Amy and Jesse walked toward the counter at the far end of the diner, but neither sat on the cracked leatherette stools. A few customers were seated in the booths that lined the wall, but most of the patrons sat at the counter, backs hunched, elbows propped. Several glanced away from the television screen to give Jesse a nod hello. Their gazes flickered questioningly at Amy before the weather report consumed their attention again.
“Interstates are closed to all shorebound traffic. While coastal residents are making their way inland to evacuation shelters inside schools, churches and courthouses—” the screen flashed an aerial view of traffic snaking its way up the highway “—inland residents are stocking up on water, batteries, candles, matches, nonperishables and kerosene.” The screen filled with equally long lines at checkout aisles.
Jesse raised a halting hand to the waitress as she set thick white cups before Amy and him. “Make it to go, darlin’.”
Ignoring the sheriff, the waitress poured from the pot she wielded with the expertise of a professional gun slinger. “Can’t live on caffeine in a cardboard cup, Sheriff. That storm isn’t going to do much in the time it takes to fill your stomach.
Jesse looked at Amy.
“The chief’s daughter brought us home-made cinnamon rolls when we got to the station.”
Jesse smiled. “I thought I smelled them. Figured it was just wishful thinking.”
“I only had coffee, though. I have a hard time choking anything else down before noon.”
“That settles it, Sheriff.” The waitress slapped menus on the counter.
“You are right, darlin’. As always.”
The waitress smiled. “You learned a long time ago not to argue with me, didn’t you, Sheriff?”
“Or any woman, for that matter,” Jesse said as he slid on the stool and raised the steaming cup to his lips.
One of the men seated at the counter, watching the television screen with a satellite picture of the gulf, an angry-looking orange-red mass in the middle, turned to them. “I say it slows, veers south, burning itself down to rain and wind by the time it hits the coast. What do you think, Sheriff?”
Jesse watched the screen. “Never been a gambling man, Gunther.”
He regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth. A simple off-the-cuff remark. Unless, of course, your father had been Jesse Boone, Senior, a man who, once the sun rose in the morning, would have taken odds on whether it’d set that night. Jesse sipped the steaming black brew and was not disappointed by the bitterness that bit the back of his throat. Amy’s gaze turned his way and again he cursed his own stupidity. Behind those gorgeous green eyes, he feared the wheels were turning.
He’d arrived in Amy’s town a bad boy, “troubled teen,” the child welfare worker would term it, but unlike his father, he’d always stopped short of breaking any “official” laws. Still, he’d grown up with the guilt of the wrongs his father had done. His career choice was obviously one way to atone for his father’s sins. He didn’t need a hundred-fifty-dollar-an-hour shrink to figure that one out.
And Amy, her eyes still on him, sure as hell didn’t either.
“Darlin’?”
Amy looked blankly at the waitress. Her thoughts were a lifetime away on the teenager who’d rolled into a small Washington town with his father and no mention of other family or roots. Suspicion from the townspeople at the sheer fact that he was a stranger was a given, and the boy had done little to calm their fears. On the contrary, with his wild ways and sexy looks, Jesse Boone had seemed determined to prove the townspeople right. But Amy had believed in him, even after people cursed his father for moving on with their deposits for contracted repairs never begun. Jesse wasn’t his father, Amy had told herself. He didn’t break promises. No one could convince her otherwise. Until one night, dressed in her senior prom gown, which had cost her mother far too much, she’d waited until dawn for a boy who never came.
“Coffee, right, Doc?” the sheriff asked her, bringing her back to the present.
The waitress waited patiently. A name plate pinned above a well-supported bosom read Lurie.
“I’m sorry,” Amy said.
“No problem, honey.” The waitress hoisted the pot from hip level, angled it toward Amy. “Coffee?”
Amy looked at the inky black liquid and shook her head. “Just herbal tea, please. And honey if you have a jar in the back.”
“Uh-oh,” Jesse muttered into his cup as the waitress rocked back on her heels and gave Amy a good once-over. “There goes your cover.”
“You’re from the California crew that came in from Christi this morning, aren’t you, darlin’?”
