Читать книгу Keeping Christmas - Marisa Carroll, Marisa Carroll - Страница 9

Chapter 1

“Jacob, you haven’t touched your dessert. What’s wrong? Aren’t you feeling well?” Hazel Owens Gentry addressed her nephew in the same sweet-as-dandelion-wine tone of voice she’d used to reprimand him since he was a little boy. “It’s the last piece of mincemeat pie. I saved it just for you.”

“I’m feeling great, Aunt H, really,” he hastened to assure her. Faded blue eyes regarded him from a face as brown and wrinkled as a berry. His aunt Hazel was an earth mother. She wasn’t completely happy unless she had someone to care for. “But I’m stuffed.” He smiled for her benefit. “I can’t eat another bite.”

“It’s the soup,” Hazel fretted. “Too much pepper? Too much celery?”

“The soup’s great, Aunt Hazel. You make the best leftover turkey soup in Tennessee.” He stretched the smile into a grin. “It’s great.”

“There’s nothing wrong with the meal, sister.” Almeda, the eldest of his five Owens aunts, interrupted her sibling’s lament. “A fitting end for a noble bird.” She picked up her spoon. “Now stop fishing for compliments and sit down and eat yours before it gets cold. If the boy doesn’t want his pie he doesn’t have to eat it.”

Jacob was thirty-four years old but Almeda had called him “the boy” when he was twenty-two and when he was twelve—the year he and his father had come to Holly Ridge, the family home near tiny Owenburg, Tennessee, at the edge of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, to live. He suspected she had called his late father, the only Owens brother, the same thing when he was young, as well.

“I’ll eat the pie.” His middle aunt, Janet, added her two cents’ worth. “Mincemeat’s my favorite. And I’d hate to see it go to waste.”

“It won’t go to waste.” Faye giggled and nudged her twin, Lois.

“It’ll just go to your waist,” his youngest—by six minutes—aunt responded with a giggle of her own.

“Girls.” Almeda waved her gnarled, beringed hand in their general direction. “Enough. Eat. The food’s getting cold.”

Faye and Lois were sixty-nine years old and Almeda still referred to them as girls. That’s why Jacob knew he’d always be “the boy.” He handed the pie to his aunt Janet and bent his head to finish his soup, hiding his amusement at the good-natured bickering going on around him.

He owed his sanity, if not his life, to this marvelous eccentric quintet of old ladies. Returning to Owenburg, to his aunts and to his roots three years before, after his wife and baby son were killed, had pulled him through the worst period of his life. For months after the freak accident that had destroyed his family and his happiness, he’d wanted nothing more than to crawl into a hole and die. But the aunts wouldn’t allow that. They’d descended on his little house in Knoxville near the University of Tennessee campus where he was an associate professor of microbiology and refused to leave without him. He’d given in finally, planning to stay in Owenburg a few days only, just to get them off his back, then return to Knoxville—and he didn’t know what.

The few days had stretched into weeks, then months. He’d resigned from the university and taken a job teaching science at Owenburg High School. Three years later he was still here. He no longer thought about dying, but he didn’t think much about living, either. It was a trade-off, he supposed, if you wanted to analyze it, a defense mechanism. If you didn’t want to remember the past, you didn’t dare consider the future.

If you didn’t allow yourself to feel, to care, you could get through the days. And more importantly, you could get through the nights. That was his immediate goal in life. To sleep through the night. He hadn’t quite made it yet, but he was working on it, and maybe in another ten or fifteen years he’d figure out how to do it.

“The television weatherman said it’s going to get down to fifteen degrees tonight,” Faye commented, breaking into his thoughts.

“It’s too damn early in the winter for it to be so cold.” Janet looked up from her pie with a scowl in the direction of the television.

“Janet, that language isn’t appropriate at the dinner table,” Almeda said.

“Oh, hell,” Janet muttered. “It’s nearly the twenty-first century. I’ll say damn if I want to.” Janet had taught physical education and American history at Owenburg High for forty-five years, retiring five years earlier. At seventy-two she still coached the Owenburg girls’ and women’s softball teams. She swam three times a week at the health club in Knoxville, making the forty-mile drive alone, in her 1972 Chevy Impala.

“Be that as it may,” Almeda began, but Lois cut her short.

