Chasing the Wind Read Online Free PDF Page A

he wasn't sure of the goal.
    The waitress appeared and handed them menus. "Iced tea, please." Amalise tilted up her face. "Unsweetened. Plenty of ice. Plenty of lemon."
    The waitress nodded. Hand on her hip, she eyed Jude's empty glass. "Same for me," he said, and she picked up the glass.
    When she'd gone, Amalise lifted the menu and scanned it. "I'm restless, Jude. Since the accident, I've felt an urge, a need to do something with my life that's . . ." She gave him a self-conscious look. "I don't know. Something that's lasting, I suppose. Something with a clear purpose." She set the menu down and leaned toward him, looking at him. "But I don't know what it is."
    He watched as she unwrapped the napkin from around the knife and fork, placed the napkin across her lap and the flatware side by side on the table. He sensed that something had changed in her after the accident, early on while she was still in the hospital. She'd confided in him in those early days that her brush with death, and what she called this second chance, made her understand more deeply the value of life. She wasn't afraid of death, she'd said. She knew what lay beyond. But now she thought there was a reason that God, her Abba, had spared her—for a purpose she didn't yet understand.
    He entertained the notion of suggesting that life was meant for love. He longed to put his hands on her shoulders so she'd have to look straight into his eyes, and then he would explain how the friendship they'd shared for so many years had—for him—grown into something else that would last a lifetime. He wanted Amalise and children and a home.
    But it was too soon. So instead he slung an arm over the back of his chair and half-turned to her and said, "What about your job? Isn't that enough?"
    "Oh, I love practicing law. I'd never think of giving that up." She laughed at herself. When the iced tea arrived, she squeezed lemon into her drink. Sliding the sugar bowl over, she added two teaspoons to the tea and stirred. "I was like a sponge in law school, you know, soaking everything up." She looked at him. "But you come out of it thinking differently, analyzing problems in a new way."
    Jude dropped his arm and turned back with a sideways look. "Yes. I saw that in your relationship with Phillip."
    Instantly he regretted the sarcasm. For a split second she looked down, gave all of her attention to unwrapping a straw, sliding the paper down, rumpling it. She tossed it at Jude.
    He shouldn't have joked. "I'm sorry for that, Amalise."
    She nodded and he watched as she moved the fork closer to her plate. Slid the knife parallel again. "I know. Don't worry." She looked up. "But sometimes thinking of Phillip makes me wonder how I got so far off the path."
    Amalise didn't give into moods often. Even at the worst times of her marriage to Phillip, she'd seemed able to compartmentalize, to set worries aside and enjoy a good moment.
    Jude straightened. Reaching across the table, he nudged her chin with his knuckle and put more gusto than he felt at this moment into his voice. "Let's change the subject. This is your first day back at work. Take things easy for a while and have fun."
    She picked up another cracker and, without fighting the plastic wrapper this time, handed it to him. He opened it, crushed the paper, and handed the cracker back. "You're on a great transaction, Rebecca says. Be thankful for the good things."
    "I will." She bit into the cracker and looked at him, and his heart melted at the trust in her eyes. "After Phillip died, I suddenly understood how important it is to get things right." With a wan smile, she added, "But sometimes I'm still a little blue."
    The only times he could remember Amalise sinking into gloom were the last few years of the Vietnam War, when they were assaulted every night with scenes of young soldiers fighting and dying, the brave and scarred, the dead, the wounded, night after night. Misery was all around, it seemed, tightening about the nation