The Cabin (The Cabin Novellas (Book One)) by Natalie Stark Read Free Book Online Page A

plucked m y mobile from my jeans pocket but wasn’t too surprised to find there wasn’t any signal. I shoved it back into my pocket.
    “Nathan!” I screamed again.
    Nothing, just the raging wind.
    I staggered forward, each step now tentative, not knowing how close I was to the sheer drop on the other side of the path. I turned in the direction I sensed I should be heading and to my relief, I saw a figure cutting their way through the fog towards me.
    “Nathan!” I yelled, waving my hands above my head and starting to cry. “Nathan, I’m over here.”
    The figure came out of the fog, stopping right in front of me.
    “Mia,” he said.
    I drew a sharp breath, now believing I had actually seen a ghost. “What are you doing here?” I gasped, stumbling back towards the cliff’s edge.

Eight
     
    He gripped my hand and pulled me back from the edge. To feel his hand again after so long sent gooseflesh up my arm. I peered through the fog at him. Could it really be Quinn? The fog coiled and shifted around us like smoke. He looked at me, his clear blue eyes as sharp and as keen as I remembered them to be. How could I ever have forgotten them? He smiled tenderly at me with those full lips which covered the lower half of his strong face. His dark brown hair was wet with rain.
    Gasping at the very sight of him standing before me like an apparition, I pulled my hand from his. He didn’t resist and let my hand fall away.
    “What are you doing here?” I said, my heart leaping into my throat.
    “I recognised your voice,” he explained over the sound of the wind and lashing rain. “How could I have ever forgotten it?”
    My mind scrambled as I tried to make sense of what he had told me. Then, looking at him, I said, “That was you? It was you in that confessional box?”
    “Yes,” he said with a slow nod of his head.
    “But how...why?” I whispered.
    “They sent me to this godforsaken place after we were discovered that night...” he started.
    “No...Stop!” I said, raising my hand to him. “I don’t want to think about that. I’ve been trying to forget what happened between us for the last few years, and I don’t want to be reminded of...”
    “Is that why you wanted to make your confession?” Quinn said, staring at me through the fog and rain. “Or should I say, that’s why you couldn’t make your confession. You haven’t been able to forget, and neither have I.”
    “I’ve moved on, Quinn,” I breathed. “I’ve started a new life...”
    “You’ve got married and you’ve rented the honeymoon cabin...” he started.
    “How do you know about that?” I said, feeling slightly unnerved he knew so much about my new life. Had he somehow been watching me from afar since he left... ran away ?
    Quinn reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the brochure I had lost. “You dropped it as you fled my church,” he said, staring at me. “Perhaps you dropped it deliberately?”
    “Give me a break,” I said, snatching it from him. “I didn’t know you were the priest waiting to hear my confession.”
    “Look, we can’t talk out here,” he said, reaching for my hand again.
    I jerked my hand from his reach. “I’m not going anywhere without Nathan...without my husband ,” I insisted, glaring at him.
    “I saw him heading in the direction of the cabin,” Quinn said. “I can take you there. I’ve been living out here long enough to know this place like the back of my hand – fog or no fog.”
    “I’m not going anywhere with you,” I said angrily, still unable to comprehend how the very man who I had once loved was now standing on the side of a mountain with me on my honeymoon. Was it fate? Coincidence? Bad luck? I didn’t believe in any of those things. The hand of God, then? I doubted that very much.
    “You can’t stand out here all night and you won’t find the cabin without my help,” he said, offering his hand to me again.
    Even after all this time, I felt a sudden urge to take his hand