Today it felt frozen.

Perhaps if Walt were beside her she could appreciate it. Only he was held up in a hospital looking over his father’s care.

She placed her purse in her lap and retrieved her phone. A quick text to Walt told him they’d arrived in one piece.

The moment she kicked her shoes off and her feet up, Junior decided to dance. “You’re something,” she said to her unborn child. “Nothing for hours and now you wanna play.”

Instead of searching out a bedroom and risking disturbing JoAnne, Dakota helped herself to a glass of milk and a piece of bread before finding a blanket and pillow on a couch. Even with Junior kicking up a storm, she fell asleep in minutes and didn’t wake for hours.

Her head ached, her back wasn’t right, but she woke feeling marginally better than when she’d fallen in a comatose heap on the couch. The sun was still high, which told her she’d not slept as long as she might have needed.

She found her cell phone and checked her messages like some might check the morning paper.

Walt let her know he received her text hours before, and then sent a message later to text when she woke.

Another text came from Mary, asking how everyone was.

Then there was her agent, Desi, asking if they could meet before their noon appointment with the publisher.

Overwhelmed, Dakota called Walt first.

“Hey,” she said when he answered the phone.

“You haven’t slept long enough.” Sure enough, she’d looked at the time on her phone before she’d placed the call and she’d only been down a few hours.

“I could never work graveyard and sleep during the day. How are you? You sound tired.”

“Remind me to never do this again.”

She forced a laugh. “Like you have a choice. How’s your dad?”

“Cantankerous, argumentative, and downright mean. So he’s better than I thought he’d be.”

Funny how a man being an ass could bring joy to her heart. “Good to hear. How are you? Did you manage any sleep?”

“I’ll sleep tonight.”

Translation . . . no. He hadn’t slept. “Walt.”

“I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

He sighed. “How’s my mom?”

“Sleeping.”

“Was she awful to you?”

Dakota watched the wind blow snow off the treetops. “She was too tired for that. She’s been in her room the whole time.”

“That’s probably a good thing.”

Walt went on to tell her about his father’s upcoming surgery and how the nurses were earning their Christmas bonuses putting up with him. Walt asked if she could order dinner and lunch for the staff in an effort to ease their suffering.

Dakota moved into the kitchen and wrote a note to herself to order something for the staff. “I’ll take care of it,” she told him.

“Have I told you how much I appreciate you being here?”

“You have, and you don’t need to. I’ll let you know when we leave to visit.”

“OK. Drive safe.”

“I will.”

Dakota hung up the phone and moved about the kitchen. After foraging through the kitchen, she found the coffee and brewed a pot. From there she managed to heat up some soup, found a mug to bring some to Walt when they left.

For company, Dakota turned on the television, found the evening news.

The forecast told her the night would freeze and sometime during the next twenty-four hours a low would pass through. On the heels of that, another would sock in.

“Great,” she mumbled. “Like we need bad weather to make things harder.”

The thought, however, made Dakota consider what was in the Eddy pantry. She moved into it, noted the canned food, the water supplies. The central heater kept the house warm, but did they have firewood?

In full prepper mode, Dakota pulled on her jacket and checked the mudroom and porch outside the house.

Firewood was stacked alongside the house, giving her some ease.

They’d be driving up and down the mountain . . . so the question was what did the Eddys have in their cars?

Dakota cringed when she realized how little JoAnne had in her possession when driving.

Well, Dakota knew better, and she went about making sure any car she’d be using over the next week was prepared.

The drive back down the mountain was just as entertaining as it was going up. JoAnne didn’t sleep, but conversation was limited to directions. Dakota was happy to drop her off at the front door of the hospital and search out a parking spot on her own.

She took a moment alone once she parked the car to call Desi. “You’re going to have to make my excuses,” she told her agent. A five-minute discussion explained where Dakota was and why she wasn’t meeting with her publisher in the morning. “The good news is, my next book is done.”

“What?” Desi’s surprise matched the high-pitched tone. “You’re kidding?”

“No. I was going to deliver it personally, but I’m sending you a file instead.”

“You’re two months ahead of schedule.”

“I know. Call me inspired, or maybe it was the restless nights. I’m sure the pace won’t be the same once Junior is born. Might as well put in the hours now while I can.”

“It sounds like you’re stressed out. How are you doing?”

“I’m good, actually. Walt and I have found our pace, I think . . . hopefully his father’s blip in his health is only that.”