Black Hills by Nora Roberts Page B

checking fences with Joe and Sam.
    Even at that distance she could see what they were. Lovers now, so young, so fresh. All they could see were the summer blue skies, and not the storms blowing in.
    “He’ll break her heart.”
    “I wish I could say otherwise.” Behind her, Lucy put a hand on Jenna’s shoulder and watched as she watched.
    “She thinks it’ll all fall into place, the way she wants, the way she plans. That it’ll be what it is now forever. I can’t tell her different. She wouldn’t believe me.”
    “He loves her.”
    “Oh, I know. I know. But he’ll go, just as she will. They have to. And she’ll never be quite the same again. There’s no stopping that either.”
    “We hoped he’d stay. When he told us he wasn’t going back to college, I thought, Well, that’s all right. You’ll stay here, and take over the farm one day. I had just enough time to think it—and to think how he might’ve given his education a better try if his father hadn’t pushed so hard. Then he told us what he aimed to do.”
    “The police force.” She turned from the window to study her friend. “How do you feel about that, Lucy?”
    “Scared some, that’s a fact. Hopeful he’ll find his feet, and some real pride in himself. I can’t tell him any more than you can tell Lil.”
    “My biggest fear is he’ll ask her to go back with him, and she will. She’s young and in love and, well, fearless. The way you are at that age.” Jenna walked over to get out the pitcher of lemonade to give her hands something to do. “She’d just let her heart pull her along. It’s so far away. Not just the miles.”
    “I know. I know what it was like when my Missy lit out, like there was a fire under her feet.” At home in Jenna’s kitchen as she was in her own, Lucy went to the cupboard for glasses. “He’s not like his mother, not a bit. Neither’s your girl. Missy, she never had a thought for anybody but herself. Just seemed to be born that way. Not mean, not even hard, just careless. She wanted anything but here.”
    She took her drink back to the window, sipping as she looked out. “Those two might want different things, but here’s a part of it. Your girl has plans, Jenna. My boy there? He’s trying to make some.”
    “I don’t know if you ever get over your first love. Joe was mine, so I never had to get over him. I just hate knowing she’s going to hurt. Both of them are going to hurt.”
    “They’ll never let loose of each other, not all the way. Too much there. But, well, nothing we can do about it in the meantime but be here. Storm’s coming in.”
    “I know.”
     
     
     
    THE WIND KICKED high and hard, ahead of the rain. Lightning slashed over the hills in whips of eerie blue, blinding white. It struck a cotton-wood in the near pasture, cleaving it like an ax. Ozone burned the air like a sorcerer’s potion.
    “It’s a mean one.” Lil stood on the back porch scenting the air. Inside the kitchen, the dogs whined, and were, she imagined, huddled under the table.
    It could pass, she knew, as quickly as it came. Or it could beat and strike and wreak destruction. Hail to batter the crops and the stock, twisting winds to shred them. In the hills, in the canyons, animals would take shelter in lairs and dens, in caves and thickets and high grass. Just as people took it in houses, in cars.
    The feeding chain meant nothing to nature.
    The cannon blast of thunder boomed, rolled, echoed, and shook the valley.
    “You won’t get this in New York.”
    “We have thunderstorms back east.”
    Lil just shook her head as she watched the show. “Not like this. City storms are inconveniences. This is drama, and adventure.”
    “Try hailing a cab in Midtown during a storm. Baby, that’s an adventure.” Still, he laughed and took her hand. “But you’ve got a point. This is E Ticket.”
    “Here comes the rain.”
    It swept in, fast-moving curtains. She watched the wall rush through, and the world went a little