Struck by Lightning. Christa Maurice

      “No.”

      Max nodded. “Okay, are you playing games with that guy?”

      “You have no faith in me.”

      Max put his arm over her shoulder. “I have absolute faith in you. Are you playing games with that guy?”

      The door opened. Claudia Sanchez stepped in as though she was far too good for this one-horse town. She smoothed her hand over her perfectly coifed hair before speaking. “Hello, I’m Claudia Sanchez. From the paper. I called earlier.”

      Rebecca plastered on her best sales face. “Hello. It’s a pleasure to see you again. I hope my Dream sculpture found a good home with you.”

      “That was yours, wasn’t it? It looks very nice in my spare bedroom.”

      Rebecca half expected her to say it matched her bed spread, but she didn’t. “Glad to hear it. Feel free to look around. Max and I will be here to answer any questions you have.” She turned back to the window. The hero was most definitely gone so she stepped up on the sill and finished hanging the necklaces.

      Why was he wandering down the street today? She felt pretty sure she’d never seen him before last night. Rebecca licked her lips. It had been a great kiss. But if it hadn’t been raining and there hadn’t been lightning and he hadn’t been in uniform, it wouldn’t have been so great. No, she thought, it would have been a pretty average kiss. She could prove that by going back to the station some rainless night and looking up the professional hero for a control kiss. And then maybe a rain-only kiss.

      And then one out of that uniform.

      That image sprung to mind. Rebecca shivered and hung the last of Edie’s necklaces in the window. The large, chunky amethyst on it caught the light and flared it around the room. She had to put that guy out of her mind at the soonest opportunity. She didn’t have time to be messing around with heroes.

      * * * *

      Dan opened the door of his car, which he’d parked around the corner. Before he’d even settled into the driver’s seat, he had out his map. She could have been coming from anywhere and going anywhere. According to the marquee, a movie had let out not long before he’d seen her and the restaurant sign said it had been open, as had the newsstand. The crabby woman in the gallery said they usually closed before then. The library and the bank had both been closed also, but that didn’t narrow the field enough. Her destination wasn’t any easier to figure out. The block she’d turned onto had half a dozen houses split up into apartments and one actual apartment building along with several single-family dwellings. Worse, there was one alley connected to the next road down and a cul-de-sac with yet more apartments.

      He studied the map for something he might have missed that would point to the only logical location for her. Anything that would narrow his search a little bit.

      Maybe if he walked it. He could park at the station and walk the route he’d seen her take. She hadn’t had on any shoes, and if the alley was rough and glassy she couldn’t have gone that way. Or he might spot the purple skirt hung outside to dry someplace. Or the girl herself might be sitting on a porch drinking her morning coffee. And failing all that maybe Kevin’s ungirlfriend would say, “Her? Oh sure I know her. You want her number?”

      He had to find her. Had to. He couldn’t really explain to himself why, but he had to. He set aside the map and started the car. He had two days to patrol before he had to be back on duty and if he hadn’t found her by then, he’d just have to take up his spot at the bay doors, watching down the street for any sight of her.

       Chapter 2

      “It’s just amazing. It’s like she was swallowed up by the earth.” Dan toyed with his remaining french fries. Since Jack’s wedding last Saturday, he’d been eating every possible meal at Meechan’s. The waitresses knew him, and he pronounced it “Meechan’s Keetchan” like a local. “They said she used to come in once in a while. But she hasn’t been here for at least a month. The waitresses, the cook and the regulars. Nobody has seen her.”

      “Maybe she moved away,” Lew offered.

      Dan groaned. “I thought of that. You don’t think she did, do you? I mean, it wasn’t like end of term at the university, was it?”

      “So when do you give up?”

      Dan flashed him a trademark grin. “As soon as something more entertaining comes along.” Before he’d looked back down at his plate, he was frowning again. “I’m beginning to think I made her up. Like I was standing there watching the rain and I daydreamed this ethereal woman.”

      “Ethereal?”

      “It was the word of the day yesterday. Sort of fits.” Dan shrugged. When he’d torn the page off the calendar yesterday morning and read the definition the first thing he’d thought of was that girl. Of course he’d thought of her first thing every morning since he’d met her, but the word of the day for the day before that, “disingenuous,” hadn’t reminded him of her; nor had it become permanently linked to her and the purple puddles she’d left on the apparatus bay floor. “You saw the puddles on the floor. You believe she was really there.”

      “Sure.”

      “Good, because I’m starting to think I imagined the whole thing.”

      Lew shoved his plate back and leaned his elbow on the table. “Why are you so interested in this one?”

      “This one?”

      “This girl. You’re wrapped up in pursuing a girl you can’t find. Why?”

      Dan looked down at his plate. He’d asked himself that same question many nights as he’d fallen asleep and over many Meechan’s burgers. He’d dated prettier women, more exotic, exciting women, but something about this one wouldn’t let him go. The amused glint in her eyes when she teased him about his job within thirty seconds of meeting him. Or maybe it was her scornful smile as she challenged him to her experiment. Or the fact that she sat down on the push bumper of the engine and started wringing out her long black hair like she felt more at home there than he did. Or the nagging feeling in his gut that there was something more here. Something significant, larger than life. Like she had dropped into his world and fit perfectly as though she’d been made for him, the way her wet hair smelled and the satin of her skin. That little catch in her breath in the moment before they kissed. She wasn’t too hot or too cold or too hard or too soft. She was just right.

      But he couldn’t tell any of this to Lew without getting seriously ridiculed, possibly for the rest of his life. “She’s a challenge. I mean, how many women walk away from Dan McWilliams?”

      “Yeah.” Lew stood up and dropped a couple of bills on the table. “I gotta get to the junkyard. See you later.”

      Dan grunted. She couldn’t have moved away. She had to be here someplace. It was just going to be a matter of time before he found her again.

      * * * *

      Rebecca sat behind the desk with her chin in her hands, staring out the window. For five weeks now she’d been living like a hermit. Other than one foray to the Salvation Army for supplies, she’d been staying home working on new stuff when she wasn’t drawing the hero in her sketchbook. She’d been walking to the gallery the long way down Market and carrying her lunch so she wouldn’t need to head to Meechan’s and risk being spotted on the street. Now she was starting to miss Billy’s chocolate shakes. The hero hadn’t been on the street for a couple of days. Maybe he’d given up. She couldn’t stay in hiding forever, assuming he was still looking for her. He’d have to be nuts and she didn’t need another nut in her life.

      Unless he was still looking for her because he’d felt something in that ridiculous kiss too. Felt that mad surge she couldn’t entirely convince herself was electricity in the air from the storm.

      Who cared if he felt something? She hadn’t. It was just electricity. Lightning. A Romeo like that