Читать книгу The Winter Lodge - Сьюзен Виггс - Страница 10

Jenny’s eyes flew open as she was startled from a heavy, exhausted sleep. Her heart was pounding, her lungs starved for air and her mental state confused, to put it mildly. Her mind was filled with a grim dream about a book editor systematically feeding the pages of Jenny’s stories into the bakery’s giant spiral mixer.

She lay flat on her back with her limbs splayed, as though the bed was a raft and she a shipwreck survivor. She stared without comprehension at the ceiling and unfamiliar light fixture. Then, cautiously, she pushed herself up to a sitting position.

She was wearing a gray-and-pinstripe Yankees shirt, so large that it slipped off one shoulder. And a pair of thick cotton athletic socks, also large and floppy. And—she lifted the hem of the shirt to check—plaid men’s boxers.

She was sitting smack in the middle of Rourke McKnight’s bed. His gigantic, California king bed that was covered in shockingly luxurious sheets. She checked the tag of a pillowcase—600 thread count. Who knew? she thought. The man was a sensualist.

There was a light tap on the door, and then he came in without waiting for an invitation. He had a mug of coffee in each hand, the morning paper folded under his arm. He was wearing faded Levi’s and a tight T-shirt stenciled with NYPD. Three scruffy-looking dogs swirled around his legs.

“We made the front page,” he said, setting the coffee mugs on the bedside table. Then he opened the Avalon Troubadour. She didn’t look, not at first. She was still bewildered and trapped in the dream, wondering what had caused her to awaken so quickly. “What time is it?”

“A little after seven. I was trying to be quiet, to let you sleep.”

“I’m surprised I slept at all.”

“I’m not. Hell of a long day yesterday.”

Now, there was an understatement. She had stuck around half the day, watching the firefighters battle the flames to the very last embers. Under heavy, gray winter skies, she had seen her house transformed from a familiar two-story house into a black scar of charred wood, ruined pipes and fixtures, objects burned beyond recognition. The stone fireplace stood amid the rubble, a lone surviving monument. Someone explained to her that after the investigators determined the cause of the fire and the insurance adjustor paid a visit, a salvage company would sift through the ruins, rescuing whatever they could. Then the rubble would be removed and disposed of. She was given a packet of forms to fill out, asking her to estimate the value of the things she’d lost. She hadn’t touched the forms. Didn’t they know her greatest losses were treasures that had no dollar value?

She had simply stood there with Rourke, too overwhelmed to speak or plan anything. She added her shaky signature to some documents. In the late afternoon, Rourke declared that he was taking her home. She hadn’t even had the strength to object. He had fixed her instant chicken soup and saltine crackers, and told her to get some sleep. That, at least, she’d accomplished with ease, collapsing in a heap of exhaustion.

Now he sat down on the side of the bed, his profile illuminated by the weak morning light struggling through translucent white curtains on the window. He hadn’t shaved yet, and golden stubble softened the lines of his jaw. The T-shirt, thin and faded from years of washing, molded to the muscular structure of his chest.

The dogs flopped down in a heap on the floor. And something about this whole situation felt surreal to her. She was in Rourke’s bed. In his room. He was bringing her coffee. Reading the paper with her. What was wrong with this picture?

Ah, yes, she recalled. They hadn’t slept together.

The thought seemed petty in the aftermath of what had happened. Gram was dead and her house had burned. Sleeping with Rourke McKnight should not be a priority just now. Still, it didn’t seem quite fair that all she had accomplished in this bed was a bad dream.

“Let’s see.” She reached for the paper, scooting closer to him. This was what lovers did, sat together in bed, sipping coffee and reading the morning paper. Then she spotted the picture. It was a big one, in color, above the fold. “Oh, God. We look …”

Like a couple. She couldn’t escape the thought. The photographer had caught them in what appeared to be a tender embrace, with Rourke’s arms encircling her from behind and his mouth next to her ear as he bent to whisper something. The fire provided dramatic backlighting. You couldn’t tell from looking at the picture that she was shivering so hard her teeth rattled, and that he wasn’t murmuring sweet nothings in her ear, but explaining to her that she was suddenly homeless.

She didn’t say anything, hoping that the romance of the shot was only in her head. She sipped her coffee and scanned the article. “Faulty wiring?” she said. “How do they know it’s faulty wiring?”

“It’s just speculation. We’ll know more after the investigation.”

“And why is this coffee so damn good?” she demanded. “It’s perfect.”

“You got a problem with that?”

“I had no idea you could make coffee like this.” She took another sip, savoring it.

