“So, how long have you been sheriff of Turning Point?”
“I was assigned three years ago to the county satellite office over at the town hall.”
He answered her questions, his gaze forward. She studied his features, which were shadowed by a black Stetson.
“I thought the good guys got to wear the white hat.”
He looked at her, his eyes navy-blue beneath the hat’s brim. Something stirred deep inside her.
“I’ve met a lot of good guys. Never saw one of them with a white hat.” He turned out of the firehouse parking lot, avoiding the main route in favor of a less-traveled back road.
“I once knew someone named Jesse Boone. He didn’t wear a white hat either.”
He glanced at her a second longer this time. She’d caught the surprise in his eyes before they went blank again. He said nothing. The firm set of his mouth caused the thin scar along his jaw to stand out in relief. The radio was tuned to the weather channel. The National Weather Service reported Damon’s leading edge was two hundred miles from the coast. Seventy-five miles back it had wavered ninety degrees and started inching south. At fifty miles it had done the same. But each time it had come back to the northwest course.
“It was a long time ago I knew Jesse Boone. Fourteen years. I was a teenager. So was he.”
The man’s eyes stayed locked on the road, his mouth tight. He shrugged. “I suppose the name Jesse, even Boone, isn’t uncommon. At least not here in Texas.”
“This Jesse Boone lived in Washington for a while. I grew up there in a small town outside of Seattle. He moved there my junior year, went to my high school. He left senior year.” She was silent for a moment. “I never saw him again.”
Jesse couldn’t look at her. She was beautiful still, with her thick brown hair and delicate build that belied a strength and determination that most people only aspired to. He’d driven to the firehouse, telling himself he could handle this. Amy would recognize the name but not the man. The plastic surgery required because of his injuries had altered his features so even he had had to look twice in the mirror for a long time. She would be in Turning Point a few days at the most until the worst of the disaster was over. Then she would return to California to her life…to her husband.
He could handle it. He’d had himself convinced. Then he’d walked into the station and looked into those eyes. Those soft turquoise eyes.
And there, less than five feet away, was the dream that had dominated his life.
The silence stretched out between them. Frustrated, Amy turned to the window, focusing on the Texas town passing by. She knew Turning Point, like all small towns, was defined by its inhabitants as much as by its warm creeks and catfish ponds—people who were born here, who grew up here, whose stubbornness and self-righteousness stemmed from a deep sense of place and community. She doubted that any of them, even if ordered, would head to higher grounds.
“Is this your first time in Texas?”
The sheriff surprised her. He did not seem one for small talk. Amy wondered if he was deliberately changing the subject. Or like her, did he need a distraction from the thoughts churning inside his head?
“Yes, it is.”
“Shame it’s a storm that brings you here.” He did not look at her.
“Believe me, living on the California coast, we have more than our share of wild weather. A storm only a few months back had Courage Bay Hospital packed. Ever been to California?” She steered the conversation back to him.
“No, ma’am.”
“Please…” She lifted her hand to touch his bare forearm. It was the first time she’d ever hesitated. “Call me Amy.” She dropped her hand in her lap.
“No, I’ve never been to California, Amy.”
It was his first lie. Jesse knew there would be many more before the disaster was over.
“Did you grow up here in Turning Point?” She continued to question him.
He kept his profile to her. His hands gripped the wheel as if he were fighting the wind. “My family has a farm here.”
“Lived here your whole life?” She too could have easily been making small talk.
“I’ve seen some other parts of the world. Turning Point is home.”
“And you’ve been sheriff here about three years?”
“Yes, ma’am…Amy,” he corrected himself.
“Do you like the job?”
“Yes.”
Amy smiled, unfazed. She was used to difficult patients. Some would even say she relished the challenge. “What do you like about it?”
He breathed in as if suppressing a sigh. “These are good people in Turning Point. I like helping them. How ’bout you? You like being a doctor?”
