The Scent of Rain and Lightning Read Online Free PDF

dollars had probably always gone to please Billy, and never to help his wife or son. Hugh-Jay reached for his wallet, took out every bill in it, and handed them to Valentine. “Take this. Don’t tell him. I know it’s not much, but I’ll talk to my dad about hiring him again.”
    She didn’t argue, just took it, and slipped it into a pocket of her shorts.
    “Thank you,” she whispered. “Your family’s always been good to Billy.” And then she said a thing that sent shivers down Hugh-Jay’s spine on that hot day. He thought at first that it was a non sequitur. “I sold Billy’s truck. Just before he got home. I haven’t told him yet. What do you think he’s going to do?”
    “Sold his truck?” he asked dumbly.
    Her son stared up at them, frowning, letting the toy gun hang limp.
    “It’s not really Billy’s. He hasn’t got any credit. It’s in my name.”
    That didn’t mean Billy didn’t think it was his, Hugh-Jay thought. He wondered who had the balls or was crazy enough to buy Billy Crosby’s truck out from under him.
    “Who’d you sell it to?”
    She looked surprised at the question. “Your dad.”
    Hugh-Jay stared at Valentine and felt dumb again. “ My dad?” he said, as if she must have meant somebody else’s father.
    “Yeah, he called a little while ago and made an offer.” Innocently, she added, “I wouldn’t have thought it was worth that much.”
    “Did he say why he wants it?”
    Again she looked surprised at his question. “Because he needs a truck, I guess? He told me you were bringing Billy home. He said to tell you and your brother to pick up the truck and drive it to your house, or out to your ranch.” She shaded her eyes to look into his. “I said you don’t have to wait on the paperwork, or till it’s officially yours. You should go on ahead and take it now. It’s out back. The keys are in it. Maybe you can drive it away real quiet so it doesn’t wake Billy up?”
    Good idea, Hugh-Jay thought wryly. “What are you going to do?”
    “Me?”
    “For a car.”
    “Collin and I never go anywhere we can’t walk.” She looked back at her house. “And now he won’t, either.”
    “Listen,” Hugh-Jay said, and then didn’t know where to go from that beginning. When she frowned, he said, “If you need help … I mean, if you need anything, call Laurie or me, okay?”
    He had a nervous feeling about promising that his wife might help, especially when it came to helping somebody about whom she didn’t give two hoots. Which, Hugh-Jay had to admit in that uncomfortable instant, described most people that Laurie had ever known.
    But they lived only three blocks from Val and Billy.
    Surely, Laurie wouldn’t refuse to help if Valentine really needed it.
    He heard a car rev up a couple of blocks away. Then he heard the sound of some kid—probably in the high school marching band—practicing on an instrument that sounded hideously like a tuba. It was all bleats and squeaks. Hugh-Jay wondered how the band director would ever get the young “musician” ready to play in time for half-time at Homecoming in November.
    We’re such a small town, he thought.
    Val Crosby glanced away in embarrassment at his implication that she might need rescuing, but then she nodded, with her face bent toward her son. The boy was still concentrating on his toy gun, and in that instant he aimed and “shot” it toward the sound of the tuba practice.
    “Bang,” the boy said. “Bang, bang, you’re dead, but not really.”
    “Not really?” Hugh-Jay asked him.
    Collin looked up at his great height. “On TV. They shoot them, but they’re never really dead. It’s like a game.”
    “Real guns aren’t a game,” Hugh-Jay reminded him.
    “I know,” the boy said solemnly, and then he aimed his toy at his own head and pulled its trigger.
    “Collin!” his mother cried, with a little scream. “Don’t ever do that!”
    “Not even in play,” Hugh-Jay told him, feeling horror-struck by the