“I’m a man of many talents. Some people just have a gift with coffee,” he added in a fake-serious voice. “They’re known as coffee whisperers.”

“And how do you know I take mine with exactly this much cream?”

“Maybe I’ve made a study of everything about you, from the way you take your coffee, to the number of towels you use when you shower, to your favorite radio station.” He rested his elbows on his knees, cradling the mug in his hands.

“Uh-huh. Good one, McKnight.”

“I thought you’d like it.” He finished his coffee.

She drew up her knees and stretched the oversize shirt down to cover them. “It’s a shallow thing to say, but a good cup of coffee makes even the worst situation less awful.” Closing her eyes, she drank more, savoring it and trying to be in the moment. Given all that had happened, it was the only safe place to be. Here. With Rourke. Safe in his bed.

“What’s funny?” he asked.

She opened her eyes. She hadn’t realized she was laughing. “I always wondered what it would be like to spend the night in your bed.”

“So how was it?”

“Well—” she set her mug on the nightstand “—the sheets don’t match but the thread count is amazing. And they’re clean. Not just-washed clean, but clean like you change your bed more than once in a blue moon. Four pillows and a great-feeling mattress. What’s not to like?”

“Thanks.”

“I’m not sure that was a compliment,” she cautioned him.

“You like my bed, the sheets are clean, the mattress is comfortable. How is that not a compliment?”

“Because I can’t help but wonder what it says about you. Maybe it says you’re a wonderful person who values a good night’s sleep. But maybe it says you’re so accustomed to bringing women home that you pay special attention to your bed.”

“So which is it?”

“I’m not sure. I’ll have to think about it.” She lay back and closed her eyes. There were any number of things she could say, but she decided not to go there. Into the past. To a reminder neither of them could escape, of what they had once been to each other. “I wish I could just stay here for the rest of my life,” she said, forcing lightness into her tone.

“Don’t let me stop you.”

She opened her eyes and propped herself on her elbows. “I just have to ask, and this is a sincere question. Who the hell did I offend? Did I upset some cosmic balance in the universe? Is that why all this shit is happening to me?”

“Probably,” he said.

She threw a pillow at him. “You’re a big help.”

He threw it back. “You want to shower first, or me?”

“Go ahead. I’ll just sit here and finish my coffee and contemplate my fabulous life.” She glanced down at the floor. “What are the dogs’ names?”

“Rufus, Stella and Bob.” He pointed out each one. They were pets he’d rescued, he explained. “The cat’s name is Clarence.”

Rescued. Of course, she thought.

“They’re friendly,” he added.

“So am I.” She scratched Rufus’s ears. He was a thick-coated malamute mix with ice-blue eyes.

“Good to know,” Rourke said. “Help yourself to something to eat. Even if you’re not hungry, you should eat something. It’s going to be another long day.” He went across the hall, and a moment later she heard the radio, followed by the hiss and patter of running water.

Jenny glanced at the clock. Too early to call Nina. Then she remembered Nina was up in Albany at some mayors’ convention. Jenny got up and went to the window, her legs feeling heavy, as if she’d just run a marathon, which was odd, because she hadn’t done anything all day yesterday except stand around in a state of shock and watch her house burn.

Outside, the world looked remarkably unchanged. Her whole life was falling apart, yet the town of Avalon slumbered in peace. The sky was a thick, impenetrable sheet of winter white. Bare trees lined the roadway and the distant mountains wore full mantles of snow. From the window of Rourke’s house, she could see the small town coming to life, a few snow-layered vehicles venturing out after last night’s snowfall. Avalon was a place of old-fashioned, effortless charm. The brick streets and well-kept older buildings of its downtown area were clustered around a municipal park, the snow-covered lawns and playing fields edging up to the banks of the Schuyler River, which tumbled past in a soothing cascade over glistening, ice-coated rocks, leaving beards of icicles in its wake.

This was the sort of town where stressed-out people from the city dreamed of coming to decompress. Some even retired here, buying a rolling acre or two for their golden years. In summer and during the fall leaf season, the country roads, which once held farm trucks and even the occasional horse-drawn buggy, were crowded with German-import SUVs, obnoxious Hummers and midlife-crisis sports cars.

There were still untouched places, where the wilderness was just as deep as it had been hundreds of years before, forests and lakes and rivers hidden among the seemingly endless peaks of the mountains. From the top of Watch Hill—which now bore a cell-phone tower—you could imagine looking down on the forest where Natty Bumppo had hunted in Last of the Mohicans. It always struck Jenny as remarkable that they were only a few hours’ travel from New York City.

