Snow Falls by Gerri Hill Read Free Book Online

she’d really been the one to write the book. Or whether as the tabloids said—and as her parents had believed despite her protests to the contrary—there had been a ghostwriter. She bit her lip, remembering how betrayed she’d felt at the time.
    No, Ryan had no desire to answer any of the hundreds of questions Jen would ask if she knew who she was. The better option, should Jen ask again, would be to tell her she was trying her own hand at writing, chronicling her adventures of living alone up here on the mountain, in winter. Maybe that would appease her.
    Ryan smiled quickly and shook her head. More likely, it would lead her to want to read what she was writing, to discuss it. No, she’d probably be better off sticking with the editor story, half-assed as it was.

Chapter Nine
     
    Jen stood at the window staring out, the bright sunshine a contradiction to the subzero temperatures that had settled over the cabin. It was her sixth day of being stranded, but she no longer thought of it that way. She would go stark, raving mad if she continued to think of it as a jail sentence, marking off each day one by one. Which was how she’d gotten through the first three. But Ryan’s sullen moods gradually had disappeared, and Jen now only occasionally found a brooding look on her face, mostly when Ryan thought she wasn’t watching.
    Their evenings had taken on a routine, usually with both of them cradling laptops. She was beyond curious as to what Ryan was working on, but so far she’d been able to curtail any questions. She knew Ryan hated personal questions. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t ask professional ones. Since Ryan was an editor and since Jen was supposed to be at a writer’s workshop, she’d instead peppered Ryan with questions about technical matters and about wordsmithing. At first, her answers were short and to the point. Then Ryan had suggested she do an exercise. She gave her a subject—a girl from a poverty-stricken family was given a thousand dollars and left at a shopping mall. Jen had looked at her quizzically, not understanding. “Tell me her story in two thousand words or less.” That was two nights ago and Jen had started and restarted the story four times. But she was intrigued by the exercise and Ryan promised to critique it for her. Even though they had satellite, the TV remained off except when Ryan wanted to catch a weather forecast. And even though there was Internet, her own e-mails had been limited. She’d simply sent out a group e-mail, letting everyone know she was okay. She did send a separate one to Brad, telling him she would keep in touch daily but so far, that had not been the case. She realized she had hardly given him a thought the last couple of days. Her time—and thoughts—were occupied elsewhere.
    Because their days had taken on a routine as well. She now knew that Ryan was an early riser and normally got up at the ungodly hour of five. By the time Jen crawled out of bed—at a reasonable seven—Ryan had already taken the girls on their first hike of the day. Jen would use that quiet time alone to write in her journal, which had taken on a life of its own. In one of her books, the second one, she’d devoted an entire chapter to the benefits of keeping a journal, of writing down thoughts and dreams. Of course, she’d never done that herself until now, just like she’d never practiced meditation even though she advocated it in each book. She no longer feared getting hacked into tiny pieces by a crazed hermit, but the journal had become therapeutic. This morning she had read back to the first couple of entries and had to laugh. Her trepidation at having to share a bed with someone had been a major concern the first two nights. Now, she no longer hesitated getting into bed. Whether it was because Ryan was a woman or that she simply had no other choice, her phobia of sleeping with someone appeared to have vanished. She did wonder if the same would hold true with Brad. For