The Healer by Sharon Sala Read Free Book Online Page B

travel from L.A. to Texas to spend time with Mama’s family. The summer I was fourteen, we were driving through New Mexico on our way to Texas. We were all asleep, so I only know what I was told, but they say a truck driver fell asleep at the wheel, crossed the center median and hit us head-on. Everyone died but me.”
    She swallowed around the knot in her throat, then took a quick sip of water.
    Jonah sighed. Her sorrow was still as deep and fresh as the day it had happened.
    “I’m so sorry,” he said softly.
    Luce shrugged. “So am I.” Then she lifted her chin. “I lived with an aunt and uncle until I was almost sixteen, then left. I haven’t seen them since.”
    “Why? Why cut yourself off from your family?”
    A muscle ticced near the corner of her eye.
    “Let’s just say I got tired of dodging my uncle’s affections,” she muttered, then looked away.
    Jonah flinched. “Again…I am sorry.”
    “You have nothing to apologize for.” She stood abruptly. “Enough of the past. I’m going to do the dishes.”
    “What can I do to help?” Jonah asked.
    “You could bring in some wood for the fire. You’ll find the woodpile just to the left of the porch.”
    The conversation had opened up old wounds for both of them, and so they finished the evening in silence, with Hobo following Jonah in and out of the house with every trip he made carrying wood.
     
    It began to rain just after dark. The firewood Jonah had carried in was stacked beside the fireplace. He was bringing in the last armful when the first drops of rain began to fall.
    “It’s raining,” he said, as Luce took a stick of wood from his load and added it to the fire that was already burning.
    She looked up at him, saw the raindrops on his face and then the ones glistening in his hair, and had to make herself think past how sexy he was to the conversation at hand.
    “Well, shoot,” she said, as she grabbed the poker and began stabbing at the logs. “From in here, you can’t hear what’s happening outside. I was hoping that the rain would pass us by. Now I’ll be walking in mud all the way to work tomorrow.”
    “You have no car?”
    She shrugged. “It wouldn’t do me any good if I did. I never learned to drive.”
    Jonah frowned, remembering that she’d told him she waited tables in the diner in town. He put down the last of the wood, then straightened up and looked around.
    The room did double duty as a kitchen and living room. The furnishings were old but functional. One thing he took note of was that everything was so clean. He hadn’t seen any kind of washer or dryer, and wondered if she had to take her laundry down into town.
    “Do you have to do your laundry down in town?” he asked.
    “No, thank goodness. There’s an old washer and dryer behind that blue curtain on the other side of the kitchen. If you have clothes you’d like to wash, you’re welcome to use them.”
    “I will. Thank you.”
    Luce sighed. “No, it’s Hobo and I who thank you,” she said, then, without thinking, laid her hand on the flat of his chest.
    There was a moment when all she felt was the thud of his heartbeat against the palm of her hand; then, in the next moment, she thought she’d been struck by lightning.
    She lost her breath and, for a moment, even her ability to breathe. Colors spilled, then blended and ran before her eyes, until it felt as if she were drowning. She tried to speak, but her tongue felt stuck to the roof of her mouth. Just as she thought she was losing her mind, a climax rocked her all the way to her toes. Her legs went weak, and her eyes rolled back in her head. If Jonah hadn’t grabbed her, she would have hit the floor.
    Jonah gasped as the shockwave of her climax rocked him almost as sharply as if it had been his own. Whatever was happening between them was an unknown. He’d been with women, but it had been nothing more than sexual release. He’d never had this happen to him before, but it felt as if he were no longer