Hard Rain Read Free Page A

blue-eyed gaze sharpening. “I wanted to talk about your former wife.”
    Sarah. The woman who, twenty-three years ago, had tried to kill herself, and failing that, had disappeared only to return with seemingly no memory of where she’d been or why she’d done what she had. Buck had hated her bitterly for leaving him to raise their six daughters alone. But when she’d returned from the dead after twenty-two years, he’d also realized that she was the only woman he’d ever truly loved.
    “About Sarah...” Buckmaster said, but was interrupted by the ringing of his cell phone.
    * * *
    S ARAH J OHNSON H AMILTON tried the number again. The wind had come up outside. She watched a dust devil whip across the yard of the old farmhouse. Closer, she studied her reflection in the glass. On the surface, she looked like a shy, fiftysomething, blonde, blue-eyed, ingenuous woman. Not like a woman who had dark secrets.
    The phone at the other end rang a fourth time and then went to voice mail.
    As grit pelted the front window, she stepped back and disconnected. She didn’t leave a message this time. Russell hadn’t called her back after her other messages. She doubted he would now.
    Sarah knew she shouldn’t be calling Russell, especially after she’d broken their engagement. If Buck knew, he would have a fit and make more of it than it was.
    She just needed to hear Russell’s voice and know that he was all right. But, if she was honest with herself, that wasn’t the only reason. After fainting at her daughter Bo’s wedding, she’d been running scared. Maybe there was more wrong with her than the neurologist said. Or maybe he was right, and it was all in her head.
    She couldn’t remember why she’d fainted but when she’d opened her eyes, her daughter Kat had been leaning over her. “What?” Sarah had said at her daughter’s angry expression.
    “She’s all right,” Kat said as she’d helped her mother to her chair. “Everyone just move back and give her some air. You, too, Dad.”
    It wasn’t until they’d all stepped back that Kat had said, “Who was he? The man you saw standing outside the reception who made you turn ghost white and faint?”
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sarah had said. “I don’t remember seeing—”
    “That’s right. You don’t remember anything ,” Kat had said sarcastically.
    She had gritted her teeth, reminding herself that Kat had always been the impossible child, but also one of the smartest. Kat had seen something. “What did this man look like?” she’d asked.
    “Handsome even after all these years. He looked like your former lover from The Prophecy, Joe Landon. Ring any bells? No, that’s right, you didn’t recognize anyone in the photo I showed you. Not even the image of the alleged former Sarah Johnson. Or should I call her Red?”
    She hadn’t recognized any of the people in the photograph—even the redheaded woman who held a slight resemblance to herself—let alone the handsome man standing next to the woman.
    “Kat,” she’d said impatiently. “I wasn’t a member of some anarchist group.”
    “Keep telling yourself that, Sarah. But you just saw one of the men and fainted. Try to explain that away.”
    She’d been shaken throughout the rest of the wedding festivities and had had to hide it from her husband and her other five daughters. As far as she could tell, Kat hadn’t told her sisters about her suspicions. No one believed her that she couldn’t remember the twenty-two years she’d been gone—let alone something Kat believed she’d done in college.
    Wasn’t that why she desperately needed to talk to Russell? He had always been able to calm her down. Mostly, she needed someone that she could trust to talk to. But could she still trust Russell after breaking his heart?
    “I’m worried about Russell.” In retrospect she shouldn’t have voiced that worry to Buck the last time he was home from his presidential campaign. He was