Read Silver Thaw for Free Online Page B

still got his answering machine. At this point, she was inclined to believe he just wasn’t answering the phone. If so, he had a great game going, collecting the rent and spending nothing on repairs. She couldn’t afford to fix anything. When this was all over, she’d have to start looking for another place to live.
    Above them, a loud cracking sound cut through the air. Chloe gave a start and stared at the ceiling. “Mommy, is our roof breaking?”
    “No, of course not.” Amanda injected more certainty into her voice than she actually felt. She and Mark had lived in a few dumps, but the roofs had always held fast. “You know how this house creaks at night? I think this is the same thing.”
Only much louder.
    *   *   *
    It took Jeb nearly an hour in town to buy emergency supplies. The backseat of his crew-cab pickup was packed with survival blankets, fuel and wicks for paraffin and kerosene lanterns, D batteries for flashlights, a few actual flashlights in case some people didn’t have one, hand warmers, candles, matches, miniature propane tanks for gas camp stoves, about three dozen energy bars, two of which he’d reserved for himself and tossed on the dash, and several cases of bottled water.
    Only then could he begin checking on residents. Though he’d chosen Elderberry Lane as his primary route, he knew several older women who lived alone on Ponderosa. His mother hung out with them at the senior center, and she would expect Jeb to check on them since he lived so close.
    He decided to start near the town center on Ponderosa, so his first stop was at Kay Brickle’s. The postmistress of Mystic Creek, she was short and stout with permed gray hair and a mouth that always seemed to be in high gear, mostly to spread gossip.
    Trying to be polite, Jeb cut her off. “I’ve got no time to chat, Kay. It appears to me that you’re set up to weather the storm.” Jeb heard the hum of a generatoroutside. “Does that motor produce enough power to run your furnace?”
    “Well . . .” Kay began most sentences with that word, drawing it out until it grated on Jeb’s nerves. “Of course it runs my furnace, and I’ve got a woodstove as backup. I’m not stupid like some folks I could name in this town.”
    Jeb grew worried as he drove farther along Ponderosa. He got no answers when he knocked on the doors where he knew his mom’s friends lived. As he progressed from house to house, he saw bright illumination gleaming through the windows of Mary Melissa Dilling’s place. He thanked God for his shoe chains as he walked to her front porch. From inside he heard a chorus of voices and laughter. When he knocked, Donna Harris, who lived on the adjacent acre, opened the door. Her blond-streaked hair was feathered around her face to set off her merry green eyes.
    “Hi, Jeb. Welcome to our ice storm party!”
    Jeb peered over her shoulder to see Donna’s sister, Lisa Meekins, Ellie Kay Hathaway, Nancy Hayes, Michelle Nelson, and Thipin Jarlego gathered around a large round table. It looked as if they were playing cards.
    “I just wanted to check on all of you,” Jeb explained. “I was getting pretty worried when no one answered my knocks.”
    “Mary Melissa has a backup generator!” Thipin Jarlego, a petite blonde with blue eyes who looked younger than her sixty-five years, flashed a ready grin at him over her fanned cards. “When we heard this storm was coming, Judy Burr lent us her husband, Ralph. He blew out our pipes, filled them with safe antifreeze, and we moved in here, dogs and cats included. We’re snug as bugs in a rug.”
    Jeb thought he counted five dogs and six cats, but there was so much activity going on that he might have missed a critter or two. He noted that Mary Melissa’s woodstove emitted a blast of heat. “You have plenty of wood within easy reach?”
    “We put on shoe chains yesterday and loaded my back veranda with enough logs to last a week,” Mary Melissa assured him as she crossed