Counterstrike, she thought. “It’s all I ever wanted to do.” She’d been born with an innate need to help others, a need reinforced fourteen years ago when she’d discovered it was safer to care for others than to let someone care for you.
His gaze shifted to her. There was something undefinable in his features. “Is being a doctor everything you dreamed it would be?” he asked quietly.
It was not the usual question asked by someone she had known only five minutes. She didn’t answer right away, as if considering the question for the first time herself. She was competent and not without compassion, but she was cautious with her emotions. Many of her colleagues envied her detachment, a skill necessary not only for success but for survival in the medical world. Amy feared she would never love again.
She looked at the man beside her, thought of the boy she’d loved as she studied this man who bore the same name. As if her thoughts compelled him, he looked her way. Their gazes locked.
“Lots of things don’t turn out the way you expect them.”
Something shifted in his eyes. The blue stone splintered. She glimpsed a longing, ageless and deep. A longing she herself had known.
Could it be?
He turned away, taking whatever she’d imagined with him. She turned back to the contours of the land, the ground hard from the August sun, the heat in the air as thick as fog.
And told herself no.
She had not acted the fool since she was eighteen. At thirty-two, she had no intention of doing so again.
JESSE HAD FEARED he could not break the gaze. He’d seen the confusion, the plea in her expression as she’d searched his face. God help him, for a second he’d prayed. See me.
He dragged his gaze away, saw the fresh skid marks farther up, careening from the left to the right side where the road pitched down. He slowed, saw the mid-sized car upside-down, tilted against a tree trunk. He called the accident in as he veered to the shoulder and slammed the engine into Park. Before the Bronco came to a complete stop, Jesse and Amy leapt out of the vehicle and were scrambling down the ditch’s steep slope. They heard the scream as they reached the vehicle.
“Mommy!”
A blond-haired girl not more than three, strapped in a safety seat, hung upside-down in the back of the car. The vehicle must have rolled over several times. The front half of the roof was creased in, and the driver’s door was crumpled. The child, seated on the opposite side, was trapped in a pocket formed between the front seat and the side of the car crushed against the tree. The child writhed against the seat constraints, terrified but appearing unharmed. An unconscious young woman was slumped half on the front seat, half on the floor, wedged in beneath the dashboard. Fluid leaking from the front of the vehicle formed a slick puddle across the ground. A thin rise of smoke snaked from the hood.
The child screamed again.
The car was a two-door. Jesse wrestled with the driver’s door but the mangled metal wouldn’t budge. The smoke was thickening.
He looked around. Grabbing a large rock, he slammed it against the side window until the glass shattered. “The mother is blocking the way to the girl. We’ll get her out,” Jesse said as he crawled through the window. “Then the child.”
Smoking engine…gas leaking from the vehicle.
/> The child screamed again.
Amy saw several small flames shoot out from beneath the front hood as Jesse pushed his way into the car. He slipped his arm beneath the woman’s arms and pulled. The woman moaned, semi-conscious, incoherent. She fought against Jesse’s grasp. Suddenly an anguished cry came from her lips. Her struggling movements stopped. The woman was injured. Fortunately her twisting and writhing indicated her spine was intact.
“Don’t fight me. Help me,” Jesse told the woman as he pulled her from the wreckage. Small flames flared from beneath the car’s hood. He felt a resistance, saw her leg was pinned beneath the dashboard. He pulled harder but he needed more leverage to free the limb. The woman’s body, in response to the pain, had gone limp again. He released her and eased himself out of the car. He heard the child crying in the back.
“Her leg is pinned,” he told Amy. Bracing his weight against the vehicle, he leaned as far into the car as he could and gripped the woman again under the arms. He pulled. The body resisted. He widened his stance, took a deep breath of hot air and smoke, and with an animal howl, he yanked on the woman with all his might. The body broke free. Jesse dragged the woman until he could take her into his arms and carry her several yards away. As he laid her on the hard ground, he saw her leg was twisted at an odd angle, the bone popped out of the flesh.