“It’s sleeting outside,” she informed her sisters. “It’s so slippery I almost fell on my fanny taking Weezer’s food out to the barn.” Weezer was a huge, bad-tempered goose, the family “watchdog,” thirty-five years old and still going strong. Jacob had read somewhere that geese could live to be a hundred years old. In his opinion Weezer was certainly ornery enough to last that long.

“If it gets as cold as they say,” Faye chimed in, “the ice on the ground will last all night.”

“Oh, dear,” Hazel said, with a worried frown. “Think of all those pour souls traveling home from Thanksgiving with their families.”

“And all the snowbirds heading down the interstate to Florida,” Janet added with a touch of acid.

“Oh, yes,” Hazel said, ignoring the sarcasm. “I’ll remember to say a prayer for all of them. Maybe they’ll cancel school tomorrow, Jacob, and you can sleep in.” She reached across the table and patted her nephew’s hand.

“I could use the extra day off,” he agreed. “But not for sleeping in. The woodpile’s getting low. I wouldn’t want to head over here for breakfast one morning and find the fire in the stove’s gone out.” He had his own cabin a hundred yards up the hill but he took a lot of meals, and spent a lot of time, at his aunts’ home.

“No, indeed,” Almeda said, folding her napkin carefully before laying it beside her plate. “There’s been fire in that cookstove every day since I was a girl.”

“The world wouldn’t end if there wasn’t,” Janet said under her breath.

“I like cooking on the old stove,” Hazel, always the peacemaker, broke in quickly. “But I don’t have anything against electricity. And to tell you the truth, I’d just love to have a microwave.” She shot a defiant glance at her older sister out of the corner of her eye.

“Microwaves. Ridiculous appliances.”

“They really are very convenient,” Hazel began. Almeda snorted. For seventy-five years she’d ruled her sisters’ lives. She didn’t intend to stop now.

“Get one if you want it,” Janet told Hazel. “Quit being such a baby.”

“We’ll look at them for you the next time we go to the travel agent,” Faye offered.

“Yes. The office is only a couple of miles from the mall in Knoxville. I think Wainwright’s department store would be the best place to check, don’t you?” Lois decided with a pixiewise nod of her gray-streaked red head. Both the twins were small, barely five feet tall and slender as children.

“Yes, Wainwright’s. We’ll look into it when we go pick up the brochures for our trip to Argentina.”

“Argentina?”

Jacob hid another smile. His twin aunts had been planning the trip of a lifetime ever since his grandparents had passed away fifteen years ago. As far as he knew they’d still never ventured farther away from home than Memphis, but they kept planning, and someday he hoped they made it to all the faraway, exotic places they dreamed about.

Dreams were another thing he’d learned to do without.

“Yes, Argentina,” Faye insisted when Janet had stopped laughing. “It’s a great travel bargain this winter.”

“I’ll bet it is. If you get there before the next coup attempt.”

“It’s time for Sixty Minutes,” Almeda announced imperiously. “I don’t want to miss is. Mike Wallace is doing an exposé on the savings and loan scandal.”

“Another one?” Hazel sighed. “Isn’t that ever going to be settled? You go ahead. I’ll tidy up in the kitchen.”

“I’ll help you, Aunt H,” Jacob offered. “Then I have to get back to the cabin. I can’t count on the weather being bad enough for them to cancel school tomorrow. I still have half a dozen midterm exams to mark.”

“I’ll give you a hand,” Janet said, pushing her chair back from the table as she turned to help Almeda, crippled by arthritis, to rise from her chair. “Sixty Minutes bores me to death.”

“Thanks, Aunt J,” Jacob said as he prepared to carry a stack of plates and bowls into the kitchen. “But they’re essay questions. Still want to volunteer?”

“I withdraw my offer,” Janet said with a cackle. “I’ll find something else to occupy me until bedtime.”

“It wouldn’t hurt you to improve your mind a little with a good book,” Almeda said, reaching for her walker, her only concession to the infirmities of age.

“I already have one. It’s Stephen King’s newest thriller. I love the way that man can scare your socks off without half trying.”

Almeda sniffed. “Rubbish. Good night, Jacob boy,” she said, lifting her cheek for his kiss. “Sleep well.”

