An Unkind Winter (Alone Book 2) (20 page)

     In the dog days of summer, whenever our supply of coffee started to get stale, I tried to find them again. I knew they were here somewhere, because I specifically remembered you being all bubbly on the day you told me they came in.

     So I searched again. All the same places, inch by inch, foot by foot, all through the house. Well, all through the house except for the one place nobody in their right mind would ever hide coffee beans.

     Now, of course, it’s in the dead of winter and I can’t plant them. The package that came with them said they’re raw, so I don’t know if I can grind them and use them. And I won’t be here in the spring to plant them.

     The instructions didn’t say how long they were good for. Hopefully they’ll still grow. I can’t imagine a world without coffee. It would be terrible. The only thing worse would be a world without you guys. And I already have that.

     Anyway, obviously I’m glad you don’t have two Latin lovers named Juan and Carlos. And I’m glad that Lindsey and Beth have my blue eyes. And I’m glad you’re not going to kill me and chop me into pieces.

     But, Lucy, you still have some ‘splainin’ to do. Like why on earth would you hide coffee beans in your drawer with your lingerie and other stuff?

     And speaking of that other “stuff,” let’s talk about that for a minute.

     I knew you had things in that drawer that you could never show the children. But I came across one I’d never seen before. It has a little plastic paddle and switches and spins around and all kinds of stuff. It looks like some king of weird alien device. Maybe you can show me when you get home what you use it for.

     Hey, it just occurred to me that maybe it’s a kitchen device. I mean, you were always buying all of those weird kitchen gadgets on the late night infomercials. You’d swear they would slice and dice garlic better than ever before, or make great smoothies for the girls. And then after they got used once or twice they would go into a drawer for a year or two until you got tired of looking at them. Then you’d throw them away to make room for even more gadgets.

     Perhaps this thing is one of those gadgets that you decided to keep in your lingerie drawer for some reason.

     Go ahead, ask me. Ask me who in their right mind would ever store a kitchen gadget in their lingerie drawer?

     Ahem. Maybe the same kind of fruitcake who would store coffee beans there.

     Anyway, I got a good laugh out of the whole thing. And I got some coffee beans that may still be good when I can finally plant them.

     But most of all, I have a nightgown on my pillow that smells just like you, and it’s silky and soft, and when I close my eyes I can almost imagine it’s you.

     Almost. My imagination’s not quite that good.

     So all in all it was worth the effort. I slept on the nightgown today for the first time, and I slept better than I have in weeks.

     Now if I could just figure out where you hid the information you printed out about bunny rabbits and whether or not they hibernate in the wintertime.

     Yes, I already looked in your underwear drawer to see if the bunny information was mixed in with your bras. It wasn’t.

     Let’s see, where would be the next logical place for you to hide information about bunny rabbits? Maybe stapled to the roof? Under the bathroom sink? In the oven?

     I want to find it because if they’re supposed to be hibernating but can’t because their tunnels aren’t big enough, I want to make some kind of insulated shelter for them or something.

     I’ll find the information eventually, but I wish you were here to help. Shoot, I wish you were here for a million different reasons.

     Mostly because I need you by my side. That’s where you belong. Not a thousand damn miles away.

-38-

     Perhaps asking Sarah for her help with the rabbits was just the magic Dave needed.

     Or maybe he was just on a roll after finally finding the coffee beans.

     More likely, though, it was probably just pure coincidence that an hour after he asked Sarah’s help he stumbled across what he’d been looking for.

     He found it sandwiched between information on weather patterns in south Texas, and information on how to tell a poison ivy rash from a case of heat rash.

     It occurred to him that Sarah was about as random a person as he’d ever met.

     But he wouldn’t change a thing about her. She was also as close to perfect as any woman he’d ever known.

     He read the article she’d printed out, entitled
Everything you ever wanted to know about rabbits
, and learned that rabbits do not hibernate.

     “Most species merely limit their movements during cold weather months. They may look like they’re hibernating, but in reality they are just conserving their energy by remaining perfectly still much of the time.

     “Species that live in cold weather climates also shed their thinner summer fur and grow very thick winter fur that keeps them from freezing to death. They take shelter wherever they can find it, frequently in burrows or old buildings to escape the wind.

     “Some species of rabbits that live in snowy environments grow a thick layer of white fur during the winter. Such fur helps hide them from predators in a snow pack. They typically make tunnels in the snow pack at ground level, which enable them to eat dead grass and foliage until the spring thaw comes.

     “The heavy snow also helps insulate them from wind and extreme temperatures.

     “Some of the more sociable species huddle together for warmth during extreme cold, and breeding for some species comes to a stop in extreme cold temperatures to keep tender offspring from freezing to death.”

     Dave finally had his answer. He wouldn’t have to devise some kind of living quarters for the rabbits to protect them from the cold. They’d be just fine left alone.

     It was a huge weight off his shoulders. Even though he certainly had the time to take on such a project, and it would certainly have helped while away the hours until spring came, it would have been an outdoor project.

