Beautiful Storm (Lightning Strikes Book 1) by Barbara Freethy Read Free Book Online

in an electrical storm somewhere over the Gulf of Mexico."
    "I'm sorry." Sympathy filled his gaze. "Before, at the park, you mentioned you'd lost someone close to you."
    "That was my dad. What made the loss even worse was that neither his plane nor his body was recovered. Search parties went out several times to look for him without any luck. I know what it's like for someone to vanish in a second. I know what it feels like to live without answers to a loved one's disappearance. I was sixteen years old when my dad died. It's been ten years, and I still don't really know what happened to him, what he thought in those last moments, whether he knew he was going down, whether he survived for a few minutes or was killed on impact." She took in a shaky breath at the painful memories. "The questions have haunted me. I think that's why I feel so emotionally connected to Liliana. I haven't been able to find my dad, but maybe I can help find her."
    "That makes sense."
    "Good," she said with a smile. "It's nice to make sense once in a while. After my father died, my mother sent me to a shrink for almost a year. Unfortunately, therapy was not at all successful. She wanted me to talk about my feelings. All I wanted to talk about was lightning. Ever since then, when lightning strikes, I run toward it. There's something inside me that wants to understand it."
    "What's to understand? It's a weather phenomenon. Certain forces cause lightning to happen. It's not a mystery."
    "I know the science behind electrical storms, but I think there's more than science involved."
    He raised an eyebrow. "Like what?"
    "You wouldn't understand."
    "Try me."
    "Why? You came here to look at my photographs."
    "I'm curious."
    "Lightning is majestic. It's a heavenly show," she said with a wave of her hand.
    He rested his forearms on the table as he gazed at her. "So it's a spiritual thing?"
    "It's a lot of things."
    It had been a long time since anyone had really asked her about her passion. Most men got bored, made a joke, or changed the subject when she started to ramble on about lightning. Her obsession to chase storms had broken up more than one relationship, so she'd learned to keep her mouth shut, which is what she should have done now.
    "What else?" he pressed. "I know there's more."
    She didn't know how he knew, but of course he was right. She sipped her coffee, then set the cup down. "My father was born in southern Mexico, in the Yucatan. He grew up in a small village near the remains of ancient Mayan sites. His mother and grandmother raised him in the traditions of their ancestors. To my father's family, lightning ties the earth to the heavens, the living to the dead, the past to the present. My great-grandmother used to say that the lightning comes down from the sky to show you what you need to see."
    Michael leaned forward in his seat, his expression a mix of skepticism and interest. It was actually a more positive response than she usually received. "I thought your father was a pilot. Surely, he had to understand weather in order to fly planes. That didn't change some of his mystical beliefs?"
    She nodded. "He was always torn, not just about lightning, but about everything. He used to tell me that he'd lived his life in two parts. He was born in Mexico, but while his mom and her family were Mayan, his dad and his dad's family were American. My grandfather was an engineer. He was working in the Yucatan when he met my grandmother, so he was a man of science."
    "Your grandmother's beliefs must have been a challenge for your grandfather."
    "I'm sure they were, and it's possible that their marriage wouldn't have lasted, but my grandmother died very young. My dad was only ten when she passed. After that, my grandfather moved my dad back to the States. So my father had this early upbringing that was rather magical and then the rest of his childhood and life was about science. He joined the Navy, became a pilot, and had a very good career before he retired and