“Good night, Aunt,” he said, touching his lips to her cheek. His aunts were all the family he had left; all the family he would ever have, now.

“I wonder,” Faye said, lifting the lace curtain over the bowed dining-room window, “if we should move Weezer onto the back porch. It really is miserable out there.”

“I’ll bring her inside,” Jacob offered, wondering what flaw in his character caused him to volunteer for such hazardous duty.

“Would you, Jacob? Thanks. Lois and I have to finish the designs for the Christmas decorations we’re planning this year.”

“I’m not putting up any outside lights as long as the weather keeps up like this,” Janet warned as she headed for the back parlor a few steps in front of Almeda so that she could turn on the TV for her sister.

“I’ll do the lights, Aunt J,” Jacob interjected. “But I agree, not until the weather improves.”

“That’s okay,” Faye and Lois chorused, almost in unison. “We have to buy a couple of new strings of lights first, anyway.”

“How many is a couple?” Almeda asked suspiciously, half turning in the doorway, her hands planted firmly on the handles of her walker.

“Well, five or six, maybe,” Faye admitted with a quick glance at her sister.

“We thought it would be great to outline the whole house with lights this year.”

Jacob groaned. The roof peak of the big old Victorian house was at least forty feet off the ground. “Let’s discuss this tomorrow, okay?” he said, pushing his hip against the swinging door that separated the dining room from the kitchen. “I’m not sure I’m interested in climbing around on the roof at this time of year.”

“But you do such a marvelous job with the lights,” Faye said cajolingly.

“It wouldn’t be Christmas in Owenburg if we didn’t put up the lights. You know how the children look forward to it. And we’ve designed a new display for the side yard,” Lois added, her voice rising with excitement. “Christmas geese. Just like Weezer. With wreaths around their necks, and four little goslings exploring a Santa’s bag of presents that have spilled out on the lawn. We’ve already hired Wiley Harrison to make the geese.”

“Okay,” Jacob said, giving in without a fight, just as he always did when his aunts had their heart set on something. “I’ll do it. But not till the ice melts. Agreed?”

“Agreed.” The twins went off beaming.

“You’re too good to us, Jacob,” Hazel said. “Thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me, Aunt H.” He kept his voice gruff, devoid of emotion. “That’s what family’s for.”

“You need a family of your own,” Hazel replied without missing a beat. None of his aunts was hesitant about voicing an opinion on the matter of his seclusion. But Hazel, a widow herself, was the most vocal of all. “You need to get out, meet someone. Find someone to love again.”

“No.” He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t change expression but his aunt looked as if he had.

“All right, I won’t mention it again.” She turned away from the big double sink where she’d deposited her armload of dirty dishes and opened the back door. A blast of cold, wet air and stinging crystals of sleet blew halfway across the room. “Oh, dear, Lois wasn’t exaggerating. It is sleeting very hard. And it’s miserably cold. Would you mind very much bringing Weezer up onto the porch?”

“I’ll do it right now,” Jacob offered, deciding he might as well get it over with. He grabbed his coat off the rack by the walnut pie safe his great-grandfather had built and pulled it on.

“Look, Jacob,” Hazel said, holding the door half-open as she pointed toward the small strip of the interstate that could be seen across the valley. “Goodness, see all the flashing lights. There’s been an accident. A bad one, by the looks of it. Oh, dear, I wonder if there’s anything we can do to help?”

“I doubt it.” Jacob, too, watched the array of red and blue flashing lights, but he didn’t feel any of his aunt’s quick compassion. He didn’t let himself feel anything at all but a mild curiosity as to what might have occurred. “With the roads as bad as they are, Aunt H, it’d take forty minutes to get over there. There’s nothing we can do.”

“We can pray,” Hazel said with the assurance of a deep and abiding faith.

“Do that,” Jacob said, turning away from the lights, setting off into the storm with his head tucked low on his chest. “It does about as much good as anything else.”

“I’m sorry, missus. Any other time I’d take you all the way to the Fuller place, but this here weather caught me off my guard. I ain’t got no chains on the tires. There’s no way I can get up the hill tonight. You and the little boy, though. You’re sure welcome to come on home with me. My wife’ll have my hide when she hears tell I dropped you off here, alone with it snowin’ to beat the band.”

