A January Chill. Rachel Lee

for him.”

      “So, is he going to Tahiti?”

      She shook her head. “No.”

      “Seems a shame. But maybe it wasn’t enough for the trip.”

      She looked at him sideways. “How about eleven million dollars?”

      That set him back on his heels. Numbers like that were usually attached to major construction jobs, none of which he’d so far managed to garner for his company. “Wow,” he said after a moment. “Wow. But it doesn’t pay out in a lump sum.”

      “No, but even with the payout schedule it’s a lot of money.”

      “I guess he will retire.”

      “Actually…” She hesitated. “He’s thinking about a career change.”

      “That’s cool.” Like he cared.

      “He’s…um…thinking about building a resort on that property he owns west of town.”

      And suddenly Hardy understood why she was mentioning this to him. He looked straight at her and felt the entire world hold its breath for a few seconds. Then he said slowly, “Joni…are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

      Her mouth tightened, and she looked away. When she faced him again, her eyes were moist. “When Karen died, I didn’t just lose my best friend. I lost my other best friend, too.”

      In spite of himself, he felt his throat tighten a little, and he cleared it. “Joni…”

      She shook her head, silencing him. “It’s been twelve years, Hardy. Twelve years! And ever since we talked this afternoon, I’ve been thinking about how much Witt’s anger has cost me. And you, too. Karen would never have had to sneak out with you that night if Witt hadn’t thought you weren’t good enough for her. And you and I could still have been friends except for Witt. Damn it, Hardy, it’s not right. And Karen had the guts not to let it keep her away from you. Maybe I’ve got the same guts, finally.”

      “Joni…Joni, it’s not a matter of guts. It’s a matter of not raking up a whole lot of…unpleasantness. Not at this late date. After all this time, Witt’s not going to change his mind about me. It’ll just open old wounds for everyone.”

      “Maybe they need to be opened.” A tear spilled down her cheek. “This money’s a bad thing, Hardy. I’ve been feeling it ever since Witt told me about it. The only way to avoid the bad things is to turn it to some good. You could build that lodge better than anybody.”

      “You don’t know that. There’s no way you can know that.”

      “I believe it.”

      He knew what she was offering him. Witt would never, ever, have asked him to bid on the project, would never even have let him know it was up for bid. But if he could just give Witt the best bid…maybe he’d get the job anyway. And it was exactly the kind of job he knew how to do, the kind of job he was constantly looking for. It could benefit them both.

      He shook his head. “Witt will never agree, no matter how good the bid is.”

      “I have some influence, Hardy.”

      “That may be. But you don’t want to get crosswise with your uncle, Joni. He and your mom are the only family you have.”

      “Well, you do what you think best. But I’ll tell you right now, the next time you cross a street when you see me coming, I’m going to cross it, too.” She drew a tremulous breath. “It’s like…it’s like I can feel Karen telling me to do this. I know that’s crazy, but it’s what I feel. I’m not going to let Witt tell me who I can be friends with anymore. And neither should you.”

      He looked at her, wondering if she were getting sick or slipping a cog. All this time… Yeah, all this time. He suddenly remembered that it hadn’t been Joni who’d been avoiding him. No, he’d been the one avoiding her. Because of Witt. Because he was scared to look into that abyss yet again. Because he’d managed to put his guilt on the back burner finally, and getting involved with the Matlocks was only going to make him face it all over again.

      He closed his eyes, the memories surging in him, filling him with blackness. “It won’t work, Joni.”

      “You don’t know until you try.”

      He did know, though. He knew in his deepest heart that Witt would never give him the job. But he also knew in his deepest heart that he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he didn’t try.

      Why, he wondered, did nearly every damn thing in his life have to be just beyond his grasp? It seemed to him that life had always been teasing and tantalizing him with promises it snatched away before they were barely fulfilled. And, God, he hoped his mother wasn’t another one of them.

      When he looked at Joni again, his eyes felt swollen and hot, and his heart hurt almost too much to bear. “What’s the point? It won’t happen.”

      “Maybe, maybe not,” she said. “But you’ll never know if you don’t try.”

      A great philosophy, but words were cheap. Hardy had absolutely no doubt that he was going to find himself disappointed once again.

      But what the hell, he thought. After a while you got used to being kicked.

      But all that faded away at four-thirty in the morning when Barbara Wingate awoke, her fever gone and her gaze once again aware.

      So maybe, Hardy thought gratefully, you didn’t always have to get kicked.

      It was a thought that kept him smiling the rest of the day.

      3

      Wind whipped the snow into a whiteness that erased the world as Joni drove home from work on a chilly January afternoon. A blizzard was moving through the mountains, and she was beginning to wonder if she’d stayed a little too late at the hospital. She didn’t have all that far to drive, though, and she reminded herself that she would be driving through this kind of weather at least a dozen more times before winter blew its last white breath over the Colorado Rockies. Heck, some years she drove through this until June.

      It was two days after New Year’s, and she was feeling as good as it was possible to feel in the wake of the holidays. She wondered if she would have her usual letdown or if she was finally old enough not to get so high on anticipation that she would inevitably crash after New Year’s.

      Probably not, she decided. Nor was she sure she really wanted to outgrow the magical, excited feeling that always preceded Christmas for her.

      When she got home and had left her outerwear in the mudroom, she went to find her mother. Hannah was sitting in the living room, reading.

      “Miserable out there,” she remarked to her daughter. “Did you have trouble getting up the hill?”

      “No. But I wouldn’t want to try it in an hour.” The stack of mail was on the table by the door, and she flipped through it, pulling out her credit card bill and the utility bill that she paid as part of her share of the household costs. Then she came to a thick manila envelope that wasn’t addressed to anyone.

      “What’s this?” she asked.

      “Witt left it. He said it’s the request for bids he had a lawyer draw up.” Hannah smiled. “He was as excited as a kid. Apparently he’s sent a bunch of them out to firms in Denver, and now he can’t wait for the replies.”

      “So why did we get a copy?”

      Hannah laughed. “I think he wanted to show off a little.”

      Witt liked to show off for her mother, Joni thought. She often wondered why the two of them had never gotten together. They were both widowed, after all. But…sometimes she sensed there was an invisible wall between them. Some kind of barrier the two refused to cross.

      Silly, she told herself. She was imagining