And for some reason, as she lay listening to his breathing and the beating of her own heart, the tears wouldn’t stop. His eyes fluttered open and he touched her cheek with his thumb. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“You don’t understand,” she said, trying to sift through the emotions spilling out of her. “That’s not… I’m not sad. Just…relieved, in a way. Not just about my mother, but…about us.” All right, she thought. Might as well go for broke. “I’ve wanted this for so long. Didn’t you know?”
He offered a half smile, his expression soft in the dim light from the stove in the other room. “That’s why I tried so damn hard to stay away. What we did—what happened with Joey—how could we ever be happy together after that?”
“How? Like this.” She gently touched his face, the faint beard stubble and the wave of blond hair on his brow. She kissed the crescent-shaped scar on his cheekbone. “Remember the day this happened?”
“The day we met. I got in a fight over you.” He studied her for a long time, but it didn’t make her self-conscious. She liked having him look at her, because when he did, he couldn’t hide the lust and affection in his eyes.
“I never needed you to protect me. I didn’t then, and I don’t now. I just need you…” To love me. She couldn’t quite bring herself to say it.
“Okay,” he said, as though she’d spoken it aloud.
There was a world of meaning in that one word, and she laughed and moved into his arms as he laid her back on the bed. “It’s going to be another snow day,” he said.
“Perfect,” she answered.
* * *
Much later in the morning, the wood for the stove ran low and Rourke went out to get more. There were several cords stacked next to the main lodge a couple of hundred yards away. He put on his boots and snowshoes and a pair of work gloves and a Mackinac jacket. “I’ll be right back,” he said.
She squinted out at the landscape, a wilderness of white mounds and the endless flat expanse of the lake. The woods and other buildings were shadowy blurs. “Don’t get lost,” she warned him.
He laughed and kissed her. “After last night? Are you kidding?”
She shut the door behind him and leaned against it. Dragging an old toboggan behind him, he headed out, Rufus bounding at his side. She watched until his figure faded and gradually disappeared. She felt a happiness so intense, it stole her breath. Finally. She knew loving him for the rest of her life wasn’t necessarily going to be easy, but it was exactly what she wanted. And that made all the difference. Her discontent and restlessness had never been caused by her ties to the bakery and to Avalon. Everything made sense now that she was with Rourke.
She shivered and went to check the stove. The last log had burned to embers and it was getting cold in here. She went to the bedroom to put on a few more layers—some thick socks and a pair of sweatpants, a sweater and her warm slippers. She paused to glance in the mirror. Her hair was wildly mussed, her lips mysteriously full and…was that a stubble burn along her jawline? Even in her disheveled state, she had never looked more supremely happy than she was in this moment. Smiling, she picked up Rourke’s shirt. The smell of it made her dizzy with wanting him again. On impulse she pulled the soft cotton shirt over her head. She touched his other things—the wool gabardine of his jacket, the leather of his sidearm, now securely snapped into its holster.
The wind picked up, howling with an almost-human voice across the lake and through the trees. Jenny wished Rourke would hurry. He’d been gone maybe fifteen minutes, and she already missed him.
* * *
Happiness was such a simple thing, Rourke thought, leaning into the wind as he dragged the toboggan to the woodshed. Why hadn’t he figured it out until now? It consisted merely of knowing where you belong in the world, and whom you belong with. The irony was, he’d known it from the first moment he’d seen her, a kid in pigtails and unlaced sneakers. But knowing it and achieving it turned out to be two different things.
Achieving it meant facing up to some hard truths, like the fact that he could never change the past, and serving a self-imposed penance did nothing but feed his own bitter disappointment. He finally got it. The way to come to terms with Joey’s death wasn’t to run from happiness but to run toward it. He used to avoid Jenny because he didn’t think he deserved Joey’s happy ending. After last night, he realized there was a different way to see it. Being happy with Jenny wouldn’t change what had happened, but at least it was a way to face a future that was suddenly bright with possibility. He needed to marry her. The thought was simply there, fully formed; it wasn’t a matter for debate. It was the simple truth he’d been hiding from himself for too long. He wondered if she’d think it was sudden, or if she would understand. He didn’t want to scare her, though.
The old wood was stacked under the eaves of a utility shed a hundred yards from the lodge. The huge rounds were knit together with cobwebs and had not been split. Great, he thought. He hoped there was a maul or ax in the shed.
Rufus wanted to play. The snow made him frisky and he leaped and bounded, barking an invitation. Rourke laughed and chased him around for a while, working up a sweat despite the weather.
Later, he found a maul and got to work on the wood. He wasn’t sure how much they would need, but if it turned out he and
