“Why haven’t you been answering the phone? I’ve been worried sick.”
“The lines were down because of the storm.”
“That’s what the phone company said, but they claimed the problem was fixed last night.”
It couldn’t have been, Dana thought. She had checked an hour ago and there hadn’t been any dial tone.
“I’ve been trying the number at the cabin all day,” Adelle continued. “When you didn’t answer, I started leaving messages on the lodge number.”
Dana glanced at the answering machine behind the desk. Sure enough, the red light indicating recorded messages was blinking furiously. Why would the phone in the cabin still be out if the one here was working? They both branched from the same line, didn’t they? “Adelle, relax,” she said. “It was probably just some glitch at the switching station or something like that. You know how things are up north.”
“Yes, I do. Which is why I wish you’d come back to the city.”
“I will come back. As soon as I finish my book.”
“What if the power had gone off? What if you had run out of food?”
“There’s a back-up generator for the power, and there’s enough food in the lodge freezers to keep me going through ten books.”
Adelle paused, as if searching for something else to focus her worry on. “You sound out of breath. What’s wrong?”
“I’ve been shoveling snow.” Dana sighed and transferred the phone to her other ear as she slipped her arms out of her coat. She grasped the front of her sweater and flapped it away from her body to let in some cooling air. “It’s wonderful exercise.”
“That’s what health clubs are for.” Adelle huffed. “And doesn’t that skinflint Derek have a snowblower?”
“Yes, he does, but it broke down last week. I really don’t mind, Adelle. It helps take my mind off…things.”
“Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Positive. I’m sorry you were so alarmed. Is everything okay with you?”
“Sure, everything’s fine.”
“Did you get much snow down there?”
“I’ll say! We got so much the mayor declared a state of emergency and called in the army.”
“You’re kidding!”
“Haven’t you seen the news?”
“I don’t have a TV in the cabin, remember? And the radios there decided to break down yesterday.”
“Then you’ll have to catch a newscast, now that you’re at the lodge. The blizzard shattered all the snowfall records from here to Montreal.”
Dana toed off her boots and hitched herself up to sit on the desk. “Wow. If it was that bad in the city, no wonder you were so worried about me.”
“You’re not the only one in the family with an imagination. Remember those stories grandpa used to tell us about trappers in the old days?”
“Vividly.”
“When you didn’t answer your phone today, I was picturing you lost out in the snow somewhere and slowly freezing into a lump of ice.”
“Mmm.”
“Don’t say I’m overreacting. It could happen.”
“Oh, I know. It almost did.”
“Dana! You said—”
“Not to me, Adelle. Two nights ago I found a man on my doorstep. He was practically frozen.”
“What!”
Briefly Dana told her sister about John Becker.
“Oh…my…God,” Adelle said.
“He’s okay now. He left first thing this morning.”
“Oh…my…God! I can’t believe you took a complete stranger into your home. Haven’t you heard the news?”
“No. I told you, the radios—”
“Two days ago there was a prison break at the Kingston Penitentiary,” Adelle said, her voice rising again. “Three of the convicts are still at large.”
“Kingston’s a long way from here. And those guys would head for the city or the border. They’d be crazy to head for the bush, especially in the winter.”
“So? They might be crazy. What if this John Becker was one of those escaped prisoners?”
It was hard for Dana to believe that her thoughts had once gone along those same lines. Was it only yesterday that her visitor had made her nervous, with his height and his desperado aura?
But that was before she had seen the naked love in his eyes as he’d talked about his child. “That’s impossible,” she said. “John’s no criminal. Morty adored him.”
“As if a cat can judge someone’s character.”
“Morty hated Hank,” she pointed out.
“Hank was an idiot. But, Dana, this isn’t funny. That man could have been anyone.”
“Well, he wasn’t. He’s a salesman whose car went off the road in the storm when he was trying to get home to his daughter. And he’s one of the sweetest, gentlest men I’ve ever met,” she said firmly.
Dana wasn’t sure whether she had placated her sister by the time Adelle got off the phone. One thing was for certain. If she’d shoveled her way to the lodge in order to get her mind off John, it hadn’t worked.
She went to the floor-to-ceiling window that dominated the south wall of the lounge. From this vantage point, she could see the entire resort complex, from the caretaker’s cabin to the boathouse that was nestled by the shore. It all looked so peaceful now. The frozen lake glittered like powdered diamonds in an unbroken expanse of white. Melting snow winked golden from the tips of the pine boughs. It was hard to believe a vicious storm had raged through here less than twenty-four hours ago.
As a matter of fact, it was hard to believe anything that had happened. Fresh drifts had obliterated any tracks John may have made on his way to the cabin, and the snowplow had cleared away the tracks he had made when he had left. Had she really saved a man from freezing to death? Had he been as drop-dead gorgeous as she remembered, or had the whole incident been twisted by her lonely imagination?
“Get a grip,” she muttered to herself. Of course it had happened. Even her imagination couldn’t have conjured up someone like John Becker. Instead of wondering about him, why didn’t she just give him a call and check to make sure he had reached home safely? That would be the decent thing to do, wouldn’t it? And it would prove her sister’s ridiculous suspicions were wrong. Maybe then she would be able to get
