The Winter Lodge Read Online Free PDF

hers. “Don’t worry about that,” he said. “I’ve got you covered.”
    She believed him, of course. She had good reason. She’d known Rourke McKnight for more than half her life. Despite their troubled history together, despite the guilt and heartache they’d once caused each other and the great rift that gaped between them, she’d always known she could count on him.
    Three
    J enny’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