Night Thunder Read Free Page B

where her mother’s birth mother lived—Thunder Creek.
    And as the vibrant, overcrowded city of New York pulsed and raced far below her window, a breeze of a long-ago memory once more stirred her heart and ruffled something deep in her soul.
    For Josy had been to Thunder Creek. Once. She’d gone on a trip there with her parents when she was very young, perhaps seven or eight—and ever since she’d received these papers, she’d known why.
    They’d flown into some city in Wyoming, rented a car, and driven to the town of Thunder Creek for a day. One day. Josy dimly remembered the big open land of Wyoming, the sky seeming bluer than she’d ever seen it before, as blue as the dress she’d worn that year for the first day of school. She’d seen mountains, and cows dotting all the hillsides and valleys they drove through, more cows than she’d ever imagined existed in the world. And her father had pointed out some elk on a tiny distant ledge.
    The town itself had been small and pleasant and quiet, she remembered. There’d been a diner with a ceiling fan where they’d eaten lunch. Afterward they’d walked along the main street and Josy had seen men wearing cowboy hats, just like on TV.
    And . . . her eyebrows drew together as she fought to summon the last vestiges of memory . . .
    They’d taken a drive. She could see a house in her mind’s eye . . . trees down the end of a lane . . . she could just make out a figure on the porch, a woman. She was watering pots of geraniums, looking their way . . .
    It must have been her,
Josy thought, her fingers tightening around the adoption report.
Mom must have gone to
Thunder Creek to find her birth mother.
But . . . had she met her? Was Ada Scott the woman on the porch?
    She remembered her father driving away when the woman had looked up toward their car, when she’d set the watering can down on the porch railing. Had that been it, that one brief glimpse? Had that been their only contact? Had her mother ever spoken to Ada Scott or approached her? Or had she sped away after that one fleeting look?
    Neither of her parents had ever mentioned anything about the adoption to her, or anything about Ada Scott. All she’d known was that her mother’s parents had both passed away, and her father’s parents had divorced, her paternal grandfather moving away and losing touch, and her maternal grandmother ending up in a nursing home by the time Josy was ten.
    There had been no one, no one at all, to care for her after her parents’ fatal accident.
    But now she knew she had a relative, a grandmother . . . after all these years . . .
    Something in her yearned to meet the woman. Of course she had no idea how Ada Scott would receive her, or even if she would allow a meeting. But she’d been fantasizing about making the call, introducing herself . . . seeing what would happen.
    How would it feel to have a grandmother, someone to call on the phone now and then, to send a card or picture at Christmastime, or to invite one day to her wedding . . .
    If she ever had a wedding. Right now it wasn’t exactly a hot prospect—or a top priority. After the debacle with Doug, she’d have to vastly improve on her instincts about men before she’d even consider going out on another date, much less starting any kind of relationship.
    And first, she had to secure her job.
    Perhaps once the sketches were done, once she helped Francesca and Jane get production started and fabric ordered, perhaps then she’d call Ada Scott. Maybe then she could take off a few days, and if her grandmother— her
grandmother
—she repeated the words to herself in wonder—agreed to see her, she could go to Thunder Creek, find her . . . and what? See what happened?
    Don’t expect miracles,
she told herself, going into the kitchen and fixing herself a bowl of Easy Mac.
It’s not going to be instant connection, instant family, hugs, and
kisses.
    Maybe it will be a disaster
, she thought, moving her bowl to the breakfast