“No, really. I couldn’t impose on you that way. The motel you mentioned will be just fine.” Just fine, Katie repeated to herself, because it was so far off the beaten track that no one would find her there. “Thanks so much for giving us a ride.” She covered her mouth with her hand as a fit of coughing threatened to take her voice away.

“That’s a bad cold, missus,” the old man said, not for the first time. “Better see about takin’ somethin’ for it.” He nodded his head, barely covered with wispy white hair, sagely. “My wife. She’s got the perfect cure for what ails you. Tea with lemon and—”

Katie broke in on his good-natured rambling. “I’m sure she does, but I’ll be all right as soon as I get a good night’s sleep.”

“Sure you will,” the old man agreed, but he didn’t sound as if he meant it. He peered at her sharply over the top of dark-rimmed, half glasses. “Sure you will.”

Katie felt another painful cough working its way up from deep in her chest. She struggled to hold it back. Kyle squirmed restlessly in the canvas carrier that held him strapped against her chest. His weight, comforting as it was, made it harder than ever to breathe.

“We really appreciate you giving us a lift,” she said again as the old man’s equally venerable pickup eased to a halt at the edge of a tiny hamlet he named as Owenburg.

“No problem. I still think you should have waited for an ambulance to check you and the little one out, though.”

“No.” Katie bit her lip and tried to smile. “I mean, we weren’t hurt at all. The bus just slid off the road. It happened so quickly I didn’t even have time to be afraid. It was all the police cars and flashing lights that upset Kyle. That’s why I wanted to move on.” She stopped talking before she got herself into more trouble. She was certain her explanation of why she was in such a hurry to leave the scene of the accident did not sound very convincing.

“Sure, sure.” The old farmer had been one of the first to stop and assist the dazed and disgruntled passengers of the cross-country coach. He’d helped Katie and Kyle off the bus and he’d helped find her purse, which had slid down the aisle when the bus tilted over in a small depression. Every cent she had in the world was in that purse. She’d be forever grateful to him for finding it, even if he hadn’t also agreed to give her a ride away from the wreck. “Now, if you want, I can help you carry your stuff up the hill to the motel.”

“No, thanks,” Katie said, remembering the old man’s painful limping gait. “I appreciate the offer but we can get there on our own.”

“You’re still welcome to come to my place.”

“You’re very kind but no, thanks,” Katie said again, opening the truck door before she could weaken and change her mind, take the kind old man up on his generous offer, be warm and well fed and taken care of, instead of setting off into the night with her child in the middle of a winter storm. Despair welled up inside her and threatened to choke off even more of her breath. She pushed it away, pulled Kyle’s blanket over his head and prepared to step down out of the truck. “Good night,” she said, smiling at the old farmer. She’d forgotten to ask his name but it was too late now. Besides, if she asked his name she would be obliged to give hers in return. She couldn’t risk that.

“God bless,” he replied, sliding the big cloth tote that held everything they owned, including her purse, across the seat. “The Fuller’s Motel is halfway up the hill, to the left. You can’t miss it. The only other house up there is Holly Ridge. That’s the Owens sisters’ place. If you end up there, you went too far.”

“I think I can manage that,” Katie said, ignoring the pounding pain in her head that began again the moment she stepped out into the swirling snow.

“Like I said, you can’t miss it.”

Katie waved and closed the truck door. She turned her back on the helpful old man and surveyed the narrow road winding up the hill. Behind her the lights of the little sleeping town glowed faintly through the storm.

She started off through the snow with the wind blowing her hair in her eyes. The tote pulled heavily on her shoulder, while Kyle squirmed beneath his blanket. His diaper needed changing and he was hungry. It was madness heading off into the storm like this but the memory of all those highway patrol cruisers, six of them at least, back where the bus had slid off the interstate, kept her moving forward. It seemed as if the sharp-eyed patrolmen had all been watching her and Kyle.

Katie had begged a ride from the old farmer when he’d decided there was no further need for his help and had prepared to resume his journey. He’d agreed without even asking why she wanted to go. She didn’t think that would ever happen in the city. But here in the hill country of Tennessee, people not only helped their fellow man; they respected their privacy while they were about it.