“Lurie, this is Dr. Amy Sherwood,” Jesse introduced.
The waitress shifted the coffeepot to her other hand and extended the free one. “Welcome to Turning Point, Doc.”
Amy took the hand with its inch-long fingernails decorated with silver crescent moons. “Thank you. I’m glad I could come in to lend a hand.”
“Not as happy as we are. Now, let me get your tea, but between me and you, darlin’—” the waitress leaned in “—I’d get the caffeine in my system while I can.”
The waitress moved on down the counter without waiting for a reply, refilling mugs before she set the coffeepot back on the burner plate.
“There was Bret in ’99, but that was mainly wind and rain by the time it came in to Christi,” a man several stools away was saying.
But Amy’s thoughts went much farther back. Fourteen years back to when Coach Lasher had called her into the athletic office and asked her to tutor one of the football players. It was Coach Lasher who’d clocked Jesse in phys ed at a six-minute mile and saw a natural quarterback in the boy’s speed and grace. Coach Lasher also knew the exercise would help to channel the boy’s restless energy, relieve an inner anger that seemed to burn through him; the practices and structure of the sport would help to teach the boy discipline. But as well as the boy did in athletics, he did poorly in school work. School policy stated no athlete failing a subject could compete in sports. Jesse was failing three. Amy, president of the National Honor Society, tutored classmates during study hall. She hadn’t known the term dyslexia then. All she knew was that Jesse had a hard time reading, studying gave him tremendous headaches, and many times he wrote his letters backwards. He’d been called lazy and stupid for so long, he’d believed it was the truth. Amy showed him otherwise. For the first time, he’d wanted something so badly he’d put in the hours of frustration and work. Amy thought it was football he wanted. Later she learned it was her. They were together one year, and she’d loved him so deeply, the memory of it slammed her heart against her chest.
Lurie brought her tea but Amy kept her gaze on the man beside her. She looked at him so hard the waitress copied her pose. He turned away from the weather coverage and faced her, allowing her to study him openly. If it was the Jesse Boone she’d loved all those years ago, they both knew he owed her that much.
Was it him? Amy asked herself for what must be the hundredth time that day. Was it the man to whom she’d once freely given her heart, too young to know any better, too blinded by love to heed her mother’s warnings? She looked for an answer. Was it him?
And what if it was? What then?
Lurie pulled a jar of honey out of a deep apron pocket and set it down on the counter with a slight bang. Amy started.
“There’s your honey, honey.” 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 agai
n.
“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 bore the same name as a boy she had loved.
“Here you go.” Lurie set plates before them. Jesse’s “usual’’ was a king-size cheeseburger, a side of onion rings and a double chocolate shake. Lurie slipped a bottle of Tabasco sauce out of her apron pocket, put it beside his plate. Amy stopped smiling. She’d known only one other person in her lifetime who put hot sauce on his hamburger. She watched him unscrew the top, lift up the bun and splash the sauce on his burger. He replaced the bun, brought the burger to his mouth and took a big bite. He glanced at her untouched plate. “Something wrong?” he asked, chewing.
“The hot sauce on your hamburger…” She didn’t know what she was trying to say.
“Heavenly.” He took another big bite. “Obviously one of those true Texan habits that hasn’t hit the West Coast yet.” He tipped his head. Amy looked around. At every station, a similar bottle of hot sauce stood beside the catsup bottle. “Of course, when it does, you Californians will claim you all started the trend and take the credit.”
Amy smiled wanly, feeling foolish. She looked down at her food, but her appetite was gone.
“So, you’re married?” she asked bluntly.
He seemed to have trouble swallowing. “No, I’m not. Your image of a true Texas sheriff may remain intact.” He picked up an onion ring. “And I, darlin’, am free to flirt with whomever I want.”
Jesse didn’t ask if she were married. He didn’t have to. Still, sitting beside her, he wondered if she’d ever dreamed the things he had in the years they’d been apart. Had she dreamed of them holding each other, kissing in the soft moonlight? Dreamed of their naked bodies…?
He leaned back, wiped his mouth and dropped the napkin onto his empty plate. “Excuse me.” He rose from the counter and headed to the rest room.