Turning away from the window, she surveyed the room. No personal items, no photographs or mementos, no evidence that he had a life or a past or, God forbid, a family. Although she’d known Rourke McKnight since they were kids, a rift spanning several years yawned between them, and she’d never been in his bedroom. He’d never invited her and even if he had, she wouldn’t have come, not under normal circumstances. She and Rourke simply weren’t like that. He was complicated. Their history was more complicated. They were not a match. Not by a long shot.

Because the fact was, Rourke McKnight was an enigma, and not just to Jenny. It was hard to see past the chiseled face and piercing eyes to the man beneath. He had many layers, though she suspected few were able to discover that. He intrigued people, that was for certain. Those who were familiar with state politics knew he was the son of Senator Drayton McKnight, who for the past thirty years had represented one of the wealthiest districts in the state. And people would ask why a man born to such a family, a man who could have any life he chose, had ended up in a tiny Catskills town, working for a living just like anyone else.

Jenny knew she had a part in his decision to settle here, though he would never admit it. She had once been engaged to his best friend, Joey Santini. There had been a time when each of them had dreamed of the charms of small-town life, of friendships that would last a lifetime and loyalties that were never breached. Had they really been that naive?

Neither Rourke nor Jenny talked about what had happened, of course. Each worked hard to buy into the assumption that it was best left in the past, undisturbed.

But of course, neither one of them had forgotten. The peculiar awkward tension, the studied avoidance of each other, were proof of that. Jenny was sure that if she lived to be a hundred, she would never forget. There were very few things she knew for certain, but one of them was this. She would always remember that night with Rourke, but she would never understand him.

The shower turned off, and a few minutes later, he came in with a towel slung low around his hips, his damp hair tumbling over his brow. He was unbelievably good-looking: six-foot-something tall, with broad shoulders and lean hips. He had the kind of face that made women forget their boyfriends’ phone numbers. Jenny’s best friend, Nina Romano, always said he was way too good-looking to be a small-town policeman. With that chiseled jaw, dimpled chin and smoldering blue eyes, and that oh-so-memorable scar high on his right cheekbone, he belonged on billboards advertising high-end liquor or the kind of cars no one could afford. Jenny felt a clutch of pure lust, so sudden and blatant that it drew a laugh from her.

“This is funny?” he asked, spreading his arms, palms out.

“Sorry,” she said, but couldn’t seem to sober up. Her situation was just so completely awful that she had to laugh in order to keep from crying.

“I’ll have you know, this bed has been known to bring women to tears,” he said.

“I could have gone all day without hearing that.” She dabbed at her eyes and then studied him closely. She’d never known a man to have so many contradictions. He looked like a Greek god but seemed to be without vanity. He came from one of the wealthiest families in the state, yet he lived like a working-class man. He pretended not to care about anyone or anything, yet he spent all his time serving the community. He found homes for stray dogs and cats. He took injured birds to the wildlife shelter. If something was wounded or weak, he was there, simple as that. He’d been doing it for years. He had lived many lives, from spoiled Upper East Side preppie to penniless student, to public servant, making choices that were unorthodox for someone of his background.

He kept so much of himself hidden. She suspected it had to do with Joey and what had happened with him, with the three of them.

“… staring at me like that?” Rourke was asking.

She realized she’d been lost in thought, and she gave herself a shake. “Sorry,” she said. “It’s been a long time since we’ve talked. I was thinking about your story.”

He frowned. “My story?”

“Everybody has one. A story. A series of events that brought you to the place you are now.”

The frown eased into a grin. “I like law and order, and I’m good with weapons,” he said. “That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.”

“Even the fact that you joke around to cover up the real story is interesting to me.”

“If that’s interesting, then you ought to be a fiction writer.”

Aha. He pretended he wasn’t interesting. “You’re a good distraction,” she said.

“How’s that?”

“My whole life just went up in smoke, and I’m thinking about you.”

That seemed to make him nervous. “What about me?”

“Well, I just wonder—”

“Don’t,” he cut her off. “Don’t wonder about me or my story.”

How can I not? she thought. It’s our story. And something about the fire had changed things between them. They’d gone from avoiding each other to … this. Whatever “this” turned out to be. Was he drawn to her by his urge to protect, or was there a deeper motivation? Could the fire be a catalyst in making them face up to matters they both avoided? Maybe—at long last—they would talk about what happened.

Not now, Jenny thought. She couldn’t do that now, on top of everything else. For the time being, it was easier to engage in meaningless flirtation, skirting the real issues. Over the years, she’d gotten very good at that.

