Although Alex still felt panicked, she was panicked now with a purpose. What if her cousins wanted nothing to do with her, since she’d more or less cut ties? They’d asked her out to visit long ago, and she’d turned them down. The only contact she’d kept up was to send a Christmas card. Should she just blurt out the mess she was in, or only ask if she could visit, then make her plea once she arrived?
She’d look for the lodge’s website. If worse came to worst, she could just make a reservation there for a few days and try to mend—or build—bridges, before finding somewhere to stay longer term. With her parents in the UK, Suze and Meg were the closest, though distant, family she had.
The good news was that Alaska was far away, and she had never shared anything about the twins with Lyle. He didn’t know about her lost twin, either. The bad news was she’d need to drive there to take Spenser, some possessions and her products to sell, so she’d have to get a sturdy vehicle a lot larger than her little sports car.
But first things first.
Alex sobbed when she found the website for the Falls Lake Lodge online with its stunning pictures of rustic accommodations. The exterior and interior wooden walls of the lodge were just as she remembered, though the furnishings were updated and improved. Still over the big fireplace in the common room was that moose head with a massive rack of antlers staring down on the seating and tables. The three of them used to joke that the moose was watching them wherever they walked in that large common room.
Oh, and a picture of a typical bedroom looked so cozy with a patchwork quilt for a bedspread and one on the wall like a piece of art. Next to it hung a lovely painting of distant, snowcapped mountains with a waterfall feeding a lake beneath—just like Falls Lake itself. She wondered if Suze had painted that. Even as a child, she was talented. The art on the Christmas card she received from them each year was always a photo of an original signed by her. Alex also studied the big bedroom window with its view of rain forest trees. How she wished she could spirit herself and Spenser away to the lodge right now.
But what if they didn’t allow guests to bring pets?
Through her tears, she studied again the photo of the smiling Meg and Suze near the “Click here for reservations” button. Other than different hairstyles, they greatly resembled each other. They were both in their early thirties, so would they even go by those childhood names anymore? They’d signed their Christmas card with their full first names. Megan’s last name wasn’t even Collister anymore but Metzler. She had married young and lost her husband when the bush plane he was piloting went down not far from Falls Lake. Alex had sent a condolence card and letter when she learned about it months late. Meg had a son, Charles, called Chip, who must be around five or six now.
Several years ago, after inheriting their maternal grandmother’s lodge, the twins had decided to run it together, like a B and B, though they didn’t want to change the name. Maybe she could help them at the lodge, even if it was to clean rooms or serve food. Thank heavens it was late July, so the big winter snows they’d sent pictures of in some of their holiday greetings would not set in for a while.
She noticed, at the very bottom of the website, a message: Our thanks to Quinn Mantell for his help in bringing the outside world to Falls Lake. Be sure to watch Tracker Q-Man on the Wilds TV Cable Network, filmed in our amazing area of Alaska.
And next to that was a picture of a smiling, handsome, dark-haired man with a trimmed beard in black jeans and plaid flannel shirt—dress Stewart pattern, no less—framed by a fir tree with a waterfall and the mountains behind him. Funny, but looking at Quinn Mantell, she could almost smell sharp pine and fresh, crisp air.
Hands trembling, she called the phone number for reservations.
“Falls Lake Lodge,” came a clear female voice. “We are forty miles north of Anchorage so we can offer city life and the wonderful wilderness. The town of Falls Lake recently put in cell phone towers, so we have the amenities of the modern world in the middle of the scenic, eternal wilds. How can I help you?”
Alex panicked again. Was that a recording? If not, she couldn’t even place the voice. Megan’s? Suzanne’s? Someone who worked for them?
Alex knew she didn’t sound like herself. She was nasal, shaky, as she said, “Hello. This is Alexandra Collister in Illinois and—”
A gasp. A shout. “Suze, it’s Cousin Alex! Suze, come here! How the heck are you, girl? Are you all right? Any big news?”
