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A January Chill
Rachel Lee
Secrets, lies, blame and guilt. Only love and forgiveness can overcome the mistakes of the past. Witt Matlock has carried around a bitter hatred for Hardy Wingate, the man he holds responsible for the death of his daughter. And now, twelve years later, the man he blames for the tragedy is back in his life–and in that of his niece, Joni.Widow Hannah Matlock has kept the truth about her daughter Joni's birth hidden for twenty-seven years. Only she knows that Witt is Joni's father, and not her uncle. She and Witt have never spoken of the night she tried to get even with her philandering husband by seducing his brother. But with Hardy coming between Witt and Joni, Hannah knows she must let go of her secret…whatever the consequences.Anger, resentment and deceit threaten to destroy a family that teeters on the verge of collapse, until four damaged souls can learn to forgive…and allow themselves to love.
“Why’d you come back to Whisper Creek?”
The sleepy question came from behind him. He turned and saw that Joni’s eyes were open. She still looked sleepy, and amazingly huggable.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s home.”
She shook her head. “I’m serious, Hardy. The way Witt has treated you… Why didn’t you take a job with some architectural firm in Denver or Chicago? You could have made more money.”
“Is that what you think I should be doing? Making more money?”
“No. It’s just that I wondered why. You had a way out.” She pushed her hair back from her face. “It’s all about Karen, you know. It’s all about this feeling of unfinished business. At least for me.”
Before he could say a word, she’d disappeared into her room. He turned back to the window and stared out into the teeth of the blizzard. Yes, it was unfinished business that had brought him back. But not Karen. Not Witt.
Joni.
“Lee crafts a heartrending saga….”
—Publishers Weekly on Snow in September
A January Chill
Rachel Lee
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
1
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 more 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 Angie 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 crease 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 candleholders 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.
