Page 16 of A Killing Cold

“God, you’re beautiful,” he says. He never tires of this, the marveling at me. But I can’t stand it—the way he looks at me so intently. Like he is analyzing every freckle, every pore. Like he will see beneath the skin, assess my sinews, my veins, down to the bone. To the marrow.

So when he nods toward the bedroom, I slide off his lap instead, kneel on the warm hardwood. He’s already hard when I undo the belt of his robe, take him in my mouth. His hand grips the back of my head, my nails dig into his thigh, and as he lets out a soft moan, zips of pleasure trace electric paths through every part of me.

After we’re done, he sits with his head tipped back, that half-dazed smile curling at the corners of his mouth. I brush my fingertips lightly over his eyelids, drag them down his cheeks, and then I’m slipping away before he can open his eyes again.

I love Connor Dalton. I need Connor Dalton.

And so, I can never let him look too closely.

We spend the morning lazing in the cabin, but around noon, Alexis comes to collect us. “Mom’s here,” she says without preamble. Her eyes flick to me, half-apologetic. “And it’s pie day.”

“Pie day?” I echo.

“Remember what I said about the baking?” Connor asks.

Right. An afternoon with “the women,” performing the rituals of domesticity—despite the fact that the Daltons clearly outsource these anytime they threaten to acquire the whiff of actual work. The Scotts worshipped work, glorified labor and making oneself useful.Idleness, ignorance, softness, indulgence, I think anytime I am sitting on the couch in the evening with a glass of wine and a book.

“We always do pie day first,” Alexis says as we set out from the cabin. She has this way of talking like everything she says is about to be followed up with a punch line that never comes, like we’re all about to break into laughter. She keeps swinging around backward to look at us as she walks. I have no idea how she hasn’t fallen. “Grandma Louise’sfamousrecipe. We all have a recipe that’s ‘ours,’ you know? You get to be in charge, order everyone around. I remember being so fucking excited to be the head baker for the first time when I was thirteen. Lemon bars—that’s my recipe. You’ll have to pick one. But Grandma Louise decides if it’ll actually go in the rotation. You might have to try a few times. I made seven variations before she decided it was ‘minimally acceptable.’”

“Cool it, Lex. You’re going to scare her off,” Connor says.

She makes a face—more teenager than thirty-something executive. That’s the difference I saw in Connor this morning. He’s differenthere. There’s a blur at his edges, like twenty-seven years’ worth of past selves, twice-a-year snapshots, are layered over him.

Places are like that, I’ve heard. Childhood homes. Old haunts. Theyouthat was left behind settling into your body like a ghost. It’s not an experience I’ve ever had; my life has been a straight line onward, never doubling back.

We skirt the pond—the ice has cinched inward, tightening the circle of open water. A new car sits next to Connor’s, and fresh footprints trammel the snow around it. Alexis bounds up the steps of the lodge. Unlike last night, we enter without knocking, stomping snow from our boots before ditching them at the threshold.

The doors at the other end of the foyer open. A woman steps through, instantly recognizable as Alexis’s mother in the same way Connor is such a carbon copy of his father—the same straight dark hair, sharp nose, piercing eyes. This has to be Rose Dalton.

“Connor,” she says warmly. There are exclamations—embraces—her hand on his head like she’s checking if he’s grown—a flurry of questions about the drive, the weather, when she got in. I hang back, not part of it.

Until Connor half turns, his hand extended to beckon me in. “And this is—”

“Theo,” his mother says. I step forward, into the protective half circle of Connor’s arm, which he sets around my shoulders. She takes my hand in both of hers. She smiles, but it isn’t the smile she gave to her son. It compresses her lips, draws tight lines at the corners of her eyes.

“It’s so good to meet you,” I say. “Connor’s told me so much about you.”So so so, I think, cringing, and put the word on time-out.

“I’ve heard a lot about you as well,” she says, a veneer of warmth over a decidedly neutral tone. “I am very much looking forward to getting to know you myself.”

“Me too,” I say, and with that she drops my hands and her attention is back to Connor.

Five minutes later we’re being herded into the kitchen, where Louise Dalton is already standing next to a line of artfully arranged ingredients—tubs of flour and sugar and shortening, green and red apples, cinnamon and whole nutmeg. The last time I did any serious baking, I scooped flour and sugar from yellow and orange plastic tubs older than I was. Every ingredient here is in a glass jar with a neat hand-printed cursive label and a polished wooden lid. The eggs nestle in a wicker basket.

Paloma is absent—watching Sebastian again, Alexis explains breezily, though I have to wonder if that’s just an excuse. Louise sets Alexis and me the task of peeling apples. I sit on a barstool two down from Alexis and get to work, quickly skinning long strips of peel.

You get a prize if you get it all off in one piece, I remember Beth telling me once, in a rare moment of good humor that didn’t last—my fault. It always was.

Wicked girl.

Of course, then I’d used a paring knife, twisting the apple, the blade skating close to my thumb as I slid it just under the glossy skin. I’d tried and tried, getting more and more frustrated. Every time, the strip broke, until finally I had it, moving with steady intensity, the last half inch coming free in one continuous piece, and I’d looked up at Beth and asked,What do I get?And she scowled, called me greedy, and the bowl was in my hands before I knew it, the apples tumbling across the floor, bouncing, rolling in every direction, and a scream tearing out of my throat, an animal sound.

Now I twist the apple and peeler in my hands, skinning the fruit efficiently, and try not to remember the way Beth’s face contorted in disgust.

Connor’s mother is watching me with one eyebrow slightly raised, a quirk to the corner of her mouth. Alexis gets her smile from there, I think—that corner in particular, only on her it never stays tucked away.

“No need to race. We’ve got all day,” Rose says. My cheeks heat. I’m three apples ahead and the only one in a rush. Alexis, apples already abandoned, hands her mother a glass of white wine. Rose curls her hand around it, holding it to her chest.

A wineglass makes a chiming sound as it’s set on the granite countertop in front of me. I jump. Olena, the slim girl with Bambi eyes, stands at my shoulder. She murmurs something unintelligible as she hurries away.

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