Finally her fumbling paid off and the door pushed open. Relief surged through her. It was all she needed, all she wanted-home, a place to hole up and hide out for a while. Inside, that awful screaming wind was immediately silenced. The temperature was still freezing, of course, but all she had to do was flick on the furnace, get some hot tea going, get warmed up. Everything was going to be okay.

She dropped her bag and purse, yanked off her snow-crusted gloves, and took her chattering teeth and shaking hands over to the thermostat. She flicked the dial, expecting to hear the gentle woomph of the furnace starting up.

But there was no woomph. No sound at all.

Frowning, she reached for the light switch, thinking that she’d misread the dial in the gloom.

No light turned on. She tried the light over the sink. No light there, either. She flew for the telephone then, but obviously she should have guessed there’d be no functional phone with no one living in the house right now, and she hadn’t been home from France long enough to get a cell phone. For a moment she stared blankly around the kitchen, thinking it had been blue and white the last time she’d been home. Now everything was red-red tiles, chintz curtains and rocker cushions. Violet must have done it. The Live Well, Love Much, Laugh Often sign, the girl stuff and country-corny doodads all looked like Violet, too. Daisy didn’t care if it wasn’t her decorating taste. The drumbeat in her pulse just kept reassuringly thumping home home home.

Only she couldn’t stay here. If there was no power, no furnace, there was no way to get warm. No way to cook. She couldn’t go out in subzero temperatures in the middle of this storm and chop wood. Frantically she jimmied the thermostat dial again, pushing it back and forth, praying for the sound of the furnace. But there was nothing.