Night Thunder by Jill Gregory Read Free Book Online

from Thunder Creek these days, but fortunately, even that hadn’t much changed the character of the little town, which was much the same as he remembered from his childhood.
    A gust of wind blew down from the mountains, ruffling the woman’s hair as she started toward the door of the building, dragging the suitcase behind her. Ty shrugged, finished his beer, and left the balcony, slamming the door closed behind him.
    Restlessness churned through him, almost crowding out the emptiness he’d felt ever since the day Meg died. He eyed the laptop on the desk and knew he could always work until he couldn’t see straight. Or he could run—another five-mile jog might sap some of what was eating him. Better yet, he’d do both. Run now, work later. And maybe, just maybe, he’d eventually manage to sleep.
    He stuffed his keys into the pocket of the sweats he’d changed into and headed for the door.
    On the stairway, he saw the woman struggling with her suitcase. She was halfway up to his floor and nearly fell backward when she spotted him sprinting suddenly toward her.
    “Your tire’s going flat,” Ty said, cruising past her.
    “Ex— . . . excuse me?”
    “On your Blazer. Rear tire’s going flat,” he said curtly over his shoulder as he reached the ground floor. Then he noted how pale and tired she looked, and how filled to the gills her suitcase was.
    “Oh, hell. Give me that.” He sprinted back up and took it from her before she could protest, then ran it up to the landing as if it weighed no more than his briefcase.
    “Thanks . . . I . . . think,” she mumbled with a small, hesitant smile, but Ty was already forgetting her. He bounded past her and out the door, plunging into the deepening cool of the night and thinking of Meg, of how she’d chuckled when he’d gotten her veil all tangled lifting it for their first married kiss, of how warm her lips had felt, of how they’d promised themselves to each other for always.
    He put his head down, clenched his fists, and ran faster.
    Josy dragged her suitcase down the hallway until she reached 2D. For a moment she wondered if all the men in Thunder Creek could possibly be as handsome as the one she’d just met.
Well, not
met,
actually,
she thought wryly.
Encountered
was more like it.
    He obviously had things on his mind, but at least he’d helped her with her suitcase. For a moment when she’d seen him running toward her with that scowl on his face, she’d feared he was one of the men she’d seen at Archie’s house, arriving in Thunder Creek right on her tail. She didn’t know why, but she’d had a quick impression of toughness, danger, and a kind of darkness—on his hard-planed face and in the way he moved.
    Or maybe, she reflected wearily, her nerves were just shot.
    Her leather tote with the package inside swung against her side as she fitted the key Candy Merck had given her into the lock and pushed the door open. She flipped on the light switch and peered in at her new home away from home.
    The apartment wasn’t bad. It was small, with a cheap overhead light fixture that gave out merely adequate light, but the nubby forest-green sofa against one wall looked decent enough and there was a tall maple bookcase, and two armchairs upholstered in a passable maroon twill. She tugged her suitcase inside, closed the door, and walked through the place slowly.
    The furniture was inexpensive but sturdy maple veneer, the kitchen cabinets looked new, and the floors were all plain buffed wood. The white-painted walls were uniformly bare, except for one framed print over the sofa—a moose standing by a river with a backdrop of snowcapped mountains. There was a lonely looking potted silk plant near the sliding doors that opened onto a small balcony. All in all, it was pretty generic but decent, and nothing that a few rugs and prints and maybe some throw pillows couldn’t brighten up a bit. Not that she was in a position to spend much money decorating a place that was