Sheltering Rain Read Online Free PDF

because it’s the only time I’ve felt like I was really being true to myself in my entire life.”
    Two heavy, salty tears had begun a slow pathway down Joy’s flushed cheeks, weighted by the emotion behind what was certainly the longest speech of her adult life. She gulped, trying to keep them in check, both appalled and exhilarated by what she had done. She had laid herself prostrate before this man whom she didn’t know, in a manner her mother, and probably Stella, too, would have found certifiable. And when she had told him she didn’t care, it was not true. If he turned from her now, uttered some polite platitude about what a lovely day he had had and how no doubt she must be feeling exhausted, she would hold herself in until she got home and then find some way of just, well, killing herself. Because there was no way she could bear skating the trite surface of her existence when she had dipped below, and found something cool, and calming, and deep. Say you at least understand what I’m saying then, she willed. Even if you just say you understand, that will be enough for me.
    There was a long, painful silence. Another car roared by, accelerating as it passed them.
    â€œI suppose we’d better go back then,” he said, placing his hand back on the wheel, and using the other to shift the stiff gear stick.
    Joy’s face froze, and slowly, imperceptibly, her body shrank back into the passenger seat, her spine so brittle that it was likely to crack. So she had gotten it wrong. Of course she had. Whatever had made her think that an outburst like that could win a man’s respect, let alone his heart?
    â€œI’m sorry,” she whispered, her head falling toward her chest. “I’m so sorry.”
    Oh, God, but she was such a fool.
    â€œFor what?” said Edward, his hand reaching over and pushing back her damp curtain of hair. “I want to talk to your father.”
    Joy looked at him blankly. Was he going to tell him that she was a fool?
    â€œLook,” he said, cupping her face with his hand. It smelled of sweat. And horse. “I know you’ll probably think this is a bit sudden. But, Joy, if you’ll have me, I want to ask him about us getting married.”
    Y ou don’t possibly think we’re going to say yes, do you?” said her mother, her face illuminated by horror and astonishment that her daughter had managed to elicit such strength of feeling from any man. (Her bad humor had been exacerbated by the fact that they had arrived back before she had had time to put her face on.) “We don’t even know him.”
    She spoke as if he weren’t even in the room.
    â€œI’ll tell you anything you want to know, Mrs. Leonard,” said Edward, his long, dirty-trousered legs stretched out in front of him.
    Joy eyed them with the stunned joy of new possession. She had spent the remainder of the journey in a daze, laughing out loud and half-hysterically at the madness of what they had just done. She didn’t know him! He didn’t know her! And yet they had grinned at each other with this kind of manic complicity, holding hands awkwardly, and she had willingly launched her life into his grasp. She hadn’t expected to find anyone . Hadn’t even thought of looking. But he seemed to know what he was doing, and he seemed much more likely to know what was right than she was. And he hadn’t been remotely fazed by the prospect of putting this insanity to her parents.
    Edward took a deep breath, and began reeling off the facts. “My father is a retired judge, and he and my mother have moved to Ireland, where they breed horses. I’ve got a sister and a brother, both married, both older than I am. I’m twenty-nine years old, I’ve been in the navy for almost eight years, since I left university, and I have a private trust on top of my naval salary.”
    The slight wrinkling of her mother’s nose at the