Hard Rain Read Online Free PDF Page A

Lurie flashed a smile. “The usual, Sheriff?” Her smile widened. Her turquoise eye shadow had settled into the creases of her eyelids but the candy-apple red on her lips had a fresh sheen.
    Jesse nodded. Lurie scribbled something on a small green pad, glanced at Amy, her pencil poised above the pad.
    “Doc?”
    Amy looked at the plastic coated menu. “I’ll have a grilled cheese sandwich, please. Could you put a slice of tomato on it?”
    Lurie nodded, noting it on her pad.
    “On whole wheat if you have it.”
    Lurie nodded again.
    “And I’d prefer Swiss cheese instead of American.”
    Lurie looked up at her.
    “If you have it.”
    “We have it.”
    “And instead of fries, could I have extra coleslaw on the side? In a separate dish so the dressing doesn’t spread to the sandwich and make it soggy?”
    “Not a problem. Anything else?” Lurie’s pencil tapped the pad.
    “An extra pickle?”
    Lurie was shaking her head as she took their orders into the kitchen.
    “I can’t help it,” Amy said as she swiveled toward Jesse. “I love dill pickles.”
    Jesse’s head tipped to the side as he looked at her, an amused smile on his face.
    Amy sighed. “I know. High-maintenance.”
    “Seems like a control issue to me.” Jesse sipped his coffee, amusement still lighting the usual dark cast of his eyes.
    “Really?” Amy smiled. She picked up her own cup of tea. “Of course, you’re right.”
    “Of course I am.” He teased her easily.
    “A symptom of that whole physician-as-god complex.”
    “Exactly what I was thinking.” He was so handsome when he smiled. His eyes softened. His mouth curved, became accessible.
    Amy looked away. “That’s what brings ninety percent of us to medical school in the first place. Joke’s on us when we learn that nine times out of ten, things are out of our control.”
    “That’s not just in the medical field, Doc. That’s life in general.”
    Amy stirred her tea, smiled. “Still, it doesn’t seem to stop us from trying like hell.”
    He surprised her by clinking his cup against hers.
    “I upset Lurie, didn’t I?” Her smile faded.
    “I think it was the extra pickle that broke her.”
    She laughed softly, finding it easy to laugh with him. “She has a crush on you.”
    “You trying to make me blush, Doc?”
    “Is that possible?”
    “We big, burly protectors of society have our sensitive sides.”
    She liked seeing him smile. Not a polite smile, but one that relieved the flatness of his eyes and revealed warmth underneath.
    “So…?” She angled a questioning gaze at him.
    “So…what?”
    Amy cocked her head toward Lurie at the far end of the counter. “So…” She aimed a pointed look at his hands, bare of rings. “I’m assuming you’re single if you’re going to flirt with pretty waitresses. If not, my illusion of a real-life Texas sheriff is going to be forever crushed.”
    “Some might say my marital status is not exactly a pertinent issue here.”
    “Is that a polite way of saying it’s none of my damn business?”
    “In true Texas-sheriff fashion.”
    She laughed, and he joined her. The scars stretched and faded. The pain that held his features tight eased. His laughter was like that of the boy she’d known, but then she’d heard a thousand similar laughs over the last fourteen years—across a room, on the street, in her dreams. For a moment, she was eighteen again and still believed all her desires would come true.
    They were still laughing as Lurie arrived with their food. Amy saw the looks pass beneath the billed baseball caps of the men seated nearby, but she didn’t care. Right now, cows were lying flat in the fields and the rodents had burrowed for cover. Plywood strips were being fastened across windows and doors with three-inch nails. Generators were being checked, rugs rolled and pressed tight to doorjambs. Yet no one could ever be ready for what was to come. So for a few minutes at this counter, she would laugh with a man who