Rachel Lee (11 page)

"Joni?"

Recognizing the voice, she jerked her head up and looked at Hardy Wingate. He was driving his pickup right beside her. "Are you okay?"

he asked. "What are you doing walking out here? I saw your car in the snowbank when I was on my way home, and I went to your house to see if you were okay. I got worried when no one was there."

"I'm fine."

"Then why are you heading to the hospital?"

"Witt had a heart attack."

His truck kept rolling slowly next to her. "Jesus," he said finally.

"Joni, get in the truck. I'll drive you."

"I can walk."

"I don't know about that. You're shivering so hard I can see it. Come on, get in the truck."

It struck her that she was still behaving childishly, refusing a ride for no better reason than that she felt she needed to be punished.

Giving in, she climbed in. Hardy turned the heat up, giving her a blast of it.

"I'm glad I saw your car," he remarked.

"Why?"

"You'd probably have frozen to death out here. It's down to twelve below, Joni."

"Really*" The idea was mildly interesting. It didn't often get that cold here, even at night. That explained why she was getting hypothermia

"What happened to Witt? You said heart attack, but..."

Joni hunched her shoulders and realized she was still shivering, that even the inside of her parka felt cold now. "We had a fight. He ...

um ... he..." A shudder ripped through her, and she had to bite her lower lip to hold the tears back. "He found out about the bid? That you gave it to me?"

"Yes."

"Christ. I wonder who told him."

"I don't know but he, um, he ... well, he disowned me. Then he stormed out. I went after him, and he was lying in the snow groaning. Mom said it was a heart attack."

"So you were following them to the hospital?"

"Yeah." She turned her face away from him, afraid he would read her shame and ugliness there. Her childishness. "It's ... my fault."

Hardy didn't say anything right away. He focused on getting his truck over the hill just before the hospital, but when he pulled into the parking lot and up in front of the emergency-room exit, he turned toward her. "People get really really angry all the time, Joni. And they don't have heart attacks."

"But it was my fault." "Sure, and you make the sun rise in the morning, too."

The sarcasm of his tone was like a slap in her face. "Hardy..."

He shook his head. "Maybe someday you'll realize you're not the center of the universe." Then he flashed the most disarming grin. "I am."

She wanted to fall into that grin. She wanted desperately to let it wrap her in warmth and hold at bay the reality she was facing. But she couldn't allow it. Responsibility, shame and guilt stopped her.

"Thanks for the ride, Hardy."

"I'll go back and pull your car out of the snow. Do you have your keys?"

She shoved her hand into her pocket and passed the keys to him.

"Okay. I'll check in with you later."

She stood on the pavement for a half minute, watching him drive away, and wondered why she felt that she had just somehow been blessed.

The feeling didn't last long. It couldn't. Not when she had to turn and go into the waiting room. Hannah was there, looking more worn and worried than Joni could remember since her father died.

"How is he?" she asked.

"They're having trouble stabilizing him."

Joni looked into her mother's eyes, trying to read more information there and seeing only fear. "That's not good is it?"

Joni wanted to apologize to her mother, to beg forgiveness with everything that was in her soul, but from the look in Hannah's eyes, she knew this was the wrong time. Hannah didn't want to have to deal with her confession and guilt right now. At this moment Hannah didn't want to think about anything at all except Witt.

Reaching out, Joni took her mother's hand. "I'm sorry, Mom." She had to say at least that much, although she vowed to say no more.

Hannah squeezed her fingers but didn't reply.

Joni closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair, wondering if anything would ever be the same again. If Witt would ever smile at her again, or if he would continue to blame her. It was all her fault he'd had the heart attack anyway. Maybe the best thing she could do was go away. Leave him alone. Leave Hannah alone. Stop messing up their lives with the stupid stunts she pulled sometimes.

