A January Chill Read online

  A January Chill by Rachel Lee.

  ISBN 1-55166-802-5

  The November evening was frigid and blowing dry snow so hard it stung.

  Joni Matlock came through the back door of the house, taking care to stomp the snow off her boots, then removed them and set them by the wall on the rag rug. Her feet instantly felt cold, because the mudroom wasn't heated. Shivering a little, she shook out of her jacket, tugged off her knit cap and hung both on a peg next to her mother's.

  Then she darted into the kitchen and gave thanks for the heat that made her face sting. Her mother was sitting at the table in the dining room, visible through the open doorway, apparently busy with her needlework.

  "Mom," Joni said, "you put too much wood in the stove again."

  Hannah Matlock looked up with a smile. "I get cold, honey. You know that."

  "It must be eighty in here." But Joni wasn't complaining too seriously. It felt good after the bitter chill of the dark evening outside. On the trip home from the hospital where she worked as a pharmacist, her car heater didn't even have time to start working. She felt like an ice cube.

  "There's fresh coffee," Hannah said, bowing her head over her stitchery. "And I thought I'd just heat the leftover pot roast for dinner."

  "That sounds good."

  Joni poured herself a mug of coffee and whitened it with a few drops of cream. Real cream. She couldn't stand the nondairy creamers. Then she stood in the doorway between the kitchen and dining room, sipping the hot brew and watching her mother stitch.

  At fifty, Hannah's hair was still as black as a starless night, a gift from her Ute ancestors. Her face, too, held a hint of the exotic in high cheekbones, and was still nearly as seamless as her daughter's.

  Her eyes were dark brown, almost as dark as her hair, and Joni had always envied them because they seemed to hold mystery.

  Joni, for her part, had bright blue eyes. Hannah always said Joni's eyes had captured the sky. Joni felt differently about them. Blue eyes were a lot morel" sensitive to the light, and all winter long she had to hide them behind sunglasses.

  The women were alike enough, however, to be sisters.

  Joni joined her mother at the table, cradling her mug in her cold hands. "How was your day?"

  "Delightful," Hannah said. She rarely said anything else, "Well, there was one bad spot. I had to help put down Angle Beluk's dog." Hannah worked as a veterinary assistant four mornings a week.

  "I'm sorry," Joni said, feeling a pang. "What was wrong?"

  "Cancer." Hannah sighed and snipped her thread. Then she put her hoop to one side. "Poor Angie. She had Brownie for sixteen years."

  "That's so sad."

  "Well, it happens, unfortunately. On the brighter side, we delivered a litter of pups. What about you? How was your day?"

  Joni sipped her coffee, feeling the heat all the way down to her stomach. "Oh, the usual. I rolled pills, mixed elixirs, chatted with a dozen people...."

  Hannah laughed. "You make it sound so boring!"

  Joni smiled back at her. "It's not. But it sure isn't the height of adventure."

  Something in Hannah's face softened. "Is that what you really want, Joni? Adventure?"

  After a moment, Joni shook her head. "Not really. Remember the curse,

  " May you live in interesting times'? I'll settle for ho-hum, thank you very much. Want me to put the pot roast on to heat before I go change? "

  "No, honey, I'll do it. You just go on up."

  "Okay." Taking her mug with her, Joni rose and disappeared into the living room, in the direction of the stairs.

  Hannah stared after her, a faint grease between her eyebrows. Maybe, she thought for the hundredth time, she had made a mistake in moving them fifteen years ago to Whisper Creek after Lewis died.

  She had told herself at the time that it was for Joni that she had brought them here, but now, in retrospect, she wondered if she hadn't really done it because she was afraid herself. After all, staying in Denver had meant finding reminders of Lewis around every corner and in every familiar face. She had tried to go back to work but had found being in the hospital again was just impossible for her. Every sound, every smell, reminded her of Lewis and the fifteen years they had shared.

  So maybe she hadn't really done it for Joni. Maybe she had been lying to herself when she justified the move by assuring herself she was taking the child away from all the bad influences to a quiet community where kids didn't hang around in gangs and kill innocent doctors who were crossing a parking lot on the way to save lives.

  Maybe she had been lying to herself when she argued that Joni would be better off near the only family either of them had, Lewis's brother, Witt. *

  Maybe those had all been excuses because she was unwilling to face her own fears and her own pain-and her shame.

  But she hadn't really wondered about it until lately. Not until three years ago, when Joni had finished her schooling and moved back into her old bedroom while taking a job at the little mountain hospital just outside town. For the first time it had seriously occurred to Hannah that she might have crippled Joni in some way.

  Because what could a twenty-six-year-old woman possibly want in this town? There was no adventure, few single men of her age, nowhere to go on Friday night other than a movie theater and a couple of bars. Why hadn't Joni taken a job somewhere else? Her pharmacy degree and her grades surely would have given her her pick.