“I’d better hit the shower,” she said. “Where are my clothes?”

“In the wash, but they’re not dry yet.”

“You washed my clothes.”

“What, you wanted them dry-cleaned?”

She didn’t say anything. She knew that everything reeked of smoke and she ought to be grateful for the favor. Still, it was mind-numbing to realize she had exactly one set of clothes in this world.

He opened the bottom bureau drawer, revealing a fat paper parcel marked with a laundry-service label. “There’s a bunch of stuff in here. You can probably find something to fit. Help yourself.”

Frowning with curiosity, she tore open the parcel and inspected the contents, pulling out each piece and holding it up. There was a baby-doll top, a push-up bra, an array of impossibly tiny women’s underwear. She also found designer jeans and cutoffs, knitted tops with plunging necklines.

She straightened up and faced him. “So what are these, prizes of war? Souvenirs of sex? Things left behind by women who have walked out on you?”

“What?” he asked, but the sheepish look on his face indicated that he knew precisely what. “I had them cleaned.”

“And that makes it all right?”

“Look, I’m not a monk.”

“Clearly not.” She held a thong at arm’s length, between her thumb and forefinger. “Would you wear something like this?”

“Now you’re getting kinky on me.”

“I’m keeping the boxers,” she stated. As she headed to the bathroom, she paused, her face just inches from his bare chest. The damp steam that came off him smelled of Ivory soap. “I’d better get going. Like you said, it’s going to be a long day.”

She stepped into the bathroom. The radio, she discovered, had been set on her favorite station. On the counter were three clean, folded towels—the exact number she preferred to use, in the proper sizes—one bath sheet and two hand towels.

Sure, it was flattering to imagine he was attracted to her. But that was all in the past; he hadn’t said a dozen words to her in years. He had barely noticed her until now. Until she was in her most vulnerable state—grieving, homeless, with nowhere to go and no one to turn to. He didn’t notice her until she needed rescuing. Interesting.

Jenny had to lie back on the bed and suck in her gut in order to get the borrowed jeans zipped over the boxer shorts. According to the designer tag in the waistband, the pants were her size. The jeans had probably belonged to someone named Bambi or Fanny, the sort of girl who enjoyed wearing things that looked as though they had been applied by paintbrush.

The bra was a surprisingly good fit, even though the push-up style was hardly her thing. She pulled on a V-neck sweatshirt, also tight, white with crimson trim and the Harvard seal smack-dab over her left boob. Veritas. It was probably as close as she’d ever get to a Harvard education.

Later she came into the kitchen, her borrowed socks flopping on the linoleum. When Rourke saw her, his face registered something she had never seen before, something that was so quickly gone, she nearly missed it—a sharp, helpless lust. Gosh, she thought, and all it took was dressing like a Victoria’s Secret model.

“Ho Ho?” he said.

“Hey, these clothes came out of your closet,” she said.

He scowled. “No, I mean Ho Ho.” He held out a package of iffy-looking chocolate snack cakes.

She shook her head. “You might be the coffee whisperer, but that—” she indicated the packaged Ho Hos “—is atrocious.”

He was dressed for work now, looking as clean-cut as an Eagle Scout, the youngest chief of police in Ulster County. Ordinarily it took years of experience and clever department politicking to reach chief’s status, but in the town of Avalon, it took no more than a willingness to accept an abnormally small salary. He treated his job seriously, though, and had earned the respect of the community.

She helped herself to a plump orange and sat at the kitchen counter. “You’re working on a Sunday?”

“I always work Sundays.”

She knew that. She just didn’t want to admit it. “What next, Chief?” she asked.

“We go to your house, meet with the fire investigator. If you’re lucky, they’ll make a determination as to the cause of the fire.”

“Lucky.” She dug her thumbnail into the navel of the orange and ripped back the peel. “How come I don’t feel so lucky?”

“Okay, poor choice of words. All I meant was, the sooner the investigation finishes up, the sooner the salvage can start.”

“Salvage. This is all so surreal.” She felt a sudden clutch of anxiety in her gut and remembered something. “You said you washed my clothes?”

“Uh-huh. I just heard the cycle end.”

“Oh, God.” She jumped up and hurried into the tiny laundry area adjacent to the kitchen and flipped open the washer.

“What’s the matter?” he asked, following her.

She yanked out the checked chef pants she’d had on. Plunging her hand into the pocket, she drew out the little brown plastic bottle. The label was still attached, but the bottle was full of cloudy water. She handed it to Rourke.

