Winter Frost (A Chris Matheson Cold Case Mystery Book 2) by Lauren Carr

Winter Frost (A Chris Matheson Cold Case Mystery Book 2) by Lauren Carr

Author:Lauren Carr [Carr, Lauren]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Acorn Book Services
Published: 2019-01-27T22:00:00+00:00


Chapter Thirteen

Helen Clarke’s stomach flip-flopped while her sixteen-year-old daughter Sierra rode over the hill and out of sight with Nikki and Emma, Chris’s two youngest daughters.

A horse enthusiast, ten-year-old Nikki had no problem stepping in to take her father’s place for Sierra’s weekly riding lesson. Sierra would have been heart-broken if Helen had cancelled the lesson, which she was tempted to do. While not likely, she feared that whoever was after Blair would track down Chris’s family at his farm.

That’s why Helen made sure she had both her service and back-up weapon on hand. She knew Doris would also be heavily armed under her coat, as if her entourage, Sadie and Mocha, weren’t enough.

The same fears crossing her mind, Doris sent the two dogs out on the trail ride with the girls. Preferring to keep the events of the last twenty-four hours under wraps, Doris claimed the dogs needed exercise.

“They’re going to be fine.” Clad in a black leather coat with matching boots and gloves, Doris slipped her arm across Helen’s shoulder and gave her a hug as the riders and dogs galloped out of sight.

“If we say it enough, we’ll believe it.” Helen shivered in her worn winter coat. Her date weekend being a bust, she had dressed down in jeans and a comfy oversized sweater.

They went across the barnyard to the warm house.

“You should be with Chris,” Doris said. “He needs you. I imagine it doesn’t get any easier losing your spouse to a violent death the second time around.”

“I don’t want to look like I’m swooping in,” Helen said. “It was only a few hours ago that I backed off because he ended up being married. Now Blair’s dead again, and I immediately swoop in to comfort him? It’ll look like I’m an opportunist.”

Doris climbed onto the porch and opened the door leading into the mudroom. “It’ll look like you’re being there for him.”

In the mudroom, they took off their coats and hung them up before going into the country kitchen.

“Chris doesn’t talk that much about Blair. What was she like?”

“I try not to speak ill of the dead,” Doris said.

“Blair didn’t run off with another man,” Helen said. “That Australian ended up being an intelligence agent trying to help her and the operative get back to the US.”

In the kitchen, Doris pressed the button to brew the coffee that she had set up earlier. “I know I’m old fashioned, and I can be opinionated, but I feel it was so wrong for her to abandon her family the way she did. For what? Her career?” She put cream and extra sugar into a coffee mug. “It was Blair who wanted to get married, buy a house, and start a family. Chris gave her everything she wanted, but in the end, it wasn’t good enough.”

“Society keeps telling us that we’re a traitor to fellow women if we don’t do it all,” Helen said with a grin.

“She had a career when she’d met Chris. Such that it was. She started out as a clerk and worked up to a communications officer—not making a lot of money.



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