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days. Herself, who always felt as if she was just marking time. And Hardy, who, as far as she could tell, hadn't even dated.
    They were all unfinished lives, and for so long none of them seemed to have taken any real steps to move forward emotionally.
    Karen wouldn't have liked that. And it was time, Joni decided with a stiffening of her shoulders, that someone pushed them past their frozen emotional states.
    Scooping up the request for bids, she tucked it under her baggy green Shaker sweater and set out on her personal mission to thaw the glacier that had swallowed them all.
    "Where are you going?" Hannah asked as Joni passed her in the living room. "Supper's almost ready."
    "I won't be long," Joni replied, not even breaking step. "I just need to run over to ... Sally's. Back in a sec."
    "Be careful out there. It's getting really bad."
    No kidding, Joni thought after she'd tugged on her parka, hat, mittens and boots, and stepped outside. It had been bad enough when she'd come home from work, but now the wind was blowing so hard that ice crystals stung her face, and the street lamp two houses down was nothing but a glow in the snow hidden night.
    If she'd had to go either up- or downhill to get to HardyX house, she would have stopped right there. But he lived three blocks over on a cross street, a level run. She could make it.
    The night was mysterious and threatening, the whipping snow hiding the landmarks, making the world look unfamiliar. Leaning into the wind, squinting against the stinging snow, she slipped and slid down the drifting street. The sidewalks, caught as they were between two deep snowbanks, were already filled with the snow they caught, and the going was easier on the street. There was no traffic at all to give her any problems.
    It was so lonely out here. There was something about being out in the middle of a snowstorm alone that left her feeling cut off and solitary to her very soul. The little bits of warm light that reached her from the street lamps and the glow from nearby windows only made her feel lonelier somehow.
    She'd always felt this way on cold wintry nights, walking down darkened streets with no other soul in evidence, but tonight was even worse than usual, as if all the empty places in her heart were filled with a cold, whistling wind she couldn't ignore. Nor could she shrug off the feeling.
    Hardy's house was just another one of the small Victorians lining the streets in this part of town, but unlike the rest, his was a showplace renovated through his own hard work and skill.
    Even back in high school, Hardy had loved to work with his hands and with wood. He'd replaced the gingerbread on the house during those years, spending painstaking hours in the school shop, because he didn't have the tools at home, whenever he didn't have to work. Karen had spent a lot of those hours with him, watching him, admiring his growing skill. Occasionally Joni had joined them.
    But since Hardy had come back from college, he'd transformed the exterior, getting rid of the ugly aluminum siding and replacing it with wood, hanging new shutters, rebuilding the huge porch. She imagined he'd done a lot of work on the inside, too, but she didn't know, because she'd never been invited in, not since Karen's death.
    At the foot of the porch steps, she hesitated, forgetting the snow that sliced at her cheeks. This was nuts, and she didn't delude herself about it. Hardy might tell her she was crazy, to get lost. Sometimes she wondered if he agreed with Witt's opinion of him.
    Then there was Witt. He would forgive her. Maybe. He certainly hadn't been able to forgive Hardy all these years. But she was different, she told herself. She was his niece. His brother's daughter. He couldn't possibly treat her the same way he had treated Hardy.
    That was what she told herself, anyway. She was well aware that she didn't believe it one hundred percent as she climbed the steps and finally rang Hardy's bell.
    A minute passed before the