Hard Rain Read Free

because of his injuries had altered his features so even he had had to look twice in the mirror for a long time. She would be in Turning Point a few days at the most until the worst of the disaster was over. Then she would return to California to her life…to her husband.
    He could handle it. He’d had himself convinced. Then he’d walked into the station and looked into those eyes. Those soft turquoise eyes.
    And there, less than five feet away, was the dream that had dominated his life.
    The silence stretched out between them. Frustrated, Amy turned to the window, focusing on the Texas town passing by. She knew Turning Point, like all small towns, was defined by its inhabitants as much as by its warm creeks and catfish ponds—people who were born here, who grew up here, whose stubbornness and self-righteousness stemmed from a deep sense of place and community. She doubted that any of them, even if ordered, would head to higher grounds.
    “Is this your first time in Texas?”
    The sheriff surprised her. He did not seem one for small talk. Amy wondered if he was deliberately changing the subject. Or like her, did he need a distraction from the thoughts churning inside his head?
    “Yes, it is.”
    “Shame it’s a storm that brings you here.” He did not look at her.
    “Believe me, living on the California coast, we have more than our share of wild weather. A storm only a few months back had Courage Bay Hospital packed. Ever been to California?” She steered the conversation back to him.
    “No, ma’am.”
    “Please…” She lifted her hand to touch his bare forearm. It was the first time she’d ever hesitated. “Call me Amy.” She dropped her hand in her lap.
    “No, I’ve never been to California, Amy.”
    It was his first lie. Jesse knew there would be many more before the disaster was over.
    “Did you grow up here in Turning Point?” She continued to question him.
    He kept his profile to her. His hands gripped the wheel as if he were fighting the wind. “My family has a farm here.”
    “Lived here your whole life?” She too could have easily been making small talk.
    “I’ve seen some other parts of the world. Turning Point is home.”
    “And you’ve been sheriff here about three years?”
    “Yes, ma’am…Amy,” he corrected himself.
    “Do you like the job?”
    “Yes.”
    Amy smiled, unfazed. She was used to difficult patients. Some would even say she relished the challenge. “What do you like about it?”
    He breathed in as if suppressing a sigh. “These are good people in Turning Point. I like helping them. How ’bout you? You like being a doctor?”
    Counterstrike, she thought. “It’s all I ever wanted to do.” She’d been born with an innate need to help others, a need reinforced fourteen years ago when she’d discovered it was safer to care for others than to let someone care for you.
    His gaze shifted to her. There was something undefinable in his features. “Is being a doctor everything you dreamed it would be?” he asked quietly.
    It was not the usual question asked by someone she had known only five minutes. She didn’t answer right away, as if considering the question for the first time herself. She was competent and not without compassion, but she was cautious with her emotions. Many of her colleagues envied her detachment, a skill necessary not only for success but for survival in the medical world. Amy feared she would never love again.
    She looked at the man beside her, thought of the boy she’d loved as she studied this man who bore the same name. As if her thoughts compelled him, he looked her way. Their gazes locked.
    “Lots of things don’t turn out the way you expect them.”
    Something shifted in his eyes. The blue stone splintered. She glimpsed a longing, ageless and deep. A longing she herself had known.
    Could it be?
    He turned away, taking whatever she’d imagined with him. She turned back to the contours of the land, the ground hard from the August sun,