The Promise Of Rain (The Promise Duet #2)

Prologue

Jenny

Sitting on the sagging, threadbare couch across from her, I buried my face in my hands.

Reciting the whole, sorry affair reduced me to a quivering, blubbery mess. Perched on the edge of the thin seat cushion, I worked to steady my breathing and find my calm. I worked even harder to repress the memories of what that couch had witnessed over the years.

I shuddered at the thought and fished a tissue out of my pocket.

That couch had been on its last legs for a decade or more. At least it stuck around longer than any of the men in her life.

Men could be so cruel. And after this past week, I no longer believed there was a limit.

I still didn’t know why I was here, but the longer I cried, the more convinced I became it was a waste of hope.

I wrapped my old cardigan around me tighter as I rocked myself. That sweater was almost as old as the couch, but it was the only thing I had that didn’t cling.

And it was long, shielding me nearly to my knees.

My mom hated it on sight.

You won’t get a man if you dress like a housewife, Jenny.

While her words remained embedded in my brain from years of hearing them, it was rare that she and I spoke.

Rarer still that I visited.

Today, she had summoned me.

I almost hadn’t come.

But there’s a fierce need in the heart of every child that’s near impossible to kill; a deep longing for their mother’s healing touch.

If there was ever a time I needed it, it was now.

I wiped the tears from my face with the ragged edge of my sweater sleeve and blew out a long, slow breath.

Because that healing touch didn’t appear to be coming.

“Look at me, Jenny,” she demanded, her voice raspy.

I tipped my head up and took her in.

Is this my future?

Contemplating me, she narrowed her eyes.

After so much time had passed, it was odd to sit across from her in the hell that used to be my whole world.

It seemed so small now.

The lines framing my mother’s once pretty mouth, stained from the bleed of her signature hot pink lipstick, deepened as she dragged on her cigarette. Lifting her chin, she blew the smoke above her head and dangled the cigarette between two fingers.

I’d seen pictures of her when she was young, how beautiful she was.

How happy.

I could even remember, if I concentrated, a time when she had nursed hope.

Now she studied me just as surely as I studied her. And I wondered, did she find me as wanting?

“There are girls they marry and girls they fuck,” she stated.

I blinked at her use of profanity. If there’d been one thing she’d drummed into my head as a child, it was that ladies did not curse.

Her usage of that word ensured her my full attention.

Easing her slender frame from the easy chair, she dropped her gaze and bent to crush the burning tip of her cigarette into the overflowing ashtray on the side table.

How long had it been since she’d emptied it?

That distasteful job had once been mine.

Straightening to her full height, she turned narrowed, angry eyes on me and continued, “I’ll let you guess which one we are.”

My jaw dropped.

We.

As if we were the same, she and I.

Cut from the same cloth.

Like I hadn’t a hope of escaping the life she’d led.

The apple that falls not nearly far enough from the tree.

She winced, her eyes flashing with what I suspected was pity before growing hard once more. Without another word, she turned and walked away from me.

I didn’t take my eyes off her back until she closed her bedroom door.

Outside, the first fat raindrops of the coming storm pelted the window.

I watched them slide down the glass like tears from Heaven.

Living in a rundown cottage just beyond the docks, the town of Moose Lake sitting pretty on one side of us, miles of farmland on the other, Mom worked at various local farms.

For as long as I could remember, our lives and her income revolved around rain.

I hope the rain holds off.

If only it would rain.

There’s been too much rain this year.

We need to pray for rain.

As if the heavens gave a shit what happened here on earth.

She hadn’t changed since I left, not in any way that mattered.

But I had.

Afraid to be on my own after what happened, I’d moved back in with Ansel.

Some might say it was a step back.

But I thought about the paint swatches I picked up on the weekend, the corkboard of dreams hanging on my bedroom wall, the rich smell of yeast and the fragrance of vanilla, cinnamon and the punch of soft, sourdough beneath my fists.

My mother didn’t want me to be better.

She wasn’t praying for rain.

I promise, as soon as it rains, I’ll come.

Standing, I gathered my purse under my arm and took one last look around.

I’d make my own damn rain.