Blaze of Winter: A Loveswept Contemporary Romance Read Online Free Page B

might be recovering from cancer but I’m not blind. Why are you so unhappy, darling?” She set her box down on the chair next to where Avery was standing. “Please tell me.”
    Avery shook her head. “It’s nothing.”
    “When your dear mother, may she rest in peace, asked me to look after you and Emma, I told her I would guard you girls with my life. Don’t make me feel like I’m failing.”
    Avery reached out a hand. “You’re not failing. Mom would have been so proud of you, beating the cancer and taking care of both of us.”
    Kate merely stared at her, tacitly encouraging her to continue. Avery sighed. She wasn’t going to get out of this, but she didn’t want to burden her aunt with the depressing details about her client’s overdose. She could still hear her boss’s parting words to her: “Avery,” Yvonne had said in a gentle tone of voice, “remember that this is not your fault. Your clients have to want to change themselves. You are just the facilitator of that change.” As far as Kate was concerned, Avery was just taking a much-needed break from her work. And that was all her aunt was going to know.
    Avery cleared her throat. “I just don’t know what I’m doing with my life anymore.”
    “Don’t you?” Kate looked at her appraisingly. “I’d say you’re taking the time you need. Isn’t that what most people do when they’re trying to figure things out? Regroup? Reassess? Find a way around the roadblock?”
    “Yes, but—”
    “And isn’t Star Harbor the perfect place to do that?” Kate took a soft cloth and wiped down the reservation desk, making the wood gleam. “So peaceful, in wintertime. Few tourists. Locals hunkering down for the season. Snow covering the Green and the houses, blanketing the woods in solitude. Beautiful, isn’t it?”
    “It is.” That she couldn’t deny.
    Kate moved to the antique barrister’s lamp and dusted the lampshade. “So stay. Get yourself back together. No one’s here, anyway. Not until Christmas week. And speaking of Christmas, we should probably get the lights up soon. You’ll get our decorations out from the cellar?”
    “Sure,” Avery agreed, “but I forgot to tell you that someone is here. Theodore Grayson booked a room.” No need to inform Kate that he was planning to stay “indefinitely.” And certainly no need to tell her aunt that he’d rattled her, both physically and mentally. “Now thatwe have a guest, we’ll need someone to cover the overnight shift. Do you want me to do it, or should I call Carla?” Avery asked, referring to the middle-aged woman who sometimes helped out at the Inn. “See if she could come a few weeks early?” The trek from Kate’s house to the Inn was only a couple of blocks, and she’d do it if she needed to, but she hoped that her aunt would recommend Carla. The thought of making herself available to Theo all night, every night, wasn’t something she truly wanted to contemplate.
    “Theo. I wonder what he’s doing back in town,” Kate mused, ignoring her question about Carla. “Always was a clever boy, despite his antics.”
    “Clever?” Avery gave her a dubious look. No one that handsome had the right to be clever, too.
    “Don’t judge a book by its cover, dear. You, of all people, should know that.” Kate gave her an insightful look. She was right, of course. How many of her clients initially resorted to trickery? It sometimes took upwards of half a dozen sessions to figure out the full extent of their addictions. She was trained to ferret out the truth from the sometimes intricately constructed lies that her clients created about themselves. Some were experts at deluding everyone around them—including themselves. Mia Davenport had so fully convinced Avery that she was all right that her relapse had come as a complete shock. By the time Avery had caught on to Mia’s renewed drug use, it was too late.
    “I might not always be the best judge of character,” Avery