Katie trudged on uphill, through a thin layer of snow that hid the treacherous patches of ice beneath it. She kept walking, head down, crooning to Kyle, who was crying now from discomfort and fatigue. How much farther could it be? she wondered, keeping an eye on the side of the road, looking for the turnoff to Fuller’s Motel. She’d given up looking for a sign. If there was one, it was hidden in the feathery pines along the side of the road. She shifted the tote to her left shoulder, folded back the blanket a little from Kyle’s face and kissed the tip of his nose, slipped and nearly fell in an icy puddle of half-frozen water. When she regained her balance she realized she’d walked all the way to the top of the hill.

In front of her there was an iron gate, lacy with grillwork. On either side a white picket fence stretched away into the snowy darkness. Ahead was the dark bulk of a big old Victorian house, two stories high, with dormered attic windows and a cupola tower from which warm yellow light shone through lacy curtains.

There was also a light in the foyer behind a door with a center oval of leaded glass. “I don’t think this is Fuller’s Motel,” Katie said, spots of bright light dancing in front of her eyes. She blinked hard, trying to dispel the dizzying sensation. She shifted Kyle to her shoulder, having taken him out of his carrier after nearly falling in the icy puddle. It had frightened her to think she might slip again and fall hard, landing on top of him. His little head kept bobbing up and down. He wanted out from under the sheltering blanket. Now. Katie tried to hush him and decide what to do. If only her head didn’t hurt so badly, and she could take a long steadying breath, it might be easier to think.

Her first thought was to turn around and head back down the hill, but she’d already missed the turnoff to Fuller’s Motel once. She’d probably do so again. The smart thing to do was ask more specific directions from the women in the house, because this had to be the house—the Owens sisters’ place—that the old farmer had spoken of. After all, she thought wryly, you couldn’t miss it.

Making up her mind, Katie fumbled for the latch to open the gate. The iron was icy slick and fiery cold beneath her fingers. She’d bought heavy jackets and hats for both of them before leaving Florida, but not gloves for herself or mittens for Kyle. When she’d asked about them, the saleswoman had looked at her as if she were crazy. Maybe she was, a little bit, for running away like this. Then she thought of Andrew Moran, his cold eyes, hard mouth and ruthless character and knew she’d done the right thing.

The gate opened with a screech of icy hinges. Katie started up the laid-brick walkway, shushing Kyle, trying to balance the slipping tote and not fall flat on her face on the icy path. She was halfway to the house before the commotion going on out of sight along the side of the building registered in her tired brain. She could hear curses, a man’s low gravelly voice and what sounded like squawks and honks from an angry goose. Or at least what she imagined an angry goose might sound like. She’d never seen one close up before. But that was about to change.

Around the corner of the house, wings outspread, neck thrust belligerently forward, came a huge white goose, heading straight for them, standing thigh-high and looking as if she meant business. Katie thrust Kyle higher onto her shoulder and turned sideways to put the big cloth tote between herself and the hissing bird.

“Shoo,” she said, backing away as quickly as possible. “Shoo, go away. Scram.” She couldn’t free her hands to swing the tote or lift her foot to kick out at the goose for fear of losing her balance. “Nice goose, go away,” she said in a hiss that was a fair imitation of the irate fowl’s.

The goose stopped about ten feet away and flapped her wings, honking loud enough to wake the dead. Katie edged her way toward the steps leading onto the porch as an overhead light came on and a round-faced, white-haired woman stuck her head out the door.

“Weezer, hush,” she said but the goose paid no more attention to her than she had to Katie. “Oh, my, we have a visitor. Don’t worry, she won’t hurt you,” the woman added, raising her voice to carry over the din.

“Damn you, Weezer, get back here or you can freeze your goose fanny out here in the cold all night.” A tall black shadow detached itself from the bulk of the house and stepped into the light.

The man coming toward her was tall and dark, broad shouldered and slim hipped and far more intimidating than the goose. He moved with an easy silky grace across the snowy yard. His black hair was covered with a dark knit cap. He was wearing a navy blue pea coat and jeans. His hands were shoved deep in the pockets of his coat but Katie knew they would be big and strong like the rest of him. His face was crisscrossed by shadows from the porch but she could see his jaw was firm and square, his nose big enough to be called Roman and that his eyes were as dark as a moonless midnight sky. When he looked at her she took an involuntary step backward. His gaze was as cold and emotionless as the frigid wind blowing down off the Smoky Mountains.

