A Cold Christmas Read Free

and then all the way up. She did it again. Dumbly, she stood there as the enormity of the situation made its way through to her brain. The furnace didn’t work. The worst winter since Kansas became a state—when was that? Eighteen something? The furnace was dead.
    Clutching her coat tight at her throat, she clumped down the rickety basement steps and peered at the metal monster. Like everything else in the house, it was old. It sat silently in its spot in the corner like a dumb beast too tired and abused to go on.
    â€œDamn it!” She kicked it.
    â€œâ€¦ got released,” Zach was saying. “And dangerous.”
    â€œZach, what are you talking about?”
    He sighed. “Grandma called right after you left.”
    â€œWhat did she want?”
    â€œI don’t know. Some stuff about this guy being dangerous and you should be careful and not let in any strangers.”
    Back upstairs, in the kitchen, Caley flipped through pages. Furnaces, furnaces. “What was Ettie talking about?”
    â€œI don’t know. You know how she is.” Her ex-husband’s mother was a mixed blessing, great in some ways, but given a topic she was a nonstop talker.
    â€œWhere’s that flyer that came in the mail?”
    Zach put his finger on a flyer tacked to the corkboard over the phone. “When it came I put it here just in case.” Shanky’s Furnace and Air Conditioning.
    Caley rubbed her eyes, then punched numbers and explained her problem.
    A sympathetic female voice said someone would be out within the next two hours. It would cost seventy-five dollars for him to take a look at it. Seventy-five dollars?
    â€œWe could build a fire,” Zach suggested.
    She put her arms around him, pulled him close, and kissed the top of his head, probably smearing germs all over him. What would she do without this child? This calm sensible child, too adult for twelve. Keep yourself under control and don’t panic so much, she said silently. It wasn’t fair to him.
    He brought in wood, arranged it in the fireplace, crumpled newspapers, and within minutes had a fire going. Even Bonnie perked up a bit with logs cheerily crackling away.
    Two hours and twenty minutes later, rescue arrived. He was thin inside a bulky black jacket, thin face with a comma-shaped scar like the letter C on his left cheek, high forehead, blondish hair, and blank deep-set hazel eyes, “Tim” stitched on his shirt pocket.
    As she started down the basement stairs, Bonnie scrambled over and flung small arms around her waist. “Mommy, don’t.”
    â€œI’m just going to show him where the furnace is.”
    â€œDon’t go!”
    â€œBonnie…”
    â€œNooo!” Tears trickled down Bonnie’s round cheeks. “Please, Mommy. You won’t ever come back. Like the witch in Hansel and Gretel. You’ll be burned up.”
    â€œThat was an oven,” Adam said scornfully.
    â€œHe’s gonna hurt you.”
    â€œOf course he won’t, darling. He’s here to fix the furnace so we can get warm.”
    â€œHe has funny eyes,” Bonnie mumbled, sticking to her guns.
    He did, Caley thought. Goat’s eyes. Hazel, intelligent, knowing, and taking in everything. When she was a child, she’d owned a book about a troll who lived under a bridge. The evil troll had eyes just like the man she was about to take into her basement.
    She gathered up her daughter, kissed the flushed face, and brushed light hair from her forehead. “You sit here. I’ll be right back.”
    She turned on the basement light and stepped back to let him go first, not wanting him behind her.
    A flicker of malice stirred in his eyes before he turned and trotted down the steps.
    She pointed out the furnace, against the wall under the dirty narrow window. He placed his toolbox on the cement floor, removed a furnace panel, and crouched to shine a flashlight at its innards.
    She huddled on