The Winter Lodge (35 page)

“Tell me,” he whispered, stirring the cinnamon-scented hair by her ear. “You can tell me.”

“Not yet,” she said. “Just…let’s stay like this for a minute.”

Any inkling of hope he had of being wrong died in that moment. Under ordinary circumstances, he and Jenny tried to avoid physical contact. It was an unspoken agreement between them, enacted the moment she got engaged to Joey. She and Rourke were too volatile together and always had been. When he was around her, the surface of his skin seemed to heat and the world shrank to the number of square inches beneath her feet. And yet she was forbidden territory.

Tonight’s circumstances were far from ordinary, though, and this embrace, open and raw, was the only place on earth he wanted to be right now. They breathed as one. Touched with pain-filled tenderness, they tried to escape into each other so they didn’t have to move on to the next moment, to the moment when they would have to face what had happened.

Eventually, she pulled back. “There’s more champagne,” she said, gesturing toward the kitchen.

Rourke felt as if he was on fire as he went to the pantry, found another bottle and popped the cork. It seemed like a lousy thing to do, inappropriately celebratory, but he did it anyway. He knew this particular bottle came from the case his parents had sent to Joey to congratulate him on his engagement. A Krug Blanc de Blanc, one of only a few thousand bottles produced. Rourke drank the champagne at room temperature straight out of the bottle. Lowering it, he looked across the room at Jenny. Snow White, he thought. She was so pale, her hair and eyes so dark.

And haunted now, with a sadness so deep he could feel it in his chest.

“Your grandmother…?” Rourke asked.

“She’s already asleep. She was sound asleep when Bruno called. She doesn’t know anything about this yet, and I might as well let her have one more night before telling her.” Jenny glanced at the hallway leading to her grandmother’s room. “Let’s go upstairs to talk. I don’t want to wake Gram.”

Rourke felt as though he was made of wood as he followed her. When Jenny’s grandmother got sick, she couldn’t negotiate stairs anymore, so Jenny had turned a downstairs room into a bedroom for Helen. She’d transformed the upstairs into a private haven where she could spend her time writing and waiting for Joey. After they were married, they planned to live here. After they were married…With a shaking hand, Rourke took a long drink of champagne.

When Jenny finally started to talk, her voice sounded soft and slurred with disbelief. She recited the news as though she’d been saying it over and over in her head, memorizing the horror

—
There was a mishap with a transport helicopter, no survivors from Joey’s Ranger
battalion.

Rourke felt no shock, just a bleak and terrible sense of destiny. As she told him the few details she knew, they finished the bottle of Krug and opened another. “He and sixteen others were in a Chinook helicopter somewhere in Kosovo. It went down in a ravine, and there were no survivors. The names won’t be released officially for several days but Bruno heard right away.

He got a call by satellite phone from someone in the battalion,” she said in a broken voice. “It’s not official, there hasn’t been a formal casualty report yet. But…no survivors.”

Icy pain howled through Rourke. Joey. His best friend. His blood brother. The best guy in the world. For a few moments, Rourke couldn’t breathe.

Jenny looked up at him, her face reflecting his agony.

Rourke hated it that she had been alone when the call came in. “Joey’s dad—”

“He’s with his sisters in New York. I guess I’ll—we’ll—see him at the…oh, my God. Will there be a funeral? A memorial?”

“I don’t know. Who knows about these things?” He kept seeing images of Joey, a goofy, big-eared kid who had grown into the kind of man everybody liked. They had shared all the important moments of their lives, from lost teeth to lost kittens, sports victories and defeats, graduation and of course, summer camp. Rourke felt as if a limb had just been lopped off.

And yet, pushing through the empty whistle of grief inside him was something else.

Something…guilt and sadness, tenderness and rage.

He studied Jenny’s face for a long time. Found a Kleenex and dried her face. Then he leaned closer and held her in a way he never had before, not even when he wanted to, not even when she’d practically begged him to. His arms encircled her as though sheltering her from a bomb attack. He held her so that he felt the entire length of her body against his, could even feel her heartbeat, and still it wasn’t close enough. He touched her in a way he’d thought about a thousand times, tracing his thumb along the line of her jaw, tilting her face up to his, and he wanted to kiss her, to drown in her and forget.