“Who the hell are you?” he asked, his voice a low rumbling growl.

“I’m Kate,” she responded, stumbling a little over the shortening of her name. Her name was Katie, not Kate or Katherine or anything else, just Katie. “Kate Smith,” she finished, having at least enough sense left not to use her true name.

He snorted, somewhere between a laugh and a groan. “Give me a break. Kate Smith. Where’d you come up with that one?” His eyes left her momentarily and she took a quick, shaky breath. “Weezer, down girl,” he ordered. “Stop that infernal racket.” He poked the toe of his shoe in the general direction of the goose.

Kate Smith. Katie blushed and hoped he couldn’t see. It was the name she’d given the police for the accident report. She should have thought of a different one. Even though the singer called Kate Smith had been dead for years, most people still remembered her name.

“That’s my name,” she insisted before the man could pin her once more with that dark, unnerving gaze. She held Kyle tighter against her as he squirmed to be free. She wished her head wasn’t hurting so, and that the maddening multicolored specks would stop dancing before her eyes. She couldn’t think straight, feeling so bad, and she desperately needed her wits about her. She shifted to her left, retreating a little farther into the darkness outside the circle of yellow light from the porch. “I’m lost,” she said, turning instinctively toward the plump, white-haired woman. “I’m looking for Fuller’s Motel.”

“This isn’t it,” the man said.

“Jacob. Mind your manners,” the old lady said admonishingly.

No, it wasn’t the same old lady. The voice was different. Katie closed her eyes a moment then looked again. The woman on the porch had been joined by another, tall and stooped, standing with the aid of a metal walker. She was even older than the first. And other, curious female faces were staring out from behind the lace curtains at the big bow window that faced onto the porch. They had to be the Owens sisters.

But who is the dark man?

“Fuller’s is a quarter mile down the hill and turn right,” he said as though giving a command. “You can’t miss it.”

“So I’ve been told.” Katie laughed, but it came out more of a croak. At least the damn goose was quiet. Having placed herself between Katie and the porch, she seemed content to wait for Katie to make a threatening move before she attacked. Katie eyed the bird as warily as she did the man.

“Where did you come from, child?” the first old lady asked.

“My car…broke down on the highway.” It had seemed like a very long drive across the valley. These people would know she couldn’t have made the journey on foot. Best stick to the truth as much as possible. “Someone gave me a lift this far. He told me about the motel,” she finished in a strangled whisper, trying desperately not to start coughing again.

“Oh.” The old lady glanced at the man, still standing as though rooted to the ground, his long legs spread to balance him against the icy wind. “I thought perhaps you’d been involved in the accident on the interstate.”

“Accident?” Katie couldn’t keep the fear and dismay out of her voice. These people already knew about the accident? She faced the women on the porch but still watched the dark man from the corner of her eye. Is he the hired help? Or a relative? “How did you know about the bus going off the highway?”

The old lady folded her hands across her middle, looking pleased. “We didn’t know there was a bus involved but my nephew and I saw the flashing emergency lights across the valley from the back of the house.”

“Oh.” Katie knew she’d given herself away but she was too sick and miserable to care. “Please, if you’ll just give me a few more detailed directions to the motel I won’t bother you anymore.” She was so dizzy she didn’t know if she could make it back down the hill but for Kyle’s sake she’d have to keep going somehow.

Sensing his mother’s distress, the little boy began to howl, kicking out, swatting at the blanket that covered him with both small, determined hands.

“Goodness,” the first old lady gasped, coming down the steps. “Do you have a baby under that blanket? I thought so but I’m not wearing my glasses and I wasn’t sure.” She fluttered along the walk, shooing the indignant goose aside, holding out her hands as though to take Kyle from Katie’s aching arms. “How wicked of us to keep you standing here in this awful storm with a baby in your arms.” She took one long, myopic look at Katie. Her jaw dropped. “My God, Katherine,” she said very softly and then shut her mouth with a snap.

Instinctively Katie tightened her grip on her son. “Not Katherine. My name is Katie. Kate, I mean.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” she agreed. She looked quickly over her shoulder at the dark man. “Kate, not Katherine.”