  But Joni had chosen to come here and live with her mother. Not that Hannah minded. It just made her feel terribly guilty.

  As did her secret, the one she had never whispered to a soul. Over the years she had almost convinced herself it wasn't true, but lately .

  lately every time she wondered if she had gone wrong somehow with Joni, the thought came back to haunt her.

  Maybe she had made it worse by keeping it so long. Maybe she had deprived Joni of something essential. Every time the thoughts rose in her mind, she shied away from them, telling herself that the truth would have made no essential difference, that all she had done was protect herself and her child from shame.

  But she hadn't really protected herself, because the shame still burned in her, making her squirm inwardly. Reminding her that her motives had never been as pure as she had told herself. Keeping her from the one thing she wanted more than anything apart from Joni's happiness.

  But it was too late now, she told herself. She had made her mistakes, and there was no way to mend them. She had to believe that, at the very least, she had taken good care of her daughter.

  Sighing, she rose from the table and went to put the leftovers in the microwave to warm. And she tried not to think of the terrible secret she guarded.

  Upstairs, Joni's room was like an oven. The heat from the woodstove downstairs funneled up the stairwell and filled the bedrooms. It was one of the reasons she was always trying to persuade her mother not to put so much wood in the fire.

  Smothering a sigh, she battled to open the argumentative bedroom window and let some of the overpowering heat escape into the frigid night.

  The icy chill that only a few minutes ago had been making her so uncomfortable now actually felt welcome as it sucked some of the heat out.

  Her room was blessed with a walk-in closet large enough to be a dressing room--which was a good, thing, since the room itself barely had enough room for the four-poster double bed and a rocking chair.

  The closet was chilly, since it had been closed all day, and she shivered a little as she changed swiftly into what she called her

  "compromise clothes," a pair of chinos and a long-sleeved cotton shirt.

  She wouldn't suffocate at the temperature her mother preferred, yet they would prevent her from shivering in the drafts that always stirred in this old house.


  Downstairs, she found Hannah humming quietly as she set the table.

  Hannah frequently hummed, though she never sang out loud, and Joni always found the sound comforting. Taking the plates from her mother's hands, she finished the job.

  "So not one exciting thing happened today?" Hannah asked.

  "Not really." Joni put the porcelain candle holders in the middle of the table and lit the red tapers that were left from last Christmas.

  Every year, Hannah went overboard scattering red candles around the house for the holiday. Then they spent all the next year burning them.

  "Pneumonia is going around again. You be sure to stay away from anyone who's coughing, Mom."

  Hannah gave her a wry smile. "I used to be a nurse."

  Joni laughed. "You're right. I'm terrible about that."

  "I don't mind. But I will remind you. And the same goes for you, Miss Smarty-Pants. Don't forget to wash your hands."

  They exchanged understanding looks.

  Hannah returned from the kitchen, carrying the casserole dish that held the remains of the pot roast. Using a big steel spoon, she began to dish out the food. "How bad is it? Are many people getting sick?"

  "Bob Warner said the wards are almost full. The docs think this is going to be the worst winter in years."

  Hannah clucked her tongue. "Well, tell Bob that if they need extra hands, I'll be glad to come in and help. I'm not that rusty."

  "He knows that." Joni gave her a wicked grin. "You've been practicing on dogs and cats for a long time."

  "Child, you are terrible. The skills aren't all that different."

  Joni pursed her lips. "I'm sure. And you know how to pin a patient down."

  Hannah looked over the top of her reading glasses at her daughter.

  "That can be useful on any ward."

  Then they both laughed and sat at the table, facing each other across the candles.

  The best thing about living with her mother now, Joni often thought, was how they'd become such good friends. Her going away to college seemed to have given them just the distance they needed to cross the mother-child barriers, and what had grown between them since was something Joni wouldn't have traded for anything.

  "So," Hannah said, "apart from pneumonia, what else happened in your day?"

  Joni hesitated, knowing the family position on Hardy Wingate too well to suppose the news would be greeted warmly, but then decided to go ahead and tell her mother anyway. ,"I saw Hardy Wingate today.

  Apparently his mother is in the hospital with pneumonia."

  Hannah looked up from her plate and pursed her lips. "Joni..."

  "I know, I know. Witt hates him. Well, you don't have to worry about it, Mom. Hardy will barely talk to me." Which was a shame, she thought. She'd had a crush on Hardy years ago, and while she'd outgrown it, she still thought he was attractive. And nice, despite her uncle Witt's opinion.

  "Well," said her mother after a few moments, "I'm sorry Barbara is sick."

  Apparently it was okay to feel bad about Hardy's mother.

