“Me too. He’s almost as strong as you.”
“Got stronger legs anyway. Just as you must have.”
“Something in me has gotten stronger. I’ve made a decision to get the quad.”
Hudson nodded. “Still in time to get it up for next winter.”
“Barely. God, have I procrastinated over this. I should have decided a month ago, Hudson, but I just wasn’t sure.” She covered his hand with hers. “I know how you’ve hated the idea of putting more skiers on the trails.”
He took both her hands. “I’m selfish. I’d love to have a mountain to us. You’ve got to look at it as a business.”
She smiled and took her hands back. “Sitting at my desk after the race with Kurt I suddenly felt it was time I started running Great Haystack. Up to then I felt like a kid in school. Today was final exams.” She shook her head. “Silly, isn’t it? The foolish race has nothing to do with what I’ve learned about ski area operation.”
“No different than electing as class president the guy who throws a rope on the football field. It’s about confidence and leadership. And you’ve started to get them together.”
“Bob Gold called. Andre still hasn’t gone back to work, and he and Bob and I are climbing Frankenstein Gulch tomorrow.” She grinned. “You are, of course, invited.”
“Thank you. I’m already booked to jump off Cathedral Ledge.”
Hudson was feeling a little extra glad to see her. The conversation with John Krestinski troubled him more than he’d admitted to himself. Up in their bedroom lying on the bed, he watched her take off her sweater and then go into the bathroom, closing the door before further disrobing. He shook his head, bemused. The trauma of a decade ago had made her a very private person. From the rape attack at the age of fifteen to four months ago, her vision was that men carried disgusting weapons hidden in their pants, and during that period had arranged her life to never encounter them. She still could not bear having a man touch her in any way. And, with the exception of her cousin, Kabir, with whom she’d been brought up and who was “family” not a “man”, and Hudson, none put a hand on her shoulder or took her arm in traffic. During her dark ages she’d buried a sylph-like body under baggy jeans, corduroys and heavy checked shirts, and rolled waist-length hair into an enormous bun over a cameo locket face that made one wonder - should anyone look, and few did - if her long, slender neck could hold it all up in a high wind.
She’d developed weapons of her own, as Hudson discovered when he had innocently triggered them. A little like dealing with a hand grenade, he’d thought after that episode; any boyfriends - and at the time the thought never occurred to him he might someday be in that category - better be careful pulling the pin. But it hadn’t turned out that way. By the time sex was brought into their relationship, she’d been the one who’d done the bringing - awkwardly, fearfully, yet determined that phobias not prevent her from pleasing the man she loved. An old fashioned attitude that delighted Hudson with its fresh innocence, yet along with it a fierce emotion that awakened the same in him. She was a one-man woman, and the man hadn’t gotten away.
How precious she was to him. He couldn’t allow anything to happen to her. The sudden loss of his well-loved first wife, not even a year ago, heightened his apprehension. The European trip was the first time he and Cilla had been apart since their marriage. A sudden surge of desire tightened his groin. But Cilla was not someone - even yet - for whom the mere mention of an interest in sex was automatically followed by turning down the sheets. It had to be approached just right.
Yet Cilla had another talent, one Hudson sometimes forgot. When it concerned her, she knew what he was thinking almost at the same time he did. The bathroom door opened; she was wearing a nightgown, one he hadn’t seen, undoubtedly for summer it was so airy and light. And she paused for just a moment with the light behind silhouetting her body, obviously diaphanous. Long, slender legs with smoothly rippling muscles. Slim, almost boyish hips encased what he knew was a taut flat stomach. His eyes had made it to her waist, when the garment slipped to the floor and she stood naked in the doorway. He lay very still, suddenly unable to catch his breath. She could do this to him as could no one else, even Sylvia. Long, dark hair caressed her shoulders over impossibly firm, porcelain breasts. She shivered, and he knew posing like this was scary for her, never done or even contemplated for the first twenty-five years and eight months of her life. But it was also exciting, and when he reached out for her she pulled him to his feet and wrapped herself around him, allowing the vulnerable feeling of her nakedness and him fully-clothed to possess her. Their lips finally parted, and he pushed her from him so he could again see all of her. She smiled hesitantly and self-consciously dipped her chin toward her shoulder with a barely visible shaking of her head. He kissed her neck, cupping her breasts in his tanned hands. Then, with a sudden movement, scooped her into his arms and brought her to the bed. She was as aroused as was he, but where another might have pulled at his clothes to hurry things along, she lay back on the pillow and waited, an impish smile at his fumbling, pulling jockey shorts down over a suddenly awkward profile.
Intimate touching was still frightening; her breath came in tiny pants at the feel of his hardness on her thigh and she trembled as his hands ran over her body. By the time the closing scene began she was shaking all over. Part ecstasy and part the terrifying sensation of being run on a sword, forced a sound between a scream and a gasp from her lips.
Swallow Hill Road was oblivious to the climax of nature’s oldest drama.
Chapter 13
It was just after eight when Hudson found Wally Carver at his door.
“You’re out early.”
“I’m a senile old fool, Hudson.”
“Too far gone to hold a coffee cup?”
Carver plopped himself at the kitchen table without taking off his heavy overcoat. “I do not know what possessed me. Black.”
Hudson poured him coffee and himself tea and sat down opposite Carver. He waited.
“Do you remember a man named Preston Sturgis?”
“Three or four years ago. You got him through bankruptcy.”
“He tried to get his money back overnight. In drugs, I don’t know how far in. Showed up at my door a couple of weeks ago wanting me to hide him.”
“Go on.”
“Well, I did.”
“Where?”
“In the cabin across the river. I’ve had it fixed up from last year. Heat, electricity and running water. Still no palace, but it can get through winter.”
“So…?”
“He’s gone. Went down to bring him some food this morning. Yes, I’ve been supplying him. Place was empty. No car. I’d told him if he wanted my help not to leave. I didn’t want him wandering around town getting shot at.”
“Would it come to that?”
“They blew up his apartment on Beacon Street.”
Hudson said gently, “Let’s go take a look.”
The cabin had to be approached by a quarter mile driveway from Route 302. The snow covered woods road wound around and under trees. If there hadn’t been tire marks, it would have taken more than casual observation to tell what was road and what was just another space between hemlocks.
“No car.”
The door was unlocked, and there was no one in the cabin. Outside, boot holes in the snow led down to the Saco River. There were several sets, as though one person had made the trip several times, or a number once. The stream was edged with ice, but showed no signs anyone had tried to cross it, or walk along its bank.