“Aunt H, let her go. It’s only a five-minute walk back down the hill to Fuller’s.” He hadn’t moved an inch. It was as if he didn’t want to get any closer to her. That was fine with Katie. She didn’t want to be any closer to him, either.

“Hazel,” the imperious old lady standing in the doorway ordered, “get back in here. You don’t even have a sweater on and it’s freezing.”

“Of course it’s freezing. So is this poor sweet baby.” Hazel reached out to pull the corner of Kyle’s blanket up over his head. Her hands were shaking; her head and shoulders were white with snow. Katie felt guilty for keeping her out in the cold. Kyle looked at the old lady’s plump, wrinkled face for a long moment, smiled and laid his head on Katie’s shoulder. “What a beautiful child.”

“Yes, he is.” Katie managed a smile of her own. “I’m sorry to have caused you so much trouble.”

“Think nothing of it, my dear.” Hazel smiled up at her. At five foot seven Katie was several inches taller than her champion. Hazel reached out to pat Katie’s cheek. “Goodness.” She placed her hand more firmly against Katie’s skin. “You’re burning up. Are you ill?”

“I…don’t know,” Katie said in confusion. She was freezing and too warm all at once. It was a very disorienting and uncomfortable feeling. She wished she could lie down somewhere out of the storm and go to sleep. “I…I’m tired,” she admitted, unable to summon the energy for any more elaborate falsehoods. “I don’t dare be sick.”

“Almeda, this child is ill. We can’t send her back out into the storm.”

“Sick or not, she can’t stay here, Aunt H,” the man said, moving at last, closing the distance between them, looming over Katie like an angry cloud. “I’ll get the Jeep and drive her down the hill to Fuller’s. If she’s sick they can call the emergency squad from there.”

“Jacob!” The old lady sounded shocked. “How can you even suggest such a thing? No Owens has ever turned away a soul in need from this house. We’re not about to start tonight.”

Katie was having trouble focusing her eyes. The sounds of their voices amplified, then receded with nauseating regularity. She swayed on her feet. She had to sit down, and soon, or she was going to collapse.

The dark man took another step closer, as if to press his argument with his aunt. Katie wheeled to avoid him. The sudden movement threw her completely off balance.

“Here, take him,” she whispered, thrusting Kyle into the old lady’s arms. “Please, I…I think I’m going to faint.”

“Jacob,” Hazel said, scooping Kyle and his blanket against her ample chest. “Catch her, she’s going to fall.”

Katie felt the tote slip from her shoulder and land in the snow with a dull thud but she didn’t care. She tried to focus on Kyle, safe in Hazel’s arms, but his face swam sickeningly before her eyes. “No, don’t,” she said, or tried to, as the dark man loomed closer. “I’ll be fine, just let me find a place to sit.”

“Aunt H is right,” he said, sounding every bit as reluctant as she was. “You’re going to fall flat on your face. Here.” He pulled her against him and slid his arms beneath her knees. “Hold still till I get you inside.” Katie stopped struggling and laid her head against his shoulder just to keep the world from spinning completely out of control. “I’m sorry to be so much bother.”

He carried her across the porch and into the foyer. “I’m sorry, too.” He sounded a little breathless from the extra weight, but not much. She could feel his muscles work, even beneath the heavy wool coat, and smell the faint spicy tang of his after-shave.

“Jacob, where’s your Christian charity?” the tall, stooped old lady scolded as he prepared to deposit Katie on some kind of hard, uncomfortable-looking sofa in the foyer.

“I don’t have much to spare, Aunt,” he said, then bit off the word with a curse. “My God,” he said quietly, but there was no reverence in his tone. “Who the hell are you?”

Katie risked looking at his face as she laid her head against the tall curved back of the settee.

“I told you,” she said, fighting nausea as she stared up into his handsome, stone-hard features. “I’m Kate. Kate Smith. But you can call me Katie.”

“No,” he said, standing so suddenly Katie had to shut her eyes against the blur of movement. “You’re not Katherine, but you look enough like her to be…her twin.”

He laughed, a sound that held no mirth at all. “But since she’s dead and buried these three years, maybe I should say instead that you look enough like her to be her ghost.”