‘It’s a place called North Mountain,’ Holly had replied. ‘I’ve rented a cabin.’
‘You’re going to spend a few weeks in a cabin?’ Belinda repeated, the way someone else might have said, ‘You’re going to spend a few weeks on the Moon?’
‘That’s right. It’s very luxurious. There’s a Jacuzzi, a huge stall shower, a big fireplace in the living room…’
Belinda snorted. ‘Try the Waldorf. It’s got all that, plus room service.’
Holly did her best to offer a cheerful little laugh.
‘I need a change of routine,’ she said. ‘ A real one, before I start on the next book. You know how hard I’ve been working this year, and there’s a whole bunch of ideas I want to try before I begin writing…’
And then she stopped, because she knew she was babbling, because she could tell from the look on Belinda’s elegant face that she knew it, too.
‘Poor darling,’ Belinda crooned. ‘You really do sound exhausted.’
‘Oh, I am,’ Holly said quickly, because it was true. She was stressed.
That was what she told herself, at first.
She’d been working hard. She had been for the past seven years—well, six years, ever since she and Nick had been divorced. Her parents had wanted her to come home and pick up her life as if nothing had happened but something had happened, and Holly wasn’t about to pretend otherwise. The last vestiges of girlhood had fallen away the day she took off her wedding ring. So she’d explained, as gently as possible, that going home just wasn’t possible. She’d refused her father’s offer of financial support the same as she’d refused Nick’s, and set out to create a life for herself.
And she’d done it.
The little column for the Green Mountain Daily had blossomed into a monthly feature for What’s Cookin’? magazine, and it led to the contract for her first cookbook. Holly had found herself on the fast track, and she loved it. She could put in six hours in the kitchen, another two at the computer, tumble into bed and wake up the next morning, eager to start all over again. At least she had, until a couple of weeks ago.
The first time she’d awakened in the middle of the night with a knot in her belly and another in her throat, she’d figured it was a sign she’d put too many capers into the Putanesca.
By the fourth time, though, she knew it wasn’t a recipe gone wrong that had awakened her.
It was her dreams.
She was dreaming of Nick, which was ridiculous. She hadn’t done that in almost six years, hadn’t seen him in almost six years, hadn’t thought about him in almost six years…
It was a long time. The realization hit at three o’clock on a cold December morning, when she awakened with Nick’s name on her lips. That wasn’t heartburn she was feeling, it was anger. And why not? She was coming up on the seventh anniversary of what had begun as a marriage and had ended as a disaster.
Holly rose from bed, wrapped herself in her robe and padded out to the living room. She clicked on the TV and surfed through a bunch of movies that had been old before she was born. She zipped past a pair of talking heads that were deep in what she’d thought was a discussion of ghosts, then zipped right back when she realized the ‘ghosts’ they were discussing weren’t spooks at all but memories, unwanted ones, of people in a person’s past.
‘So, Doctor,’ the interviewer chirruped, ‘how does one put these memories to rest?’
Holly, with one hand deep in a bowl of leftover gourmet popcorn, paused and stared at the set.
‘Yes,’ she murmured, ‘how?’
‘By facing them,’ the good doctor replied. He pointed his bearded jaw at the camera, so that his bespectacled eyes seemed to bore straight into Holly’s. ‘Seek out your ghosts. You know where they lurk. Confront them, and lay them to rest.’
Pieces of nut-and-sugar-encrusted popcorn tumbled, unnoticed, into Holly’s lap as she zapped the TV into silence.
‘North Mountain,’ she’d whispered, and the very next morning she’d phoned her travel agent. Was the cabin on the mountain still available? The answer had taken a while but eventually it had come. The cabin was there, it was for rent, and now here she was, about to face her ghosts…or to turn into one herself, if she didn’t make it up this damned mountain.
There! Off to the left, through the trees. Holly could make out the long, narrow gravel driveway. It was still passable, thanks to the sheltering overhang of branches.
The car skidded delicately but the tires held as she made the turn.
She pulled up to the garage, fumbled in the glove compartment for the automatic door opener the realtor had given her. The door slid open. Holly smiled grimly. So much for the old man’s predictions about a power outage, and thank goodness for that. Night had fallen over the mountain and for the first time it occurred to her that it wouldn’t be terribly pleasant to be marooned here without electricity.