“Amy,” he yelled. He turned back to the car and saw Amy crawl into it.
The child screamed for its mother as Amy approached her. “It’s all right. Everything’s going to be fine.” Amy continued the reassurances even though the child could not hear her, knowing they were as much for her as the girl. Behind her, she heard Jesse ordering her out of there, swearing as she ignored him. She could hear the flames licking beneath the hood. She pushed herself up. Pain shot up her thigh as her knee pressed into something sharp. She pushed herself into the narrow opening in the back, twisting her body to shield the child. She unclasped the safety belt, the child kicking against the restraints and Amy. She pulled the girl toward her, clasping her against her chest as she slid out of the tight space. The inside of the car was radiating heat. Strange pop-ping noises came from beneath the hood. She twisted, pressing the splinter of glass deeper into her knee. She passed the child to Jesse. He hugged the child to his chest and held her with one arm. His other arm reached for Amy.
“Take my hand.”
“Go,” she screamed.
He reached in, gripped her arm and yanked her toward him. Her foot had slipped and was caught between the console and the passenger seat. She heard a loud whoosh. Flames leaped from the engine skyward, receded.
“Go,” she screamed.
Jesse turned away. Someone else must have arrived at the scene, because when he turned back, the child was gone from his arms. “I’m not leaving you.” Both his hands reached in, grabbed her upper arms. The heat was like a living thing now. Amy felt her head going light. Fresh flames surged, higher, closer. Jesse crawled into the car, the sweat streaking his face.
“Get out!” she screamed.
He moved toward her, his hands reaching until they slid around her. She heard him expel a breath, then inhale sharply as he jerked her toward him. Her body lurched forward an inch, then resisted. He twisted her torso toward him and yanked again. She gasped for oxygen, black spots dancing in front of her eyes. She blinked, struggling against the blackness. Jesse’s face came into focus. His hat was gone, she realized. She would buy him a new one. A white one.
Then the world exploded.
CHAPTER TWO
SHE LANDED on top of Jesse, their bodies hitting the earth with a thud, a scream dying on her lips. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight against his chest. For several moments, they did not move, but lay there like two lovers. Amy lifted her head, looked down at the man beneath her. The tip of her tongue moistened her dry lips. The muscles in the man’s throat rippled as he swallowed. Men’s terse voices sounded at the edges of her consciousness. They were not alone.
“Thank you,” she whispered. Whoever you are, she thought. She rolled off him and sat up, dusting herself off. Trickles of blood from the cut on her knee had already dried on her leg.
Jesse sat up beside her, looked at her leg with concern. “You cut yourself.” His hand curved around her calf as he leaned over to inspect the injury.
“Just a small cut.” Her voice trembled at his touch. He raised his gaze to her and their eyes met. She swallowed.
“You two all right?”
Jesse drew back from Amy. Mitch Kannon looked down at them. Firemen had extinguished the flames of the burning car before the wind spread the fire. Their hoses, fed by the pumper truck and fat with pressure, were still aimed at the car, giving it a final wash.
Jesse looked up at the chief. “I could use a beer.”
He stood, reached for Amy and pulled her up beside him. “I’m fine, Chief,” she assured Mitch.
“She cut her knee,” Jesse pointed out.
“Nothing tweezers, a little disinfectant and a Band-Aid won’t take care of,” Amy insisted. “In fact, I’m going to get my bag now and do exactly that.”
She walked over and picked up her medical kit, but instead of treating herself, continued to the young mother flat on a stretcher as emergency workers stabilized her leg.
“She’s a spitfire, that one,” Mitch noted, casting a sidelong glance at Jesse.
She always was, Jesse thought. “The mother say anything about how they landed upside-down in a ditch?”
“The child was drinking from her sippy cup—”
“Her what?”