He took the bottle from her, glanced at the label. “Looks like all the pills dissolved.”

“You now have the most Zenlike, serene washing machine in Avalon.”

“I didn’t know you were on medication.”

“What, you thought I was handling Gram’s death without help?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Why would you think I could do that?”

He set the bottle on the kitchen counter. “You are now. You have been all morning. I don’t see you freaking out.”

She hesitated. Braced her hands on the edge of the counter for support. Then she realized the posture accentuated her boobs in the tight sweatshirt and folded her arms. On a scale of one to ten, the doctor had asked her the night Gram passed away, how anxious did she feel? He told her to ask herself that question before taking a pill so that popping one didn’t become a habit.

“I’m a five,” she said softly, feeling a barely discernible buzz in her circulation, a subtle tension in her muscles. No sweating, no accelerated heartbeat, no hyperventilating.

“I know those aren’t your clothes,” Rourke said, “but I’d say you’re at least a seven.”

“Ha, ha.” She helped herself to another orange. “The doctor said I’m supposed to ask myself how anxious I feel on a scale of one to ten, consciously assessing my need for medication.”

Rourke lifted one eyebrow. “So if you’re a five, does that mean we should make an emergency run to the drugstore?”

“Nope. Not unless I feel like an eight or higher. I’m not sure why I don’t feel more panicked. After everything that’s happened, it’s a wonder I’m not having a nervous breakdown.”

“What, do you want one?”

“Of course not, but it would be normal to fall apart, wouldn’t it?”

“I don’t think there’s any kind of ‘normal’ when it comes to a loss like this. You feel relatively okay now. Let’s leave it at that.”

She sensed something beneath his words. A certain wisdom or knowledge, as though maybe he had some experience in this area.

The morning air felt icy and sweet on her face as she followed him outside. He made sure the dogs had food and water and that the heater in the adjacent garage was on so they could come in out of the cold if they needed to. He closed the gate and then, with a flair of chivalry, he opened the door of the Ford Explorer, marked with a round seal depicting a waterwheel in honor of Avalon’s past as a milltown, and the words Avalon P.D.

Then he came around and got in the driver’s side and started up the car. “Seat belt,” he said. He noticed her looking at him and she wondered if he could tell she was thinking about what an enigma he was to her, the first person to distract her from her grief over Gram. He was being chivalrous because he was chief of police, she reminded herself. He would do the same for anyone.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked. “You’re looking at me funny again.”

She felt her face heat and glanced away. She was supposed to be in despair about losing her grandmother and house, yet here she was having impure thoughts about the chief of police. Please don’t let me be that girl, she thought.

“Other than these clothes,” she said, “I’m fine.”

He took a deep breath. “Okay. Let’s focus on today. On right now. We’ll deal with things one by one.”

“I’m all ears. See, I don’t know the drill. No idea what happens after the house burns down.”

“You make a new start,” he said. “That’s what.”

His words took hold of her. For the first time since Gram died, she began to see the situation in a new light. Drowning in grief, she had focused on the fact that she was all alone now. Rourke’s comment caused a paradigm shift. Alone became independent. She had never experienced that before. When her grandfather died, she’d been needed at the bakery. After her grandmother’s stroke, she’d been needed at home. Following her own path had never been an option … until now. But here was something so terrible, she wished she could hide it from herself—she was afraid of independence. She might screw up and it would be all her fault.

Although she’d stood around the previous day and watched her house burn, even feeling warmth from the embers, she felt a fresh wave of shock when she got out of the car. With all the equipment gone, there was nothing but the scaly black skeleton surrounded by a moat of trampled mud, now frozen into hard chunks and ridges.

“What happened to the garage?” she asked.

“A pumper backed into it. It’s a good thing we got your car out yesterday.”

The loss barely registered with her. It seemed minuscule in the face of everything else. She could only shake her head.

“I’m sorry,” he said, patting her shoulder a bit awkwardly. “The fire investigators will be here soon, and you can have a look around.”

She felt an unpleasant chill. “Are you thinking this fire was set deliberately?”

“This is standard. If things don’t add up for the fire investigator, he’ll call for an arson investigation. The insurance adjuster said he’d be here soon. First thing he’ll do is give you a debit card so you can get the basics.”

She nodded, though a shudder went through her. A swath of black-and-yellow tape surrounded the house at the property line.