Somehow, the way they both loved Joey became tangled up with the way they felt about each other, and they were kissing, and it was crazy but they were kissing and moving toward the bedroom, desperate to escape the truth but trapped there, together, with the darkness closing around them. Their clothes made a trail down the hall to her room and by the time they reached the bed, there was nothing between them, nothing at all. She tasted of champagne and tears, and she wound her arms around his neck and kept kissing him and wouldn’t let go. It was crazy, she was crazy, they were both crazy, but she wouldn’t let go.

She kept hold of him, but pulled back so her mouth was just a whisper away. “He told you to take care of me,” she said. “How are you going to do that, Rourke?”

The phone rang, piercing knife-sharp through Jenny’s alcohol-fogged sleep. She stirred, moaning as she tried to hide from the noise, but it kept flaying at her. Her head felt like a rock, impossible to lift. Finally, mercifully, the shrill ringing stopped and across the room, the answering machine clicked on and she could hear the sound of her own voice picking up. She stretched-and encountered a warm, naked body under the covers. Strong arms slid around her and tucked her close, and a sleepy sigh gusted against her neck. God, oh, God. Rourke. She had slept with Rourke. Joey was dead and she’d had drunken, mind-blowing sex with Rourke.

She was going to burn in hell.

The caller started speaking into the machine, and it sounded uncannily like Joey. Which meant she was probably still drunk, or dreaming, because Joey was dead, lost in a helicopter crash. Like a sleepwalker, she went stark naked to the dresser where the small black box of the answering machine was still recording a shockingly familiar voice. “…all a mistake,” he was saying. “My name was on the manifest, but I wasn’t on that chopper…”

Jenny laughed aloud, the tears streaming down her face as she snatched up the phone and said, “Joey.”

There was a long-distance delay, and then he said, “Babe, I’m so glad you picked up. I know it’s five in the morning there, but I had to let you know I’m okay. I just got off the phone with my dad. There was a big mix-up at the last minute. I wasn’t on that transport…”

She couldn’t speak. She could barely breathe, and she was shaking with relief as Joey explained something about a manifest made out by a staff sergeant and handed off to someone else to be recorded. While boarding the chopper, Joey was injured and sent to the infirmary.

“Like an idiot, I didn’t have my goggles on and something flew into my eye. They’re sending me to Germany for surgery.”

“Jen?” Rourke called from the bed. “Who’s on the phone?”

She whirled around to shush him, but it was too late. “What’s Rourke doing there at this hour?” Joey asked, his voice changing, sharpening.

And Jenny knew, in that instant, that Joey had probably been aware for a long time of this thing between her and Rourke. “I asked him to come over the second I heard,” she said. “He’s your best friend. Who else would I call, Joey?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he said, “I’m being discharged. The Rangers don’t have much use for a one-eyed soldier. I’m coming home.”

She was standing there, still naked and warm from Rourke’s touch, holding the phone when he crossed the bedroom toward her, his hair tousled, his eyes confused. And even now, when she looked at him, Jenny felt a surge of pure helpless lust, mingling with the shame.

And she realized then that she wasn’t going to burn in hell after all. She was already there.

Food for Thought

by Jenny Majesky

On Fire

People like to set things on fire. Admit it, when you see a flaming dessert, you’re impressed.

There’s something mesmerizing about the way the flames run like a river and then go out, leaving behind a delicious, unmistakable essence.

There’s a primal attraction to burning things. According to a Polish proverb, fire is never a gentle master. Henry James claims that what is needed is “unrestrained passion, fire for fire.”

Which is a little scary, if you ask me, but that just makes this all the more delicious.

BURNING LOVE

8 slices bread

3 cups heavy cream

1 whole egg

3 egg yolks

1-1/2 cups sugar

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 cup rum

1/2 cup raisins or currants, steeped for 15 minutes in a cup of very hot water (reserve liquid) Preheat the oven to 350°F. Dice bread into cubes. Whisk together cream, whole egg, egg yolks, 1/2 cup sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, and 1 tablespoon of rum. Combine bread cubes and cream mixture.

