A Stranger in My Grave Read Online Free PDF

louder. Strangers spoke to strangers: “How about that, look at those clouds....” “We’re going to catch it this time....” “When I hung up the wash this morning, there wasn’t a cloud in sight…” “Just in time for my cinerarias…”
    â€œRain,” they said, and lifted their faces to the sky as if they were expecting not just rain but a shower of gold.
    It had been a year without winter. The hot, sunny days, which usually ended in November, had stretched through Christmas and the New Year. It was now February, and the reservoirs were get­ting low, and large sections of the mountains had been closed to picnickers and campers because of the fire hazard. Cloud seeders were standing by, waiting for clouds, like actors ready with their roles waiting for a stage to appear.
    The clouds came, their blacks and grays more beautiful than all the colors of the spectrum, and suddenly the sun vanished and the air turned cold.
    I’ll be caught in the rain , Daisy thought. I should start for home. But her feet kept right on going as if they had a mind of their own and would not be led by a timid girl afraid of getting a little wet.
    Behind her, someone called her name: “Daisy Harker.”
    She stopped and turned, recognizing the voice immediately—Adam Burnett’s. Burnett was a lawyer, an old friend of Jim’s, who shared Jim’s interest in cabinetmaking. Adam came over to the house quite frequently as a refugee from his family of eight, but Daisy didn’t see much of him. The two men usually shut them­selves up in Jim’s hobby shop downstairs.
    All morning Daisy had been thinking off and on of going to talk to Adam, and this sudden meeting confused her, as if she had conjured up his person out of her thoughts. She didn’t even greet him. She said uncertainly, “How funny, running into you like this.”
    â€œNot so funny. My office is just two doors down the street, and the place where I eat lunch is directly across the road.” He was a tall, heavily built man in his forties, with a brisk but pleasant professional manner. He noticed Daisy’s confusion immediately but could think of no reason for it. “I’m pretty hard to miss, in this neck of the woods.”
    â€œI’d—forgotten where your office was.”
    â€œOh? For a moment when I first spotted you, I thought you might be on your way to see me.”
    â€œNo. No.” I didn’t, I couldn’t possibly have, come this way deliber­ately. Why, I didn’t even remember his office was near here, or I can’t remember remembering. “I wasn’t on my way to anywhere. I was just walking. It’s such a lovely day.”
    â€œIt’s cold.” He glanced briefly at the sky. “And about to be wet.”
    â€œI like rain.”
    â€œAt this point, don’t we all.”
    â€œI meant, I like to walk in the rain.”
    His smile was friendly but a little puzzled. “That’s fine. Go right ahead. The exercise will do you good, and the rain proba­bly won’t hurt you.”
    She didn’t move. “The reason I thought it was funny running into you like this was because—well, I was thinking about you this morning.”
    â€œOh?”
    â€œI was even thinking of—of making an appointment to see you.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œSomething has sort of happened.”
    â€œHow can anything sort of happen? It happens or it doesn’t.”
    â€œI don’t quite know how to explain.” The first drops of rain had begun to fall. She didn’t notice them. “Do you consider me a neurotic woman?”
    â€œThis is hardly the time or place to discuss a subject like that,” he said dryly. “ You may like walking in the rain. Some of us don’t.”
    â€œAdam, listen.”
    â€œYou’d better come up to my office.” He consulted his wrist-watch.