A Cold Christmas Read Online Free

want?”
    â€œI’d like to come in.”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œCome on, Cal. It’s freezing out here.”
    She closed the door.
    â€œCaley?” He knocked, then leaned on the doorbell.
    She opened the door a few inches.
    â€œIt’s really cold.” He looked charming and sexy.
    Her manner softened. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”
    â€œThat’d be great,” he said with relief.
    â€œThere’s a convenience store six blocks that way and two blocks right. If you jog you’ll stay warmer.”
    â€œI have to talk to you.”
    â€œWe are talking. Similar to the last time. How long ago was that? Three weeks? Eight weeks?”
    â€œCouldn’t we go in where it’s warm?”
    â€œIt’s not warm in here, it’s the Sahara. The furnace stuck. You want to pay the repair bill?”
    â€œOf course. I’ll write a check. How much do you need?”
    She knew what his checks were worth. “If you have money why didn’t you use some of it to take Adam out on his birthday?”
    â€œI explained that.”
    â€œYeah, well, when you’re eight and your dad says he can’t take you like he promised, you don’t really understand the line ‘Something important came up.’” She crossed her arms. “It never was a very good line anyway.” She shivered and rubbed her arms.
    â€œLet me in, Caley. I want to see them. They’re my kids too. In fact, Zach is—”
    â€œThey’re not here.”
    â€œWhere are they?”
    She hesitated, then sighed. They loved their father, and in his own way he loved them too. It was just that his way was limited. He made promises he didn’t keep, and it broke their hearts. Zach was beginning to expect it and prepared himself for disappointment. He no longer believed the rosy plans his dad told him about, the ball games, the picnics, the movies, the drives to Kansas City. Zach just kept quiet and waited, but she could see the misery in his eyes when none of the glorious plans materialized. Adam, though not yet burned enough to accept it as the norm, was starting to get the picture. But Bonnie loved her father with no hesitations, got thrilled to bubbling when he laid out some special plan. When he didn’t come through, she was devastated and inconsolable. Caley didn’t want to badmouth their father, but she hated to see them so hurt and had taken to throwing in a few cautionary words. Like, “That’ll be wonderful if…”
    Mat stood there blowing on his hands and shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “Listen, Caley, I have to talk to you. It’s important.”
    â€œOh, really. Important to whom?”
    â€œWhat?” He was getting a mite impatient with her. “What’s the matter with you? Something has come up—”
    â€œCome up? Again? You really ought to get some new material.” She closed the door.
    â€œCaley!” He pounded, then jabbed the doorbell.
    After he got tired of pounding and yelling and stabbing her doorbell, she took her woozy head and her aching bones and clumped down the basement steps.
    Awfully quiet. She peered under the banister. The furnace sat with its outer panels removed and pieces of its insides spread on the floor. Where was Tim the repairman? Took it on the lam through one of the narrow, grimy windows? Hiding? She really did have to get rid of all the junk down here. Ugly old furniture you wouldn’t have in your house, ugly old pictures you wouldn’t have on your walls, boxes and boxes of junk left by the previous owners—and maybe the owners before them and the owners before them, for all she knew.
    â€œMs. James?”
    She spun around, heart flying up to her throat, beating so hard she couldn’t breathe.
    Tim had crept up behind her with a live snake, the biggest blackest maddest snake she’d ever seen.

3
    The scream got tangled in her throat and