The Winter Lodge by Susan Wiggs

to the kitchen, where Rourke was putting dinner on the table.
    “So this is the ‘serve’ part of ‘to protect and serve,’” she commented.
    “I take my mission very seriously, even if it’s just canned soup and ham on rye. Made with the best rye bread in the known world,” he added.
    “You have excellent taste in bread,” she said, recognizing a loaf of Sky River Bakery’s traditional Polish rye. “Did you know the starter for this bread is more than seventy years old?”
    He looked blank. Most people did when asked to consider bread starter.
    “It’s a live culture. You use a bit to make the dough, and cultivate more so it never runs out. My grandmother got it from her mother when she was a new bride in Poland. A traditional wedding gift is the pine box the size of a shoebox for the pottery container. Gram brought the culture in its carved pine box to America in 1945, and she kept it alive all her life.”
    Rourke slowed down his chewing. “No kidding.”
    “Like I would make this up?”
    “So some part of my sandwich dates back to Poland before World War II.” He frowned. “Wait a minute. You didn’t lose it in the fire, did you?”
    “No. We keep all the bread cultures at the bakery.”
    “Good. That’s something, at least. So if you ever lose it or run out or whatever, can you make a new starter?”
    “Sure. But it’ll never be exactly the same. Like wine from different vintage years, the aging process adds character. And it’s tradition for a mother to pass it on to her daughter in a chain that’s never broken.” She picked at her sandwich. “Although I guess my own mother took care of that.”
    “The stuff’s safe and sound at the bakery,” he said, clearly shying away from the topic of her mother. “That’s what matters.”
    “What, a rye bread starter matters more than my mother?”
    “That’s not what I said. I didn’t mean to bring up a sore subject.”
    “Believe me, she’s not a sore subject, not after all this time. I have bigger worries at the moment.”
    “You do,” he agreed. “And I’m sorry if I said anything to upset you.”
    How careful he was being with her, Jenny observed. “Listen, I’m going to be okay,” she said.
    “I never said you weren’t.”
    “That look says otherwise. The way you’ve been treating me says otherwise.”
    “What look? What way I’ve been treating you?”
    “You’re watching me like I’m a bomb about to go off. And you’re treating me with too much care.”
    “I can honestly say that’s the first time a woman has ever accused me of being too caring. So I’m supposed to…what? Apologize?”
    She wondered if she should bring up the pact of silence that had governed them for so long. At some point, they were going to have to discuss it. Not now, though. Right now, she was too tired to get into it. “Just cut it out,” she said. “It feels strange.”
    “Fine. I won’t be nice anymore. Help me with the dishes.” He got up from the table. “Better yet, you do the dishes and I’ll see what’s on ESPN.”
    “Not funny, McKnight,” she said.
    They ended up loading the dishwasher together. She noticed a small, framed photograph on the windowsill over the sink. It was one of the few personal items in the house, and she wasn’t in the least surprised to discover it was a picture of Joey Santini, Rourke’s boyhood best friend—and also the man to whom Jenny had been engaged. The shot showed Joey, a soldier in the 75th Ranger Regiment, serving in the Komar Province of Afghanistan. Against a desolate airstrip with a Chinook cargo helicopter in the background, he looked completely happy, because that was Joey—happy to be alive, no matter what. In his sand-colored BDUs, his elbow propped on a jeep, he was laughing into the camera, in love with the world, with life itself, even in the midst of the scorched earth of battle.
    “I have that same picture,” Jenny said. “Or, had. It was in the fire.”
    “I’ll make