Seeing the house was like probing a fresh wound. The place was a grotesque mutation of its former self. Against the pale morning sky, it resembled a crude charcoal drawing. The porch, once a white smile of railing across the front of the house, had blackened and blistered into nothing. A couple of tenuous beams leaned crazily out over the yard. There was no front door to speak of. All the remaining windows were shattered.

The plumbing formed a strange, Terminator-like skeleton from which everything else had burned away. In the charred ruins, she could pick out the kitchen—the heart of the house. Her grandparents had been frugal people, but they had splurged on a double-door commercial fridge and a huge double oven. More than five decades ago, Gram had created her first commercial baked goods right in that kitchen.

The upstairs was down now, for the most part, and some of the downstairs was in the basement. Jenny could see straight through to the backyard fence, now a field of snow, including a rippled blanket of white over the garden bed. Throughout Gram’s life, the garden had been her pride and joy. After her grandmother’s stroke, Jenny had worked hard to keep it the way it was, a glorious and artful profusion of flowers and vegetables.

The high-pressure stream from the firefighters’ hoses had criss-crossed the yard in clean, arching swaths. The spray had formed icicles on the back fence and gate, turning the backyard into a sculpture garden.

Heavy boots had tamped down the snow on the perimeter of the property. The entire area smelled of wet charcoal, a harsh and stinging assault on the nostrils.

“I don’t even know where to begin,” she said. “Interesting question, huh? When you lose everything you own in a fire, what’s the first thing you buy?”

“A toothbrush,” he said simply, as if the answer was obvious.

“I’ll make a note of that.”

“There’s a method. The adjuster will hook you up with a salvage company, and they’ll walk you through the process.”

Cars trolled past slowly. She could feel the sting of gawking eyes. People always stared at other people’s troubles and breathed a sigh of relief, grateful it wasn’t them.

Jenny put on protective gear and followed the fire investigator and insurance adjuster up a plank that sloped up to the threshold of the front door in place of the ruined steps. She could pick out the layout of the rooms, could see the filthy remains of familiar furniture and possessions. The whole place had been transformed into alien territory.

She was the alien. She didn’t recognize herself as she tonelessly responded to questions about her routine the night before. She answered questions until her head was about to explode. They ran through all the usual scenarios. She hadn’t fallen asleep smoking in bed. The only sin she’d committed was unintentional and inadvertent. She tried to detach herself, pretend it was someone else explaining that she’d been up late working at her computer. That she’d felt as if she were about to jump out of her skin, so she went to the bakery, knowing someone would be there on the early-morning shift. She answered their questions as truthfully as possible—no, she didn’t recall leaving any appliances on, not the coffeemaker, hair dryer, toaster oven. She had not left a burner on, hadn’t forgotten a burning candle, couldn’t even recall where she kept a supply of kitchen matches. (Under the sink, one of the investigator’s techs informed her.) Her grandmother used to take votive candles to church, lighting row upon row in front of the statue of Saint Casimir, patron of both Poland and of bachelors.

“Oh, no,” she whispered.

“Miss?” the fire investigator prodded her.

“I did it,” she said. “The fire’s my fault. My grandmother had a tin box filled with things from Poland—letters, recipes, articles she’d clipped. The night of the fire, I was … I couldn’t sleep so I was doing some research for my column. I got it out, and—oh, God.” She stopped, feeling sick with guilt.

“And what?” he prompted.

“I used a flashlight that night. Its batteries were dead so I took the ones out of the smoke detector in the kitchen and forgot to put them back. I disabled the smoke alarm.”

Rourke seemed unconcerned. “You wouldn’t be the first to do that.”

“But that means the fire was my fault.”

“A smoke alarm only works when there’s someone to hear it,” Rourke pointed out. “Even if it had been wailing all night, the house would have burned. You weren’t present to hear the alarm, so it didn’t matter.”

Oh, she wanted him to be right. She wanted not to be responsible for destroying the house. “I’ve heard that alarm go off,” she said. “It’s loud enough to wake the neighbors, if it’s working.”

“It’s not your fault, Jen.”

She thought of the tin box filled with irreplaceable documents and writings on onionskin paper. Gone now, forever. She felt as though she’d lost her grandmother all over again. Trying to hold herself together, she studied the fireplace, picturing the Christmases they’d shared in this house. She hadn’t used the fireplace since before her grandmother had died.

Gram used to get so cold, she claimed only a cheery fire in the hearth could warm her. “I used to wrap her up like a ko-lache,” Jenny said, thinking aloud about how she and Gram had giggled as Jenny tucked layer after layer of crocheted afghan around the frail little body. “But she just kept shivering and I couldn’t get her to stop.” Then her face was tucked against Rourke’s shoulder, and it hurt to pull in a breath of air, the effort scraping her lungs.

