Summer Rain (Lightning Strikes Book 3) by Barbara Freethy Page B

really wanted me to wear it, but it's brought me nothing but trouble since."
    "Well, it brought me good luck. It might be the reason I'm still alive." He paused. "Is the ring from the Mayan side of the family?"
    "Yes. Jake brought it back from Mexico. My great-grandmother said it would give me strength." She met his gaze. "And she said I was going to find the last piece of the puzzle."
    "Do you believe her?" he asked, his nerves tingling at her words. He was a writer and he loved a good story. Dani had just told him an amazing one.
    "I don't want to believe her," she whispered. "I want to go forward with my life, not backwards."
    "Perhaps you can't really go forward until you go back."
    "That's you, Patrick. You're the one who's stuck. Not me."
    He had a feeling they were both a little stuck. "It's strange that we both lost our parents in airplane crashes."
    "It is an odd coincidence," she agreed.
    "I wonder if there's any way the two crashes are related."
    "Why on earth would you think that?" she asked in astonishment.
    "I don't know. It's just a feeling. I'm probably wrong," he added, but as he turned his gaze on the road, he didn't feel like he was wrong. He felt like he'd just stumbled on to something important, only he didn’t quite know what it was.

Six
    She shouldn't have told Patrick her father's story. Dani mentally kicked herself for being so forthcoming. She didn't really know why she had. She'd rarely spoken about her father outside of her small family unit. Only a few of her friends even knew about her family's involvement in the MDT problems. But somehow she'd spilled her guts to Patrick.
    They'd been talking about his mother, and it had seemed natural to tell him a little about her family, but she shouldn't have gone into so much detail. Patrick had been lost in thought for a good ten minutes now, and she could feel a truckload of questions coming her way.
    "You know," Patrick began.
    She immediately put up her hand. "If the next few words have anything to do with me, my father, my family, or MDT, then you can stop right now."
    He stared back at her with his very curious brown eyes. "That's taking a lot off the table, Dani."
    "Let's remember why we're in this car—we're trying to get your questions answered."
    "I haven't forgotten. I'm looking forward to talking to your former boss. But in the meantime—"
    She let out a frustrated sigh. "You're incredibly stubborn."
    "I can be. Sometimes that's how you get things done. You keep going after everyone quits."
    She wished she didn't like his confidence so much or that she didn't find it so sexy and appealing. But she'd been around so many yes-men the past year that it was nice to meet someone who stood up for what he believed in. "My grandmother would have liked you," she said. "My mother's mother, not the one on the Mayan side." She stopped abruptly, realizing she'd just brought him back to her family.
    "What was she like?"
    "She was a no-nonsense woman, very strict, but also loving. She was around a lot after my dad died. I went a little off the rails, drank too much, stayed out too late, and dated some not-so-great men. My grades were falling. I was getting nowhere fast. I came home one night, and Grandma sat me down and said, 'Dani, here's the thing. If you don't stand up for something, you'll fall for anything. So stand up and be who you're supposed to be.'"
    "Did it work?"
    "It did," she admitted. "I think I needed someone to look me in the eye and tell me to suck it up and get on with my life. My mom couldn't do it. She was too conflicted, sad and angry, and as lost as I was." She let out a breath. "That's partly why I've been a little tough on my siblings. I feel like they need my grandmother's hard loving and she's not around anymore to give it, so maybe it's up to me."
    "You can't force people to let go, Dani. They only let go when they're ready, when they want to."
    "You can't force people to hang on, either."
    "That's true. Basically, you can't force