired the beauty, took comfort in it. Hawaii was beautiful like nowhere else in the world, but damn, she had missed Oregon’s forests. The scent—there was nothing like it. Clean, so clean—pure pine and fir and all so light and airy that if you didn’t stop to breathe in deeply enough you’d miss it. But if you did breathe in on a rainy, windy day you might just smell what the world smelled like right after it was born. The trees lay so thick on Mount Hood they looked like an oil painting with the paints piled in heavy layers of emerald and black.
Finally she turned onto the winding gravel road that lead to her parents’ old Lost Lake cabin. Her phone vibrated in her pants pocket and she fished it out—carefully.
“Kira, you owe me five hundred dollars if I get caught talking to you,” she said when she answered.
“What? Five hundred dollars?”
“Five-hundred-dollar fine in Oregon for talking on your phone while driving.”
“Then why did you answer the damn phone?” Kira demanded.
“I’m on my driveway, actually, and the speed limit is five miles per hour. I think I got this.”
“Good. Found a guy to bang yet?”
“Do we really have to call it banging? Sounds so...violent.”
“Screwing? Fucking? Knocking boots?”
“Knocking boots? How old are you?” Joey asked.
“Just answer the question.”
“No, in the four hours since I last saw you I didn’t magically meet someone and screw, fuck or knock boots with him in the airport. And I’m probably not going to meet one in the next four hours, either. Or the next four days or the next two weeks. You know Lost Lake is mostly a retirement community, right? Retirees and summer vacation rentals. The only full-timers are the people who work at the lake and that’s, like...twenty people.”
“Twenty? About half of them must be guys. I like those odds.”
“I don’t.”
“Why are you staying way out there, anyway? You can go find a hot man bun in Portland.”
“The cabin is free. Mom and Dad gave it to Dillon as a wedding gift.”
“Nice gift. What do you get when you get married?” Kira asked.
“They’re paying for my wedding and honeymoon. Better deal than the cabin.”
“That bad?”
“It was almost a dump when I was a kid,” Joey said. “Now it’s just a dump. Nobody’s stayed in it in ten years as far as I know. Dillon swears up and down he got someone to clean it up a little, but he’s been up to his eyeballs in wedding planning. As long as I don’t have to bunk with a raccoon, it’ll be fine. I can rough it.”
“Better you than me. Just let me know if you need me to come up and stay with you a couple days. I mean—in a hotel, but near you. I have some vacation days banked in case of emergency. Best friend accidentally fucking a married dude for two years qualifies.”
“It’s okay. But I appreciate it. I should go. I’m at the house.”
“How bad is it? Bad? Are there snakes? Don’t tell me.”
Joey could hear the wincing in Kira’s voice. Staying at a four-star hotel was her version of “roughing it.” She parked the car in the gravel parking spot and was pleased to see the exterior of the house was in better shape than she remembered it. Much better.
“Looks good actually. They painted it. It used to be this dull green but now it’s gray. Very pretty,” Joey said as she got out of the car. “Looks like cedar shingles.”
“Fancy.”
“And the landscaping is nice, too. Someone cleaned up the yard.”
The trees and shrubs looked well-trimmed. The old broken stone path leading from the driveway to the front porch had been repaired. Every stone fit neatly and perfectly into its place. She didn’t trip like she used to when she was a kid and not paying attention to the treacherous walk.
“And somebody decorated?” she said, clinging to Kira on the phone. “I don’t think this is the same house. Did I go to the wrong house?”
“Did you?”
“No. It’s 1414 Cottonwood Way. This is it. There are carved jack-o’-lanterns on the porch. Really good ones.” She admired the mysterious carver’s handiwork. One scary face. One grinning face. One face that looked eerily like Eddie Vedder if Eddie Vedder were a jack-o’-lantern.
“Wait a minute...” Joey said.
“What?”
“Something is definitely up.” Joey lifted the welcome mat—when did they get a welcome mat?—pulled out the key and opened the front door. She’d been expecting a bare-bones cabin. That’s how she remembered it, anyway. Her parents bought the place for a song when she was seven years old and never remodeled it, never refurbished it, but they’d certainly gotten their money’s worth out of it those long summers they’d spent here. Structurally, it was sound, watertight and well-insulated. But inside it had always housed yard sale furniture, squeaky metal cots and secondhand bunk beds, unpainted walls and a kitchen that made cooking on a campfire look inviting. But now...
“Wow,” Joey breathed. “Dillon must have decided to live here with Oscar after the wedding. Although I could have sworn he said Oscar hated nature.”
“Maybe he changed his mind? Love will do that to a guy.”