She felt an awkward pat on the back. Rourke probably hadn’t counted on finding his arms full of female despair this morning. Rumor had it he knew exactly what to do with a woman, but she suspected the rumors applied to sexy, attractive, willing women. That was the only type he ever dated, as far as she could tell. Not that she was keeping track, but it was hard to ignore. More frequently than she cared to admit, she’d spotted him taking some stacked bimbo to the train station to get the early train to the city.

“… go outside,” Rourke was saying in her ear. “We can do this another time.”

“No.” She straightened up, pulled herself together, even forced a brave smile. What sort of person was she, thinking like that under these circumstances? She gave him a gentle slug on the upper arm, which seemed to be made of solid rock. “Excellent shoulder to cry on, Chief.”

He joined her obvious attempt to lighten things up. “To protect and serve. Says so right on my badge.”

She faced the fire investigator, brushing at her cheeks. “Sorry. I guess I needed a breakdown break.”

“I understand, miss. The loss of a home is a major trauma. We advise an evaluation with a counselor as soon as possible.” He handed her a business card. “Dr. Barrett in Kingston comes highly recommended. Main thing is, don’t make any major decisions for a while. Take it slow.”

She slipped the card into her back pocket. It was amazing that she could slip anything into that pocket. The borrowed jeans were constricting her in places she didn’t know she had. The tour continued and somehow she managed to hold it together despite the enormity of her loss. In less than a month, she’d lost Gram, and now the house where she had lived every day of her life.

The official determination had yet to be made, but both the investigator and even the suspicious insurance adjuster seemed to agree that the fire had started in the crawlspace of the attic. Very likely faulty wiring had been the cause. The Sniffer had detected no accelerant and there were no obvious signs of deliberate mischief.

“What next?” she asked the adjuster, exhausted after the tour of the ruins. She wondered if this was what the aftermath of battle was like, picking over the remains of something that had been whole and alive, vibrant with houseplants, family photos on the walls, mementos of milestones and gifts exchanged for birthdays and Christmases, one-of-a-kind keepsakes like handwritten recipes and old letters.

The adjuster pointed out her computer, which lay amid a pile of ugly, scorched upholstery with batting that burst out of the melted holes like entrails.

“That your laptop?” he asked.

“Yes.” It was closed, the top blistered.

“We can have a technician check it out. The hard drive might have survived.”

Doubtful, though. He didn’t say so, but she could read it in his face. All her data was gone—WordPerfect files, financial records, photo albums, addresses, e-mail, the bakery’s QuickBooks. Her book project. She kept backups, but stored them in the drawers of a desk that was now a pile of ashes.

Her shoulders slumped at the thought of trying to reconstruct everything.

“She’s a writer,” Rourke told the investigator.

“Really?” The man looked intrigued. “You don’t say. What do you write?”

Jenny felt sheepish. She always did when people asked about her writing. Her dream was so big, so impossible, that sometimes she felt she had no right to it. She—small-town, uneducated Jenny Majesky, wanted to be a writer. It was one thing to publish a weekly recipe column, fantasizing in private about something bigger and better, yet quite another to own up to her ambitions to a stranger.

“I do a recipe column for the local paper,” she mumbled.

“Come on, Jen,” Rourke prodded. “You always said you’d write a book one day. A bestseller.”

She couldn’t believe he remembered that—or that he’d say so in front of this guy.

“I’m working on it,” she said, her cheeks flushing.

“Yeah? I’ll have to look for it in the bookstore,” the adjuster remarked.

“You’ll be looking for a long time,” she told him ruefully. “I’m not published.” She sent Rourke a burning look. Blabbermouth. What was he thinking, telling her dreams to a total stranger?

She figured it was because Rourke didn’t take her seriously. Didn’t think she had a snowball’s chance. She was a bakery owner in a small mountain town. She would probably always be a bakery owner, hunched over the bookkeeping or growing old and crusty at the counter of the store, maybe even learning to call customers “doll” and “hon.”

“What?” Rourke demanded after the adjuster went to his car. “What’s that look?”

“You didn’t have to say anything about the book.”

“Why not?” His guileless expression was infuriating. “What’s got your panties in a twist?” he asked.

The fact that they were men’s boxers was one problem, but she didn’t say anything. “Bestseller,” she muttered. “How stupid would it look if I went around telling people, ‘I’m writing a bestseller.’“

He looked genuinely mystified. “What’s wrong with that?”

