Rachel Lee (28 page)

But, God, what a tempest that would raise with Witt. And Hannah, feeling extraordinarily worn-out emotionally, honestly didn't know if she could handle it.

But it wasn't her decision. Joni was going to do what Joni chose to do. Time to buckle her mental seat belt.

Instead of pursuing the potentially disastrous subject of Hardy, she returned to her first concern. "Do you understand better now, honey?

Do you think you might be able to forgive me?"

"It's not my place to forgive you," Joni said. "But ... I'll have to think about it, Mom. I'm still not sure."

Hannah's heart went tumbling down another rocky slope. "Why?"

"Because ... because I'm still not sure how I feel about it. It's ...

I don't know. It's like everything I

believed just came crashing down around my head and I'm standing in the rabble trying to figure out what I can salvage. "

Hannah was past tears. She asked herself what she had expected. All the explanations in the world didn't make her feel any less guilty or ashamed, so why should she expect them to change Joni's mind? It was a ridiculous hope.

"I'm sorry," Joni said. "I ... need time to absorb all this."

At least the door wasn't closed. And for that, Hannah would have to settle.

-Hardy couldn't wait for morning to check on Joni. The longer he stayed away, the more concerned he grew. Hell, she'd had a serious concussion. Enough to knock her out for almost two hours. That was nothing to treat lightly. In fact, it was serious enough that the hospital was keeping her overnight. What if her brain started to swell?

Barbara tried to soothe him, but she wasn't a doctor, and nothing she said made much of an impact, not even when she pointed out that Joni had her family and didn't need miscellaneous friends showing up.

The idea of her family merely made him snort. Some family. Moreover, he didn't think of himself as a miscellaneous friend. Not anymore.

Not after the past week.

Finally Barbara cocked her head to one side. "Okay, okay. Finish your tea and go. But don't blame me if you and Witt get into it again."

"Witt's not there. Hannah sent him home."

"Really?" Barbara looked curious. "I wonder why?"

"I suspect it had something to do with the fact that he confronted me, and Joni told him to get out."

Barbara's mouth curved in a smile. "I like that young woman more with each passing day."

"Of course you do. She's taking my side."

"No." Barbara shook her head. "She's standing up to Witt. And it's high time somebody did."

"You're not suggesting I do that, are you?"

"No." Her brief laugh was rueful. "It'll come in its own good time, I suppose, but I don't want you seeking it out."

"I don't go looking for trouble, Mom. You know that. I don't need to.

Trouble enough seems to find me."

And it was all too true, he thought as he drove back toward the hospital through the frigid night, his tires crunching on snow and ice.

All too true. Look at the accident with Joni. He just couldn't seem to avoid the stuff.

It was as if he was carrying a private curse around with him, fating him to terrible experience with the Matlock family. But as soon as he had that thought, he dismissed it as lunacy. Curses didn't exist.

He'd just had one of those runs of bad luck that happened sometimes to people, the kind that when you read about them in the newspaper, all you could do was shake your head.

He did, however, scan the parking lot to be sure that Wilt's battered old pickup wasn't anywhere in sight. It wasn't. Relieved, he pulled up near the entrance, parked and stepped out into the icy night.

Snow crunched beneath his boots; he loved that sound. Sometimes he got sick of shoveling and blowing the nearly two hundred inches of it they got each year, but he still loved it. He loved to ski, especially cross-country, which could take him out into the wilderness away from everyone. He liked the way the cold invigorated him, making him feel truly alive and awake.

The minute he stepped through the automatic door, the cold was gone and the heat was on, making his nose and cheeks feel hot. Oh, well.

Everything had a down side.

Because the hospital was small and he was well known to everyone who worked there, he had no difficulty learning where they'd stashed Joni.

He hesitated on the threshold of her room, though, when he saw that Hannah was talking.

But almost instantly she looked his way and smiled. "Come in," she said warmly. "I think Joni's getting sick of my company. She'll be glad of a fresh face. Besides, I need to go find a vending machine. I haven't eaten since breakfast."

