A January Chill. Rachel Lee

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      But all of a sudden it seemed significant. And just as suddenly, Witt’s news didn’t feel like anything to celebrate.

      The chill settled over her again, this time a strong foreboding. In her heart of hearts, she knew nothing was ever going to be the same again.

      2

      Hardy Wingate sat at his mother’s bedside and tried not to give in to the anxiety that was creeping along his nerve endings. Barbara was better, they told him. She’d passed the crisis. But he couldn’t see it. She was still on oxygen, she still had tubes running into her everywhere, and the only improvement he could see was that she wasn’t on a respirator anymore. Her breathing was still labored, though, and he knew things could change in an instant, no matter what they told him.

      He touched her hand gently, hoping she could tell he was there. Since last night, when he’d brought her in, she hadn’t seemed to be aware of much. Which was probably a good thing. He hoped she wasn’t suffering.

      But he was going crazy, sitting there with nothing to occupy him but worry and guilt. And memories. God-awful memories of sitting beside Karen Matlock’s bedside twelve years ago, just before she died. Just before Witt Matlock threw him out.

      He didn’t blame Witt for that, but it had hurt anyway. And sometimes it still hurt. Like right now, when he was reliving the whole damn nightmare because he had nothing to occupy his thoughts.

      He’d picked up a paperback novel at the gift shop earlier, some highly touted thriller, but it hadn’t been able to hold his attention. Either J. W. Killeen was losing his touch or Hardy Wingate just didn’t have the brainpower left to focus on it.

      So he sat there holding his mother’s hand, trying not to think about how frail it felt, trying not to think about Karen Wingate and that hellish night twelve years ago. But trying not to think about things only seemed to make him think about them more.

      Or maybe it was talking to Joni Matlock earlier in the cafeteria that was making him think so much about Karen. Back in high school, when he’d been dating Karen, he’d gotten to know Joni because the girls were close. But since Karen’s death…well, he hadn’t had a whole lot to do with the Matlocks since then.

      And even in a small town like this, it was possible to avoid people if you really wanted to. Right after the accident, he’d gone away to college. By the time he got back, Joni had gone away to school, and since her return three years ago, the most he’d seen of her was across the width of the supermarket or Main Street. Which suited him fine.

      But then today, out of the clear blue, she’d come up to him while he was having coffee in the cafeteria and had joined him. What had possessed the woman? She knew what her uncle thought of him. And she must have noticed that he’d been working on avoiding her. Hell, the reason the width of the street was always between them was that he was perfectly willing to cross the damn thing to get away when he saw her coming.

      Then, like nothing in the world had ever happened, she plopped down with him at the cafeteria table. Weird. And he’d been within two seconds of jumping up and walking away when she’d asked about his mother.

      Now, he couldn’t ignore that. He couldn’t be rude in the face of that kind of politeness. His mother had raised him better than that. So he’d been stuck, and he’d had to talk to her.

      And all the time he’d been itching to get away. He supposed it was stupid, after all this time, but he didn’t want any more trouble with Witt Matlock. That man hated him.

      Well, why the hell not? He hated himself.

      He froze suddenly, his heart stopping in his chest as he realized that his mother was no longer breathing. Caught in a vise of fear, he lifted his gaze to her face. Then, just as he was reaching for the call button, she drew a long, ragged breath. Then another. The tortured tempos of life resumed.

      He waited breathlessly for a long time, but Barbara seemed to have taken a firm grasp on life once more. The tightness in his chest eased a little, but as it did, he felt the burn of unshed tears in his eyes.

      “Hang in there,” he heard himself tell her in a rough whisper. “Hang in there, Mom.”

      Even as he spoke the encouragement, he wondered why. Maybe she was as tired of it all as he sometimes felt. As he felt right now. Sometimes it just didn’t seem worth the effort.

      But he wasn’t ready to lose her yet. He probably never would be, but she was only fifty, and he figured he shouldn’t have to be losing her for a good long while yet.

      As soon as he had the thought, bitterness rose in him, burning his throat like bile. Karen had been too young, too. Only seventeen. Life and death didn’t care about things like youth.

      But Barbara kept breathing, difficult though it was, and the heart monitor kept recording her steady, too-rapid beats. He watched the lambda waves form on the display, one after another in perfect rhythm, checked the digital readouts and saw that her blood pressure was steady, her pulse a constant eighty-five. Too fast, but strong. Strong enough. Not like it had been with Karen.

      For a few seconds he was suddenly back in the ICU twelve years ago, watching the monitor, all too aware despite his lack of knowledge that the ragged pattern of Karen’s heartbeats wasn’t a good sign. Aware that the rattling unsteadiness of her breathing was terrible. Aware that those low numbers on the blood pressure monitors were dangerous.

      Aware that no one was doing anything for her just then. Wondering why, ready to go grab someone and demand they help her. Sensing that they had done all they could.

      Then Witt had come into the cubicle behind him.

      “Get out!”

      He jerked, as if the words had been spoken behind him right now instead of twelve years ago. He came back to the present with the feeling of someone who had just taken a long, rough journey. His heart was pounding, and his face was damp with sweat. God!

      There was a rustle, and the curtain was pulled back. Delia Patterson entered, giving him a slight smile and a nod as she approached the bed. She checked the IV and made a note on a clipboard.

      “How is she?”

      Delia, a slightly plump woman with the champagne-blond hair that a lot of older women adopted to cover the gray, looked at him. She’d known Hardy all his life. “You can see for yourself.”

      “Delia…”

      She shook her head. “I can’t make any promises. And I’m not the doctor. But…” She hesitated. “We might see some difference by morning. Maybe. The doctor put her on some pretty powerful antibiotics, Hardy. But no one can say for sure, understand?”

      He nodded, hating the uncertainty. He’d always hated uncertainty, but life seemed to deal out very little else.

      “You staying all night?” she asked.

      “I plan to.”

      “That waiting-room couch is mighty hard.” She glanced at her watch. “And you’ve been in here longer than the allowed ten minutes.”

      “For God’s sake, I’m just sitting here holding her hand.”

      She СКАЧАТЬ