Amy watched him, too many questions still forming in her mind. Lurie came over and picked up Jesse’s plate. Amy turned to her, pushed her own plate toward the edge of the counter. Lurie looked at the half-eaten sandwich as she stacked the plate atop the other. “Was everything okay?”
“Oh, yes, fine,” Amy assured her. “I’m just not terribly hungry.”
Lurie cocked a hip, balancing both plates in one hand as she gathered used napkins and Amy’s empty glass in the other. “I’ve been trying to get the sheriff to smile like that for two years.”
Amy looked at her, interested.
“Hell’s bells, half the single women in the county have been trying to get their claws into the good sheriff.”
“He doesn’t date?”
“Oh, he dates all right. Probably been through most of the single women in a twenty-mile radius and then some.”
“He’s charming…” Amy noted.
Lurie crossed her arms across her arresting bosom and gave a slow nod of agreement.
“But he doesn’t strike me as the playboy type,” Amy concluded.
Lurie leaned on the counter, settling in. “That’s exactly the problem, Doc. He’s a real gentleman and a wonderful date, but if things start heating up, getting too serious, he slows it down or calls it quits altogether. He refuses to go to the next level.”
“You and he…?”
Lurie nodded. “We dated. And he was upfront about what to expect from the first. He didn’t lead me on. He’ll let you know he enjoys your company and treats you right, but if a woman is looking for the cozy cottage and the rest of the enchilada, she’s got the wrong man. Of course, like most woman, I thought I could change him.” She paused, studied her fingertips with their crescent moons. “I didn’t.” She met Amy’s gaze.
“A lot of men are afraid of commitment, settling down, Lurie.”
Lurie shook her head. “It’s different with Jesse. I can’t explain. It’s like he lives with a ghost. When we were dating, he’d look at me, but I sensed he was looking at someone else. Or for someone else. And no matter how hard he looked, he couldn’t find her.”
The waitress straightened. “At least, not yet.” She gave Amy a wink, swiveled and sauntered into the kitchen, her hips swaying beneath her tight black skirt.
Jesse returned. He stood beside her stool. “Lurie giving you some good gossip?” He threw several bills down on the counter.
“Just girl talk,” Amy answered as she slid off the stool.
“She’s a good gal,” Jesse said as they moved toward the door. He nodded good-bye to
the other customers. “But believe about fifty percent of what she says.”
“How do you know she didn’t say the same about you?”
“She probably said believe only ten percent of what I say.”
“Actually, she said you were a straight shooter. She’s a big fan. Like most of the single women in the county.”
Their eyes met. “Is that what she said?”
“That and some.”
He slowly shook his head, laughing under his breath.
“You don’t agree?”
He reached across her to the door, so close she could feel his warmth, sense his strength.
“You’ll have me blushing yet, darlin’,” he said in a low voice that made Amy hold her breath. She stepped away, through the door, and exhaled.
The clouds were denser and darker. The winds that had come were rougher, quicker, their hard edges hitting a person dead on. Rain broke through the sky with a furor that laid the field grass flat.
“Wait here,” Jesse told Amy beneath the shelter of the diner’s metal awning. “I’ll get the Bronco and pick you up.”
He was gone before Amy could protest. She watched him weave his way among the other vehicles in the parking lot. The drop in barometric pressure could cause joints to swell, deepen aches from past injuries. If that was the case, there was no indication in Jesse’s movements.
When the Bronco pulled up in front of the diner, Amy hurried to meet it even as Jesse jumped out the driver’s side and was rounding the vehicle to open the door for her.
True Texas-sheriff fashion, she thought as he swung open the door. She turned to thank him and found him close. She pushed back the hair the wind whipped across her face and gathered it in one hand. Her other hand clung to the side of the vehicle, steadying her while the wind and the rain and something equally elemental and powerful seemed to push her toward this man.
Jesse stepped back. He shut the door on her as she climbed inside. Her face turned to his, its questioning stare now blurred by the rivulets of rain across the window. The breath he released was a long shudder as he rounded to the driver’s door.
Hard Rain Page 3