"Downstairs, Mom," Joni said as Hardy stepped into the room. "Behind the door marked Staff Lounge. They have dried-up sandwiches, candy bars,

chips, cookies . and there might even be some fresh coffee in the pot.

"

Hannah rolled her eyes. "Doesn't she make those sandwiches sound tempting?"

Joni blew a raspberry. "The guy only gets up here once a week to restock them. Draw your own conclusions."

Hardy stepped aside to let Hannah pass, then looked at Joni, feeling strangely diffident. "I hope it was okay to come by?"

"Sure. Why wouldn't it be?"

"I don't know. Maybe because I was driving the car when you got hurt."

She shook her head. "It wasn't your fault. If you hadn't handled your car so well, we'd probably both be dead."

He sighed and went to stand at the window, seeing nothing but his own reflection against the night and the opened blinds. Shoving his hands into his pockets, he said, "I've been rehearsing that maneuver for twelve years."

Joni drew a sharp breath. He didn't want to look at her for fear of what he might see.

"Ever since the night Karen was killed, I've wondered what I could have done differently. It's been ... haunting me."

"It's haunted us all. Don't tell me you think the accident was your fault."

"No." He shook his head, shifting his attention from his own reflection to hers. It seemed safer than looking at her. "No, I don't think it was my fault. But I haven't been able to stop wondering what I might have done differently. I practiced maneuvers in my mind until I felt as if they were engraved on my muscles. And sometimes I'd go out on an empty road and try them out."

"Oh, Hardy!"

"Anyway, now I know. If I'd had more experience, I might have been able to save Karen's life."

Silence answered him. It was a deep silence. He couldn't hear Joni breathe or stir against the sheets. The silence went on so long that he grew concerned. He turned at last, afraid she might be unconscious, and found her looking at him with tears running down her cheeks.

"What's wrong?" he asked, his heart suddenly pounding. "Does your head hurt?"

"You're still in love with Karen, aren't you?" Then she turned her face away.

His instinct was to answer no. He hadn't been in love with Karen when she died; why would he be in love with her now? "

But he didn't answer quickly. Instead, he forced himself to consider her accusation, to weigh it carefully against everything in his heart.

"No," he said minutes later. "No. I'm in guilt with Karen."

"It's not much different, is it?" she said in a muffled voice, keeping her face averted. "You and Witt both. You're stuck to her memory and living in the past. And you're never going to be free."

There was a certain justice in what she said, much as it stung. But because it stung, he couldn't ignore it.

"What do you want me to do, Joni? Pretend it never happened? Slough off my guilt as if I don't care? It's not that easy!"

"No, it isn't," she shot back. "I know it isn't. I've been living with guilt, too. But you couldn't have saved Karen's life back then, no matter what you say now, because you didn't have the experience when you were eighteen!"

"I know that. Do you think I don't feel that every day?"

"Then what is the point, Hardy?" she asked sadly. "What is the point?

To find new ways to beat yourself up so you can keep it all fresh?"

The words hit him like a slap. He didn't like seeing himself as someone who kept picking at an old wound to keep it fresh. But then he realized something else, and it drove him to say, "Is that what you're doing, Joni?"

"I guess so," she said weakly, and turned her face away again. "I guess so."

"But why? You didn't have anything to do with Karen's death. Nothing at all. There's nothing for you to feel guilty about?" - "No?" She sniffled and wiped at her eyes. "I coveted you. I used -to imagine taking you away from her. I feel guilty, all right."

"Surely you don't think that had anything to with Karen dying...." But even as he spoke, the words trailed off. He knew that was part of the reason he felt so guilty himself.

"I wasn't a good friend," she said, wiping away more tears. "I wasn't a good friend to her."

He stood there, trying to decide whether to reveal the darkest secret in his heart. Which really wasn't so much worse than hers. But he knew the guilt it was causing him. Maybe she wouldn't feel so bad if she knew. So he spoke, putting his trust in her understanding. "I was

... going to break up with Karen that night."