God, at her age she should have learned something. She should have learned that whenever she got a fixed idea like this in her head, she was probably bound for trouble. It wasn't the day-to-day stuff that was her downfall, it was her big ideas. Like when she had tried to fix up her college roommate with the basketball player. lisa had had a crush on him for months, and Joni happened to have two classes with Bill. They chatted a lot before and after class, and Joni had foolishly thought they were friends.

Even more foolishly, she'd developed the idea that lisa and Bill would be good for each other. So, after sounding Bill out a little . or so she thought . she had broken lisa's confidence and told Bill that lisa had a crush on him, and that they ought to go out together.

Bill had agreed to ask lisa out. Unfortunately, he had done so only because he liked Joni, and when lisa found that out, she had been so humiliated that she never spoke to Joni again. To this day, Joni suspected lisa still hated her.

That was the kind of mess she was always getting herself into. In her case, the road to hell was indeed paved with good intentions.

Well, she'd learned this time, she promised herself. She had learned.

And if Witt survived. The thought that he might not live struck her with full force again, and she opened her eyes to look at her mother.

Hannah was pale, and the way her lips were moving, Joni guessed she was silently praying.

And suddenly, as the reality of the situation fully came home to her, Joni began praying, too.

The next two hours were the longest of Joni's life except for the night she had sat in this same emergency room and waited for word of Karen's and Hardy's condition. And she remembered all too clearly how that night had ended. Disbelief was no longer part of her makeup. People she loved and cared about did die, like her dad, like Karen. But this time was even worse, because this time she felt responsible.

Memories came back to haunt her: the look on Hardy's fate when he'd come out of the emergency room and walked past her and her mother without saying a word. She had noticed the cuts and scrapes on his face, and known instinctively that Karen had to be so much worse.

She remembered Witt's face two hours later, when he had emerged from the I.

C.

U and said flatly, emptily, "She's gone." She remembered how that felt, as if the universe had carved a huge, empty hole in her, as if everything inside her were sinking into a black well of ice. Her heart had known what her mind did not yet grasp: the magnitude of her loss.

Her dad's death had been different. She'd been eleven at the time and remembered him coming in to kiss her good-night before he left for work. He always did that, even if she was sound asleep, but that night she had roused enough to say, "I love you, Daddy."

He'd scooped her up into a bear hug, murmuring, "I love you, Honeybee."

The last words he would ever speak to her.

Morning had brought the news, too awful to comprehend. For days she had refused to believe it, sure that her mother was lying to her. She might have been only eleven, but she'd been aware that her father spent time with other women. She'd been able to smell it on him and read the sadness in her mother's face. So when she was told that he was dead, she at first clung to the desperate hope that her parents had separated and that her mother was lying to her.

But four days later, faced with the horrifying reality of her father's lifeless body in a coffin, with the nightmare of watching that coffin being lowered into the cold, dark earth, she had known the agonizing truth. Daddy was gone.

Forever. That word, bandied around so carelessly before, had suddenly taken on a dimension that stunned her mind. Forever. No more hugs from Daddy--forever. No more knock-knock jokes from Daddy. No more kisses or smiles or Saturday hikes in the woods. No more games of catch and softball. No more smell of his shaving soap. But worst of all, no more comforting Daddy arms to hug her.

She had learned the meaning of forever then. And the knowledge had stayed with her to the night of Karen's death.

Now here she was staring it in the eye again, and some part of her knew she wouldn't be able to handle it if Witt died. She could handle anything but that. Even if she never saw him again, she would be okay as long as she knew he was still on this earth. That awareness would comfort her even if he were gone from her life.

What she couldn't do was risk killing him. He had disowned her. She had made him so angry that he had disowned her, then had a heart attack. She decided that she would stick around just long enough to be sure he was going to be all right.

Then she would leave Whisper Creek.

It wasn't as if she could avoid him in this town. And she didn't want to come between Witt and Hannah. They meant too much to each other after all these years. They were two old friends who relied on each other so much that it would be utterly unconscionable to separate them.

So she would leave. It was the cleanest, easiest solution for them all. Hadn't her mother been hinting that she ought to try out the great big world before she buried herself in this small mountain backwater?