Drain raisins and reserve the liquid. Add raisins to bread mixture. Spoon mixture into soufflé cups. Place cups in a baking pan filled with hot water 1/2 inch deep. Bake until a knife inserted in center of custards comes out clean, about 30 minutes.

Just before serving, combine reserved liquid and remaining sugar in a small saucepan and bring to a simmer, whisking constantly, over high heat. When sugar turns amber, carefully whisk another 1/2 cup of hot water. Return to a simmer and cook until mixture becomes the consistency of syrup. Stir in remaining rum and return to heat for 15 seconds. Remove saucepan from heat and touch a match to sauce. Pour flaming caramel over puddings and serve.

Twenty-Six

D
aisy was surprised and even somewhat pleased by the way her family reacted to her news.

Almost everyone took it in stride. There was no shock and horror. More like sympathy and understanding. Oh, her brother Max thought the whole thing was gross and told her she was an idiot, but at his age—eleven—he pretty much thought all girls were idiots. And he did admit the prospect of becoming an uncle was cool.

On the day she had chosen to tell her friends, she awoke to the blinding white beauty of a snow day. Even before she checked the school district’s Web site for closure information, she knew. Snow day. What greater gift could there be? There was something so magical about a snow day—unplanned, an entire day when everything would simply stop, suspended until the roads were cleared. No school. No work. All obligations and appointments canceled, all deadlines extended. Nothing to do except laze around. Instead of squirming through civics, she could sleep in and eat breakfast while watching
Dialing for Dollars.
Instead of scrambling for an excuse about her undone physics assignment, she could finish it up at her leisure.

She was just about to burrow back under the covers when her cell phone rang. She glanced at the screen and then flipped it open. “What are you doing up? It’s a snow day.”

“Exactly,” Sonnet said, her voice musical with excitement. “Dress warmly, but wear layers. We might be working up a sweat where we’re going.”

Daisy couldn’t help smiling. Sonnet always had some kind of adventure up her sleeve.

“What’s up?” she asked.

“Bring your camera,” Sonnet said. “Meet us at the bakery in half an hour. We’re going snowshoeing. Zach’s bringing all the gear.”

It must be a sign, Daisy thought, closing her phone and pulling on insulated underwear. A snow day, and an invitation out of the blue. Maybe today was the day she was supposed to tell them. As she brushed her teeth, she turned sideways and studied her silhouette in the mirror. Her body had been taken over by an alien life force. She vacillated between bouts of nausea and insatiable cravings. Her boobs were tender and getting too big for her bra. Yet her stomach still looked flat and her jeans still fit. She tried to picture herself with a giant belly, but couldn’t imagine it, even now. Still, it was time to tell Sonnet and Zach. Today.

They took Zach’s Jeep up the road to Meerskill Falls. It was plowed now, because Jenny was living up at the lodge. They wouldn’t disturb her though, as the hiking trail led to the head of the falls. The cascade tumbled hundreds of feet down the cave-studded granite cliffs and emptied into a deep pool, quite far from the winter lodge.

Daisy got out of the car and turned her face to the sky. Then she checked to make sure her camera had plenty of power and a big memory disk. There was something about the quality of light in winter that she found both pleasing and challenging to photograph. She loved the contrasting depths, the stark images against the endless white snow, and she’d learned to adjust her light meter and filters to create beautiful pictures even when the light was dull and flat. That wasn’t the case today. The sun had emerged, carving dramatic shadows and textures in the landscape. She took a picture of a birch grove, the slender branches like long strokes of ink against the field of snow. The way the morning light fell over them made the trees glow.

The trail was covered by a season’s worth of untouched snow, and it wasn’t long before they had to put their snowshoes on. Zach had three pairs of high-tech shoes that weighed next to nothing and practically floated them over the snow. It was a funny thing about Zach. His dad, who was way older than most dads, seemed to spend money like there was no tomorrow—

although God forbid he should ever leave anything in the tip jar at the bakery. Yet, Mr. Alger had a habit of buying the best, most expensive of everything including cars and clothes and even snowshoes. He was kind of schizoid because then he would lecture Zach about not pulling enough hours at the bakery. Crazy. People ragged on teenagers for acting crazy, but maybe that was only half the story. Maybe they ought to look at the parents for a change.