At first he thought she didn't hear him. She kept right on sniffling and watching her tears fall on the sheet. Just as he was about to repeat himself, she looked up.

"What?" she said. It wasn't a confused question. It held the ring of disbelief.

"I said, I was going to break up with her that night."

Her eyes widened, then closed, and she breathed a strained, "My God."

"Yeah. It really messed things up, frankly."

"Had you told her yet?"

"No." He shook his head firmly. "I was going to save it until I dropped her off. I didn't want her to be stuck somewhere with me, with no place to go hide if she wanted to."

"So she never knew." Joni started to shake her head, then winced. "My God."

"It makes me a real slimeball, doesn't it? I had a lot of fun with Karen, but..." He couldn't bring himself to tell the whole truth. "I knew it wasn't love."

"She was certainly in love with you!"

"She thought she was. Hell, for a while I thought I was in love with her. But it was puppy love, Joni. It wasn't ready for reality. It was based on having a great time together on weekends. Having fun hanging out. Not on anything real. And quite frankly, looking back at it, I think half the reason Karen hung around with me was because it angered her father."

Joni picked at the blanket that covered her, pulling little balls of fuzz off it. "Maybe," she said after a while. "It's possible. I know she seemed angry with Witt a lot, but I thought it was because of you."

"Probably was. I don't claim to be a mind reader. And it was a long time ago. Maybe I've amended my memories."

She lifted her gaze to him. "It's possible. I don't know how much of what I remember is real anymore. I've played it all over in my head so many times. How do I know I haven't rationalized a whole bunch of things? But if she was angry with Witt over something other than you, she never told me what it was." "She used to complain that he watched her like a hawk, as if she might go up in smoke at any moment." As soon as he said the words, he felt a shiver run down his spine. Had Witt had a premonition?

"Well," said Joni, "that was understandable. He'd lost his wife and brother. Naturally he was scared he might lose Karen."

It sounded reasonable. But Hardy still couldn't quite shake the chill that had come over him. He told himself it was a crazy feeling, that there was no way Witt could have known or even guessed that Karen was going to die.

But then he found himself remembering his craziness in those last few weeks before the accident. That feeling of almost suffocating under a dark cloud. Of the need to get away and get away fast. He'd thought it was because it was time to move on, but what if.

What if? So what if? If he'd been able to read the future in tea leaves, he would have broken off with her sooner. He never would have taken her out that night. But the impending sense of doom had been so amorphous that he'd put it down to a mood. Teenagers had moods all the time. He'd managed to realize that by the age of eighteen and had stopped putting a whole lot of stock in them.

But what if Witt had . no. Witt had believed from the outset that Hardy was bad for Karen. That, combined with two grievous personal losses, would have been enough to make Witt paranoid.

"Hardy?" Joni's voice interrupted his thoughts. "What's wrong?"

He almost groused, "What isn't?" but caught himself in time. Joni didn't deserve that. "Just remembering. Wondering about things. But there'll never be any answers, so what's the point?"

"No, there won't be." She shifted against her pillow and sighed.

"Somehow we all need to just let go of this. We all made mistakes. We all did things we're not proud of. But ... we all must feel that when someone we love dies. I think everyone must sit around wishing they hadn't done this or wishing they had done that."

"Probably."

"So we're not all that weird."

He pulled the chair away from the wall and dragged it around to where he could see her better. "Except for hanging on to this thing for so long."

"So how do we let go?"

"I don't know." He rubbed his chin and sighed heavily. "I don't know, Joni. Everything that's happened since you gave me that bid package has only seemed to make it all fresh again. As fresh as it ever was."

"God. That wasn't what I wanted to do at all."

"I know." He felt his mouth trying to smile at her, but he wasn't ready to smile at anyone. About anything. He felt as if he were sitting on a psychic minefield, waiting for the next explosion. But he couldn't be the only one feeling that way. Joni probably did, too, to judge by the things she'd been saying. And maybe even Witt. Although Witt had always been a great big minefield.