     And he hated being out in the cold.

     He stapled the four pages together and wrote at the top:
Information: Rabbits
.

     Once he got both boxes of research material sorted and marked, he’d come up with some type of filing system to put it all in order. But since he had at least six thousand more pages to go through, it might take awhile.

     He hoped it would take most of the winter. For this was a project he could do inside the safe room, in front of a roaring fire. Instead of outside like those poor pitiful bunnies.

     He briefly thought of the two rabbits he’d named Lindsey and Beth. He wondered how they were faring in the weather.

     And he wondered if he should make an exception for them. Maybe bring them into the house, out of the wind, and lock them up in the pantry or something, where he could easily clean up after them. For awhile now he’d considered them more as friends than main ingredients in a stew pot. Before Mikey came along, and even after, he sometimes carried on long conversations with them.

     He decided that the next time he saw them out, eating from the food pile he’d thrown over the fence after the corn and wheat harvest, he’d try to trap them. Thus far they’d avoided most efforts he’d made to pick them up, or even pet them.

     So he’d leave it up to them. If they cooperated enough to come to him, they’d spend the rest of the winter in relative comfort.

     If they insisted on being stuck up and unsociable, they’d have to weather the cold with the rest of the rabbits.

     He wondered what it would be like to share his house with two rabbits.

     He decided it wouldn’t be so bad. After all, he was already sharing it with a dead guy.   

-39-

     Dave had been in a general funk for several days, ever since he realized that Christmas was coming up.

     Christmas was a big deal in the Speer family. It was by far the most joyous event of the year.

     They did everything as a family during the Christmas season. They made paper and popcorn garlands, worked together to hang lights on the shrubs in the front yard and decorated the tree together. Dave always built a small campfire in the back yard for their annual Christmas Eve wienie and marshmallow roast. After the event, they’d go caroling in the neighborhood, then go home and warm up with a cup of hot chocolate before bedtime.

     It was by far the best family tradition they’d developed, and each of them looked forward to it every year.

     But not this year.

     When Dave looked at the calendar and noticed that Christmas was four days away, he went into an immediate depression. He spent the entire next night in bed, feeling sorry for himself and being angry at the world.

     He knew that just laying there was the worst possible thing he could do. That he needed to stay busy, so he could focus on other things.

     But he just couldn’t muster the energy or desire to get up and do anything.

     For two straight days all he did was stay in the safe room, sleeping off and on, crying a little bit, and being miserable.

     Then he had an epiphany.

     Instead of mourning Christmas, he should be embracing it. In the absence of his family, it was up to him to carry on the tradition as best he could. They would all be together again before the next winter rolled around. To allow the tradition to lapse in their absence would be doing the family a disservice.

     It was an amazing turnaround. One minute he was lying in the bed in the middle of the night, which was normally his day, with tears in his eyes.

     The next minute he was in the attic, searching desperately through boxes, for Sarah’s tiny Christmas tree.

     Sarah had grown up in a family that always cut their own fresh tree at Christmas time. For most of her childhood she lived in Alamogordo, New Mexico. It was a desert community, and its supply of suitable Christmas trees was therefore pretty pathetic.

     However, the resort city of Cloudcroft was less than an hour away. Ruidoso was an hour and a half in another direction. Both had mountains and fresh air and lots of snow. And also lots of trees suitable to cut down and take home for Christmas.

     The night he’d proposed to her, Sarah told Dave she would marry him under three conditions.

     “First, you must always love me, forever and ever. Even though I can be a real butthead sometimes.”

     “Agreed.”

     “What, that I can be a real butthead sometimes? Or that you agree to always love me?”

     “Well, both, actually.”

     “Okay. Second, you must always be faithful to me. Without exception. And remember that if you’re ever not faithful I’ll turn you into a unicorn.”

     “You mean a eunuch.”

     “Okay, that too.”

     “Well, since I will never be unfaithful to you, I have nothing to fear. So yes, I agree. What’s the third condition?”

     “You must always let me have my way. Always, without exception.”

     “Well, now, that’s a toughie. What if you happen to be in one your butthead moments and want something, but you’re completely wrong? Do you still want me to let you have your way?”

     “You’re speaking hypothetically, right? Because I’m never ever wrong.”

     “Even when you’re a butthead?”

     “Especially when I’m a butthead.”

     “Okay, then. It’s a hypothetical question. Even though we know you’re never wrong, if you ever are, should I let you have your way?”

     “Then you have to make a choice. Either you give me my way and then suffer my wrath for letting me get myself into trouble. Or you don’t give me my way and suffer my wrath for not giving me my way. It’s a simple choice, really. Cyanide or arsenic. A blade or a bullet. How hard can it be, really?”

     She smiled sweetly at him and batted her eyes, making it impossible not to laugh.

     “I’ll tell you what,” he offered. “You’ve always said I was your knight in shining armor, right?”

     “Don’t forget the big white horse.”