Darlene Scalera - Hard Rain

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.”

Mitch headed toward his men. Jesse walked over to Amy and her patient. “Hey, Sunshine.” He squatted at eye-level with the child. “Not only are you the most beautiful little one I’ve ever seen, I believe you’re the bravest.”

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.”

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.