“It’s totally presumptuous. I write, okay? That’s all. It’s up to the people who buy books to make something a bestseller.”

“Now you’re splitting hairs. It’s giving me a headache. You once told me that publishing a book would be a dream come true for you.”

He really didn’t get it. “It is a dream,” she told him fiercely. “It’s the dream.”

“I didn’t know it was some big secret.”

“It’s not. It just isn’t something I go around blabbing to every Tom, Dick and Harry. It’s … to me, it’s something sacred. I don’t need to broadcast it.”

“I don’t see why not.”

“Because if it doesn’t happen, I’ll look like an idiot.”

He threw back his head and guffawed.

She had a clear memory of herself fresh out of school, poised to leave town, telling people, “Next time you see my face, it’ll be on a book jacket.” And she’d truly believed that. “This is not some joke,” she said tightly.

“Let me ask you something,” he said. “When was the last time you thought someone was an idiot for going for her dream?”

“I don’t think that way.”

He smiled at her. There was such kindness in his face that she felt her resentment fading. “Jenny. Nobody thinks that way. And the more people you tell your dream to, the more real it’s going to seem to you.”

She couldn’t help smiling back. “You sound like a greeting card.”

He chuckled. “Busted. It was on a card I got for my last birthday.”

There was something about the way he was sticking so close by her. “Don’t you have somewhere you need to be?” she asked. “Some police-chiefing to do here in Sin City?” She gestured at Maple Street, still pristine under its mantle of new-fallen snow.

“I need to be right here with you,” he said simply.

“To pick up the pieces if I fall apart.”

“You’re not going to fall apart.”

“How can you be so sure?”

He grinned again. “You’ve got a bestseller to write.”

She thought about the ruined, blistered laptop. “Uh-huh. Here’s the thing, Rourke. The project I’ve been working on … it wasn’t on a hard drive. It was all there.” She indicated the blackened skeleton of the house, now a smoldering ruin. She felt physically sick when she thought of the box of her grandmother’s recipes and writings, which Jenny had so carelessly left on the kitchen table. Now those one-of-a-kind papers were lost forever, along with photographs and mementos of her grandparents’ lives. “I might as well give up,” she said.

“Nope,” said Rourke. “If you quit writing because of a fire, then it probably wasn’t something you wanted that bad in the first place.” He took a step closer to her. He smelled of shaving soap and cold air. He was careful not to touch her here in broad daylight with people swarming everywhere. Yet the probing way he regarded her felt like an intimate caress. He was probably still mortified by the picture on the front page of the paper. She was not exactly lingerie model material.

Then he did touch her, though not to pull her into his embrace. Instead, he took her by the shoulders and turned her to look at the burned-out house. “Look, the stories you need to write aren’t there,” he said. “They never were. You’ve already got them in your head. You just need to write them down, the way you’ve always done.”

She nodded, trying her best to believe him, but the effort exhausted her. Everything exhausted her. She had a pounding headache that felt as though her brain was about to explode. “You weren’t kidding,” she said to Rourke, “about this being a busy day.”

“You doing all right?” he asked her. “Still a five?”

She was surprised he remembered that. “I’m too confused to feel anxious.”

“The good news is, everyone’s breaking for lunch.”

“Thank God.”

They got in the car and he said, “Where to? The bakery? Back home to rest?”

Home, she thought ruefully. “I’m homeless, remember?”

“No, you’re not. You’re staying with me, for as long as it takes.”

“Oh, that’ll look good. The chief of police shacking up with a homeless woman.”

He grinned and started the car. “I’ve heard worse gossip than that in this town.”

“I’m calling Nina. I can stay with her.”

“She’s out of town at that mayors’ seminar, remember?”

“I’ll call Laura.”

“Her place is the size of a postage stamp.”

He was right. Laura was content in a tiny apartment by the river, and Jenny didn’t relish the thought of squeezing in there. “Then I’ll use this debit card at a B&B—”

“Hey, will you cut it out? It’s not like I’m Norman Bates. You’re staying with me, end of story.”

She shifted in her seat to stare at him, amazed by his ease with the situation.

“What?” he asked, glancing down at his crisp shirt and conservative blue tie. “Did I spill coffee on myself?”

She clicked her seat belt in place. “I was just thinking. One way or another, you’ve been rescuing me ever since we were kids.”

“Yeah? Then you’d think I’d be better at it.” He dialed the steering wheel one-handed, heading down the hill toward town. He put on a pair of G-man shades and adjusted the rearview mirror. “Either that, or your dragons are getting a lot harder to slay.”