Of course. And Hannah was right.

The arrival of Sam Canfield distracted her from her thoughts. He strode into the room, a look of concern on his face, and pulled up a chair facing her and Hannah. "I just heard about Witt. Is he okay?"

"We don't know," Hannah said.

Sometimes Joni hated her mother's restraint and calm. Anyone else would be pacing the floors, crying, worrying. Hannah sat there calmly, the fear in her eyes the only proof that she was feeling anything at all.

It would have been easier, Joni thought, if Hannah had gotten hysterical. At least she and Sam would have had something to offer.

Some way to be useful.

"Earl Sanders called me," Sam said, referring to the sheriff. "I guess he heard the call on the dispatch. He'd have come himself except his wife and daughter are pretty sick.

Hannah nodded. "There's a nasty stomach virus going around."

How, wondered Joni, could she talk of such a thing at a time like this?

"Well," said Sam, "I'm aiming to stay away from the sick. Would you ladies like some coffee? I happen to know my way to the staff lounge."

"Thanks," Hannah said. "That would be real helpful."

Joni wanted to shake her head but realized it was going to be a long night. "Thanks, Sam. I could use some."

He went off to get the coffee, leaving the two women to look at each other. Hannah reached out suddenly and patted her daughter's leg. "No news is good news," she said.

"I guess." The weight in Joni's chest was growing. "Mom, I'm going to leave." "All right. I know you have to work in the morning

"No, I mean I'm going to leave town. Just as soon as we know about Witt."

Hannah's dark eyes fixed on her, a long, steady stare. "What brought this on?"

"I did a stupid thing. Witt doesn't want to see me anymore. And...

and I don't want to give him another heart attack."

"You didn't give him this one." Hannah took her hand and squeezed it.

"Honey, people don't have heart attacks just because they get mad."

"I know that." Joni drew an unsteady breath. "I still feel responsible. And now that he's had one ... well, it won't do him any good to upset him."

"Joni..." Suddenly Hannah shook her head. "Look, I'm not really up to discussing this at the moment. I'm too distracted. Just promise me you won't leap before you look. We'll talk about this tomorrow, all right? Tomorrow."

Joni realized she was being selfish again, selfish and impulsive. Of course this discussion could wait until her mother's mind was at rest about Witt. "Tomorrow. There's no rush," she reassured Hannah. "I won't do anything sudden."

"Good." Hannah gave her a wan smile. "We ought to hear something soon."

She would know, Joni thought, clinging to Hannah's greater experience with medical things. Half wishing she had followed in her mother's footsteps and become a nurse. Or maybe in her father's and become a doctor. A pharmacist was pretty useless at a time like this.

Sam returned with the coffee. Joni sipped hers slowly, telling herself she needed the caffeine but hating the way the coffee was making her stomach burn. Finally she put the drink aside and jumped up, pacing the waiting room. All she could think was how sick Witt must be if it was taking this long to stabilize him. How touch and go it must be.

How every minute of waiting seemed to bring the horrible possibilities even closer.

Then Dr. Weiss came into the waiting room. "Hannah? We've got him stabilized."

Hannah sagged with relief. It was that sag that told Joni just how tense Hannah had been. And that was when Joni realized her own knees were turning to water with relief. She collapsed on a plastic chair.

"Thank you," Hannah said.

Weiss nodded and went to sit beside her. "As far as we can tell at this point, he had a cardiac arrhythmia."

"How bad?"

"Bad enough that it almost killed him."

"And the prognosis?"

"Pretty good if he doesn't have any more trouble tonight. He'll be on medication for the rest of his life, but it's fairly effective stuff.

I'd like to see him improve his diet, and before long I want to send him to Denver for an arteriogram, to be sure we haven't missed a blockage. But he should recover completely."

They were allowed to go in and see Witt, but Joni hung back, afraid of distressing him. "I'll see him another time," she told her mother.