“Sippy cup. One of those small plastic cups with a cover and spout so kids don’t spill their juice. You know?”
Jesse looked blankly at the fire chief.
“That’s right,” Mitch said. “You don’t have kids. Well, when you do, you’ll bless the person who invented the sippy cup. Anyhow, the kid dropped hers, and the mother, fearing it was still full and was leaking all over the floor, reached into the back but couldn’t find it. She swears she turned her head for just a second to see if she could see where it rolled. When she turned back, she was heading to the other side of the road. Panicking, she twisted the wheel too hard, losing control of the car as it hit the shoulder.”
Jesse expelled a breath. “Thank God no one was killed.”
“Someone could have been.”
Jesse caught Mitch’s glance.
“I don’t know if jumping into a burning car like that is the most heroic or the most moronic thing I’ve ever seen two people do,” the chief said.
“We got them out.” Jesse watched Amy as she squatted beside the child, who was lying on a stretcher next to her mom. She’d unclipped the stuffed frog on her stethoscope and slipped it on her finger. She moved it slowly across the child’s line of vision, testing the girl’s responses. She smiled when done. The stuffed frog did a jig atop Amy’s finger before it grazed the child’s cheek in a pretend kiss. The girl broke into a smile, the anxiety erased from her young features.
Pride surged through Jesse. He’d always known Amy would be a great doctor. She’d been brilliant as well as beautiful. He, on the other hand, had been nothing but brawn and brash, born with a natural athletic ability that he’d known was his only ticket to a college education. Until the accident…
He looked at Amy and her patient. He did not regret the decision he’d made fourteen years ago. Nor the one he had made minutes ago.
“In the future—” Mitch’s voice cut into his thoughts. “Try to stay out of burning cars about to blow. The world doesn’t have enough good men. Or women,” he added. “We can’t afford to lose two more.”
Jesse half smiled as he watched Amy. “I can’t promise you anything. Especially with that one. She puts her mind to something, best you just get out of her way.”
“Sounds like you know her pretty well.”
His eyes met the chief’s. “Just an observation.”
The chief smiled. “Same here.”
The child smiled shyly, averting her gaze.
“Your mommy and you are going to be just fine.” He glanced at Amy for confirmation. She nodded.
The rescue workers came over to the child. “She’ll ride with her mother?” Jesse asked. The men nodded.
“These nice men are going to give you and your mommy a ride in a big shiny car, Sunshine. Do you like ice cream?”
The child nodded.
“Chocolate?”
The girl shook her head. “B’nilla,” she said.
Jesse’s smile widened. “Well, these two men are going to make sure you get all the b’nilla ice cream you can handle. Deal?” He offered his hand.
Her eyes round and solemn, the girl put her small hand into Jesse’s and nodded.
“Ice cream!” The stuffed frog, his voice supplied sotto voce by Amy, nuzzled the girl’s cheek once more. “I love ice cream. Can I come, too? Huh, can I?” The frog danced atop Amy’s finger.
Smiling, the girl nodded. Amy unclipped the stuffed animal and attached it to the girl’s T-shirt. “Freddy, you’re so lucky to have a friend as pretty and brave as Caroline. She’ll take good care of you.” Amy leaned in, pecked the stuffed animal, then the girl, on the cheek. The girl smiled. Amy and Jesse waved as the rescue workers carried the child away.
Amy nodded.
“How you doing?” Jesse asked.
She gave him a sidelong glance. “I could use a beer.”
For the first time, Jesse Boone smiled at her.
“How ’bout a Band-Aid?” he said, glancing at her knee. “And a cup of coffee?”
“IN ADDITION to powerful winds, Hurricane Damon is expected to spin off destructive tornadoes, drench the region with up to ten inches of rainfall and hit the coast with a storm surge that could measure ten to fifteen feet.” The veteran forecaster on the diner’s television screen leaned toward the camera. “Evacuation and preparation times are diminishing.”
Hard Rain Page 2