Alex couldn’t help it, but she burst into tears and barely managed to get out, “It is so, so good to hear your voice. Yes, some big news, kind of bad news, but...”
“You can tell us, hon! Blood is thicker than water, remember! Here, Suze, say hi to our long-lost Alex,” Meg said, and evidently thrust the phone at her sister.
“This is Suze. Are you okay? Long time no hear and see! We can’t get away, but you want to come for a visit? What’s happening?”
The sisters’ voices were so similar she couldn’t tell them apart. Would Allie’s voice have sounded like her own? Alex managed to summon her self-control and found her courage to tell them the truth and ask for their advice. They listened with very few questions for at least ten minutes while she stumbled through an explanation.
Finally, when she paused, Meg—she thought it was Meg—said, “You just come here to us where that idiot won’t find you. You want to hide out, that’s fine, but in God’s country here, you can build a new life. We have. Hey, listen. Here’s a good sign. The woman who oversaw our combo gift and antique shop just left, and if you want to run that for us, that will cover your room and board. You could sell those beauty products there, too. Thanks to a well-connected neighbor who got this area two cell towers, you could still sell online. Can’t promise this climate will let you grow every herb you’d need, but—”
As if they were a phone tag team, Suze cut in, “But they do greenhouse growing here year round so that may work for more tender plants.”
The two of them even finished each other’s thoughts! It made Alex realize how much she’d missed having close girlfriends. She’d spent too much time at her job, on creating and selling her products—and on Lyle.
“You should see the cabbages, big as bushel baskets!” Suze went on. “You just get here soon as you can. We’ll save a room and can’t wait to see you. Call or text us to keep us posted. You driving a truck? Best to have one if you stay for a while, and we hope you will.”
“No truck yet, but I need more than my little car to bring some things. So you won’t mind if I bring my Scottie dog?”
“We have two dogs, so the more, the merrier. You’ll save us on vet bills.”
“I’m not a vet, but I know a lot about the basics.”
“You and your Scottie will have to learn the woods can be dangerous,” Meg warned. “But I think you’ll find it a lot safer here than there with that wolf you’re smart to get rid of—for good.”
As her tears flowed, Alex thanked them again. Surely she was making good choices, even if hasty ones. As soon as she could manage—tomorrow—she was secretly, suddenly, Alaska bound.
Alex forced herself to make even more hard, quick decisions. Grateful Lyle had a big surgery schedule today, she withdrew her meager savings and closed her checking account the moment her bank opened on Saturday morning. She drove to another suburb and traded in her sports car for a used truck with a covered-back truck bed. She had never driven even a small truck before, but it seemed easy enough. At her local DMV, she had her license plate legally switched to her new vehicle.
At the last minute, she remembered to change her address and stopped in at the post office just before it closed at noon.
She parked the truck nearly a block away from her town house, hoping Lyle did not take a break from his surgery schedule to check on her in person. Evidently, since he hadn’t called, Lyle was blessedly giving her the isolated, silent treatment, either hoping she’d crawl back to him or because he was planning something. Maybe her earlier threats to call the police and of a restraining order had made him back off, but she sensed that would not last long.
She gave Charlene all the food and supplies that would not store and four hundred dollars. Two hundred of that was to clear out her apartment and put her furniture and the rest of her boxed possessions in a nearby self-storage facility—No Worry Storage, ha! She paid the facility for six months and did not give them a forwarding address.
The other two hundred dollars were for Charlene’s help, though the kindly woman argued about that. Alex explained that she could not tell her where she was going but would let her know when she was safely out of town and when she finally arrived at her destination, which would take about a week.
Alex hated not saying goodbye to other friends, but it would just lead to questions that might actually endanger them and her later. She had no idea if she could come back to live here again, or if she would want to. How had she ever let a man ruin her life? Here she was, ready to go to a place so foreign, so vast, so unknown.