  After supper Hannah went back to her needlework and Joni did the dishes. There was a small window over the chipped porcelain sink, and she found herself pausing frequently as she washed to look out into the night. The hill there was so steep she could almost look over the neighbor's roof toward downtown. She did, however, have an unimpeded view of the night sky, and since the moon was full tonight, she could even see the pale glow of snowcapped mountains in the distance.

  Whisper Creek had sprung up around silver mines in the 1880s, nestled on the eastern edge of the valley between two mountain ranges. The town itself was built into the hills, and many of the houses clung to steep terrain. It had never grown large enough to spread into the.

  valley to-the west, where the land was flat and open. Her uncle Witt owned a lot of that land out there. Not that it did him any good.

  Runoff from the tailings left in the hills by miners a century ago had tainted the water and consequently the land. Brush was about all that grew out there, and even it was thin.

  The land hadn't always been poor. Back when the first Matlock had purchased it with the money he'd made from his own silver mine, it had been verdant with promise. But after about forty years or so, the cattle had started sickening and dying.

  Uncle Witt hadn't even tried to do anything with the land. What could he do? It would take more money than he had to reclaim it, and even though the EPA had declared the town and the area around it a Superfund site, there didn't seem to be much improvement.

  Joni sometimes looked at the land, though, trying to think of things that could be done with it. The view, after all, was spectacular. But who could come up with the money to turn it into a resort? Everyone in town talked about ways to draw tourists to the area, to give the economy another base apart from" the unreliable molybdenum and silver mines, but so far no one had been able to ante up the investment money.

  Realizing she was daydreaming again, Joni quickly returned her attention to the dishes. After a busy day at work, where inattention could cost someone's life, she generally felt mentally drained and had a tendency to zone out when she came home. Today had been an exceptionally busy day, as the altitude, the dryness of the air and the low temperatures seemed to weaken people's resistance.

  Then there had been Hardy Wingate. She felt almost guilty for even thinking about him, but his face popped up before her mind's eye. He'd looked exhausted, she thought. His square, bronzed face had been paler than usual, and his gray eyes had been bloodshot. He'd been in the hospital cafeteria, swallowing coffee in the hopes that caffeine would keep him going.

  Seeing him, she had walked over to him and joined him. He'd looked at her almost hesitantly, as if expecting her to say something nasty. Or as if she were on some list of prohibitions he didn't want to break.

  "Hi," she'd said, sitting across from him anyway.

  "Hi." His voice had sounded strained, weary.

  "Are you sick?" It was a pointless question. He looked exhausted, but he didn't look ill. "My mother. I was up all night with her in intensive care."

  "I'm sorry." And she truly had been. Still was. Barbara Wingate was a lovely woman. "Pneumonia?"

  "Yeah."

  "How's she doing now?"

  "Better. They said I could go get some sleep."

  She pointed to the coffee. "That's a great sleeping potion."

  For an instant, just an instant, he looked as if he might crack a smile. But then his face sagged again. "I'll be here all night."

  "I don't think so. You'll collapse, yourself, if you don't get any sleep."

  "I'll be fine." Then, without another word, he tossed off the last of his coffee, rose and walked away.

  And now, standing at the sink, Joni heard herself sigh. He hadn't even said goodbye, as if simple social courtesies were forbidden, too. And all because of Witt.

  The phone rang, and she heard her mother pick it up in the living room.

  A little while later, Hannah's laugh wafted to her. Good news of some kind. That was a plus. God knew they could use some.

  Not that life was all that bad, but there were times when Joni thought they were all dying in this little town. Silver prices were lousy, and the silver mine was on minimal operation, which meant a lot of miners were on layoffs that were supposedly only temporary. The molybdenum mine was doing better, but there was some talk of cutbacks there, too.

  This had always been a boom-and-bust town, and it looked as if they were once again on the edge of a bust.

  And she didn't usually feel this down. She wondered if maybe she was getting sick, too, then decided she just didn't have time for it.

  She drained the dishwater, rinsed the sink and was just drying her hands when her mother came into the kitchen.

  "Witt's coming over," Hannah said. "He said he has some good news."

  Not for the first time, Joni noticed the way Hannah's face brightened and her eyes sparkled when Witt was coming over. It was
the only time Hannah ever looked that way.

  "Great," she said, although after talking to Hardy Wingate today, she was feeling surprisingly unreceptive toward the idea of seeing her uncle. Silly, she told herself. The feud was more than a decade old, so old they should all be comfortable with it. Why was she feeling so uncomfortable? Because she was afraid Witt would look into her eyes and read betrayal there, all because she had talked to a man she'd known since her school days?

  How ridiculous could she get?

  Witt arrived fifteen minutes later, apparently having walked from his house across town. When he stepped in through the front door, he brought the frigid night in with him, and Joni felt the draft snake around her bare ankles.