“Maybe...but still. This is like Architectural Digest gorgeous now. I don’t even want to think about how much this cost.” She turned in a slow circle in the living room. All the yard sale furniture was gone and in its place she found a distressed cedar coffee table, a large rustic leather sofa, a vintage oak rocking chair with what looked like a hand-knitted burgundy throw blanket tossed over the back. Someone had polished the floors to a high shine. The small woodstove had been replaced by a large stone fireplace with a rough wood mantel. And the kitchen had new tile on the floor, a fresh coat of rustic red paint, new rugs, new appliances—nothing but the basics but they were all high quality. Under the sink she found a recycling bin with the toaster box in it. It was that new.
“I wonder if they’re fixing it up to sell it.”
“House flipping?”
“Maybe. Still, nice of them to spruce it up before I came to stay in it.”
“Very nice.”
“Probably their way of making up for the fact that my lovely brother scheduled his wedding on my birthday.”
“Your fault for being born on Halloween. Perfect day for a Portland wedding.”
“Dillon and Oscar do love dressing up. It’s an ’80s movie theme. I have to pick a costume. Maybe I’ll go as Carrie.”
“Carrie?”
“You know—the girl with the blood and the prom and all the murdering—that Carrie.”
“You’re going as a mass murderer to your brother’s wedding?”
“It fits my mood.”
Except her mood was lifting a little. How could it not in this cabin, this beautiful cozy cabin in the woods? All the place was missing was a man to share it with. She and Ben would have had great sex in this cabin in the woods. They’d be in bed already. But that wasn’t going to happen. Not now or ever. Ben had committed an unforgivable sin. He’d lied to his wife. He’d lied to her. He’d betrayed her trust on the deepest level possible, and she would never take him back no matter how lonely she felt without him. And she did feel so terribly alone.
“This is a sex cabin, Kira.”
“Sounds like it.”
“I’m in a sex cabin, and I can’t have sex. This is depressing.”
“You can have sex. Go find someone to have sex with. Right now.”
“I’m in the middle of the woods. The next cabin is half a mile west.”
“Then start walking. Bigfoot’s probably out there. He’s probably well-hung.”
“And hairy.”
“I warned you about the beard rash thing.”
The floor creaked with the sound of footsteps.
But not hers. Joey hadn’t moved.
“Shit,” she whispered into the phone.
“What?” Kira whispered back, unnecessarily.
Joey looked up at the ceiling.
“Someone’s here. Stay on the line with me.”
“Yeah, of course. Are you sure?”
“I heard footsteps upstairs.”
“Then get the fuck out of the house. This isn’t a horror movie. Do not investigate.”
“Right. Going. Right now.”
Joey started backing up toward the door, her heart racing. The footsteps continued across the floor above her head. They were fast and purposeful footsteps, not at all tentative but also not threatening. They were heavy, too, like whoever was walking wore either work boots or cowboy boots. She hadn’t heard that sound in a long time. Even the VPs at her Oahu Air office often came to work in sandals or flip-flops—one of the perks of working one hundred yards or so from the ocean.
“Jo? You there?” Kira whispered again.
“I’m here. Hello?”
“Yes, I’m still here.”
“Not you. I was talking to whoever’s up there. I think he’s working here.”
“Hey there,” came a voice from the top of the stairs. A male voice. A deep yet friendly voice. “Joey Silvia?”
“That’s me. And you are?”
“It’s Chris. I’m almost done up here with the ceiling fan,” the man called down to her.
“Has he murdered you yet?” Kira asked.
“Not yet. He says his name is Chris, and he’s doing something with the ceiling fan.”
“Is he hot?”
“Am I supposed to run screaming from him or have sex with him?” Joey whispered.
“Depends on if he’s hot or not. Go look.”
“You just told me to leave,” Joey half whispered, half yelled.
“You can leave, but find out if he’s hot first.”
“Okay... I’m going up. If my phone dies and/or you hear the sound of me screaming, hang up and call the cops.”
“What if he’s not murdering you, but you’re screaming because it’s such good sex? Do I still call the cops?”
“I’m not a screamer.”
“If he’s the right guy you will be.”
“I’m going to go up and see what he’s doing.” She glanced out the kitchen window and saw a large green Ford pickup parked behind the house with the words Lost Lake Painting and Contracting on the side in black-and-gold letters. Okay, not an ax murderer, then. Just the guy she should probably thank for doing such a good job on the house.
“I’ll stay on the line,” Kira said. “If you think he’s going to murder you, say, um, ‘I’m on the phone with my best friend, Kira. She’s a cop. And she’s sleeping with a cop. No, two cops. Cop threesome.’”
“I’m just supposed to work that into a casual conversation with a possible murderer?”
“And if he’s sexy and you want to bang him, just say, ‘Nice weather we’re having, isn’t it?’”
“It’s the Pacific Northwest. In October. It’s forty-eight degrees out and raining.”
“Just say it!”
“You are the worst friend ever.”
“You’re welcome. Now go check him out. Try not to get murdered.”
Joey crept up the stairs and found they no longer squeaked like they used to. The rotting middle board they had to step over was gone. Someone had replaced the old stairs with beautiful reclaimed pine from the looks of it.
