A January Chill

But Karen was dead, and he held Wingate directly responsible, and he wasn’t going to make any excuses for that. None at all.

And he sure as hell wasn’t going to give the guy a million-dollar job. Jesus, no. Every time he saw Hardy, all he could think of was Karen.

Hannah stirred, and Witt looked at her, asking, “Aren’t you going to eat?”

“Somehow I don’t have much appetite when you get mad.”

“I’m not mad.”

She shook her head.

“Okay, so I’m mad. Except that…that’s not exactly the word I would use, Hannah.”

She sipped her coffee and nodded encouragingly, but he didn’t have any more to say. Finally she said, “Maybe you’re not as angry as you are hurt.”

He shied away from that. It sounded weak, somehow. “The hurt was a long time ago.”

“That isn’t what I meant.” But, as usual, she wouldn’t tell him what she had meant. That was Hannah. Like talking to a goddamn riddle.

He sighed in irritation and shoved his lunch aside, his appetite long since gone. Reaching for the coffee he still hadn’t touched, he popped a hole in the plastic lid, then swore when it burned his tongue. Some days he felt cursed, and this was turning into one of them.

It didn’t help when he realized Hannah was looking amused. “What’s so funny?” he demanded.

“Not a thing.”

“Quit lying to me.”

Her amusement faded, but she didn’t answer directly. “Sometimes,” she said, “folks start acting like flies caught in a spiderweb. Twisting this way and that and just getting more stuck.”

Witt didn’t like that image one bit, especially since he had the niggling suspicion she might be right about him. “What are you saying?” The question was truculent, and he expected that in her usual way she would avoid answering. She surprised him.

“Look into your heart, Witt. Do what you know is right.”

And the way she said “right” let him know that she didn’t mean he should do what he felt like doing. Funny how doing the right think was often the wrong thing in terms of how you felt about it.

“I am doing the right thing. I ain’t letting any murderer build my hotel.”

For once her face wasn’t inscrutable. It was downright disapproving. Right now he didn’t give a damn. Right now he wasn’t prepared to nitpick the fine line between murder and killing, or the one between deliberate and accidental. Because the result was always the same, regardless: Karen was still dead.

Joni beat her mother home by about twenty minutes, so she started making lasagne. As a rule, she hated cooking, but there were times, like now, when the routine and rhythm of it could soothe her. She desperately needed soothing.

All day she’d been acutely aware that Witt and Hannah had gone to Denver to review the bids. She had no idea if Hardy had bid and couldn’t even guess what Witt’s response would be if he had. Would Witt suspect her involvement? Part of her hoped not, while another part of her scolded herself for being spineless. She ought to just fess up and have it out with Witt.

But now that she’d taken the drastic action of trying to mend fences with Hardy, all she could think about was how much she loved Witt.

She browned some hamburger, then dumped store-bought spaghetti sauce into the pot with it to simmer. She put the water on to boil for the pasta and stirred the ricotta mixture in a blue bowl.

Then, for a bit, she had nothing to do but wait, and waiting gave her time to think. For a week now she’d been trying to avoid that, but life wasn’t cooperating.

She loved Witt. She loved him at least as much as she’d loved her father. He’d been a good uncle before her father’s death, and she’d adored him, but from the day she and Hannah had moved up here, after Lewis was killed, Witt had stood in for her dad.

He’d been there every time she had needed him. He’d treated her with every bit as much affection and warmth as he’d treated Karen, and she and Karen had often pretended they were sisters, not just cousins.

Since Karen’s death…well, since Karen’s death, Joni had often felt she needed to fill that hole in Witt’s life, and Witt had seemed to take her even more into his heart. It wasn’t that she had replaced Karen for him, but that, lacking Karen, he had lavished even more love on Joni.

She would have done just about anything for him. So why had she done this? What had compelled her, after all this time, to rock what was a very dangerous emotional boat?

Remembering her reasons now was surprisingly difficult. All she knew was that she had felt compelled, as if some shame deep within her had demanded she act. Shame at having abandoned Hardy after the accident because Witt had blamed him?

Maybe. Or maybe it was something more. But she honestly didn’t know what.

And that scared her a bit, the feeling that something was going on deep inside her that was out of her control.

Hannah came in just as Joni was layering the lasagne. “Oh, good,” she said. “I’m starved, and that’s just what I’m in the mood for.” She paused to kiss her daughter’s cheek.

“Didn’t Uncle Witt buy you lunch?” Joni’s heart had started to race with anxiety.

“Yes, of course he did. But he was so upset I couldn’t really eat.”

“What was he upset about?” She tried to ask casually, and wondered if she sounded natural. She didn’t know. All she knew was that her cheeks felt hot and her heart was pounding.

“Hardy Wingate bid on the hotel.”

“Really?” That sounded too weak. Her hands were trembling as she sprinkled Parmesan and mozzarella over the top of the lasagne. The aluminum foil rattled as she pulled it off the roll and covered the baking dish.

“Here,” said Hannah, nudging her out of the way. “Let me put that in the oven. You’re shaking.”

Joni was beginning to wish she could fall off a mountain.

“What’s the matter?” Hannah asked. “Didn’t you eat lunch?”

“I did. Sure. I’m just…shaky.” Lies. Oh, God, she hadn’t thought about all the lies she would have to tell because of what she’d done.

Hannah put the baking dish on a cookie sheet to catch any spills, then slipped it into the oven and set the timer. “You’d better go sit down,” she said to her daughter. “You don’t look well.”

Joni felt terrible, all right, but only emotionally. Shame at her duplicity was filling her. Her legs feeling weak, she went into the dining room and sat in a chair where she could watch her mother bustle around the kitchen preparing to make the garlic bread.

Hannah put the loaf of French bread on the cutting board and sliced it in two, putting half the loaf back in its plastic bag. Then she paused, her knife hovering over the bread and, without looking at Joni, said, “Why did you give Hardy that bid package?”

“Mom…” But Joni couldn’t speak, neither to tell the truth nor to prevaricate. Her heart slammed hard, and she sat mute.

Hannah turned her head and looked at her. “That’s what you did the night you said you were going to see your friend. When we had the snowstorm? Why did you do it, Joni?”

All the explanations she’d given herself when she made up her mind to draw Hardy into this were gone from her brain as if they’d never existed. Empty, anxious, shamed, she simply looked at her mother.

“I don’t suppose,” Hannah said after a moment, “that we need to tell Witt that. He’s mad enough as it is. I can’t see what good it will do to have him angry with you. What’s done is done.”

That didn’t make Joni feel any better. She watched as her mother began slicing the bread diagonally.