But what she did know was that she had to get away from Lyle. It had been like some horror movie to see him morph into a monster, one she should have seen beneath the charm and gifts and protective veneer.
Last, she called her parents and told them what she had done and where she was going.
“I’m glad you’ll be with family, even if it’s not us,” her mother admitted. “But it’s so far, honey! You keep in touch and drive carefully. And we still want you to come over here, maybe in the autumn.”
“I’m going to have to put down roots there, Mom, at least temporary ones. I’m going to make the best of it.”
Her father’s voice came in. “Of course you will, because you’re the best.”
“And,” her mother put in, so they must have been sharing the phone, “I don’t want this sad, scary situation with Lyle to turn you off men. You know what I mean. Do not let that earlier loss and then this one keep you from being you, lovely inside and out.”
“I appreciate that, and I know you two aren’t a bit biased,” she tried to kid them. She had to keep this a little light or she was going to self-destruct with fear and sorrow. And her mother hadn’t mentioned the loss of Allie, even indirectly, for years until now.
She promised again she’d be careful and told them she’d call briefly each night she was on the road and leave them a message. And yes, she would drive only in the daylight and use her AAA membership for car repair service if she broke down.
She did break down when she said goodbye to them. Suddenly, despite the hovering, nervous Spenser, she felt so very, very alone. Wasn’t one nickname for Alaska “the Great Alone”? Or was it “the Last Frontier,” because that would fit the mess she’d made of her life here, too—and the promise of going there to start over.
She checked her Natural Beauty website to see if any new orders had come in, because she would have to mail them from the stock she was taking to Alaska, so mailing rates would go up except for the west coast. But she gasped at what she saw.
Her contact page and order form had been repeatedly spammed by an email address she recognized, at least thirty, maybe forty times. Shaking, she opened one. I want to order my fiancée back NOW! Be here Sunday morning!
She opened one more: the same, awful, threatening message. She printed this one out so she’d have evidence of harassment if something happened to her laptop. At least, if he was threatening her that she had to come to him, maybe he wasn’t coming here anymore. But what if he got a hacker to harm her website further or spammed her products with bad reviews, ruining her business that she cared so much for?
Then she saw he’d been on the products page, too. Just like this stuff, one review read, you’re bought and paid for. And he had given a one-star rating to her lilac and sunflower body cream, which she loved and he knew it. At least she saw he hadn’t done that with any other products yet. He’d never really appreciated how serious she was about her creations. He might even have ordered her to stop making them once they were married. Why hadn’t she seen that danger, too?
She deleted what she could, wishing she could delete the past two years of her life—delete him and how she’d fallen for him, how she’d thought she loved him.
She hoped Lyle had finished taking his fury out on her website. She would have to find a way to keep him off it, but she wasn’t sure how. At least he could not track her actual location, only her virtual one.
But her stomach was so upset to be attacked that way, too, that she went to the bathroom again, sitting on the toilet, holding her sides, rocking a bit, then still staying there after she flushed. Spenser pushed open the door and sat with his head cocked as if waiting for an explanation. She got up and washed her hands and petted him.
“My dear little dog, we are off on a great adventure tomorrow,” she said. As she had twice before today, she braced her hands on the sink to steady herself and looked into the mirror.
Her shoulder-length hair needed washing. How long would it be before she had the money or the place to get these blond highlights streaked again? Before she found the perfect shade of blue mascara to highlight her eyes or went to an exercise class or out to a fancy restaurant? Falls Lake was not even in Anchorage, which was a big city but out in the wilderness. She supposed just like Naperville was distant from Chicago, but what a difference in terrain!
Was she crazy? A coward to flee?
No, this had to be done, and it took courage. Power and bravery, which she supposed Lyle would not have expected or respected from her. She had hardly seen it in herself.
Alex nodded decisively at the mirror, and her dearest, lifelong ally, her twin sister, Allie, nodded back.