In This Rain (49 page)
But if Id
You didnt.
What?
Whatever you were going to say you should have done, might have done, wish youd done. Whatever it is, you didnt, and you cant, and this is where we are now.
She looked up at him. Where we are?
Here. He spread his arms, showed her the garden. Come with me.
She followed him across the yard to the hill, where the rudbeckia was now as high as her waist. They need to be weeded, Joe said.
Ann stood, unsure, no direction to go.
Its going to rain. Joe crouched by the flower bed, started to work, separating the things he didnt want to keep from the things he did.
Ann looked up. Opulent clouds floated in the sapphire sky. Rain? She didnt know how he knew that, didnt know if it was true. Well, she thought, I guess Ill have to wait and see.
She knelt and joined him.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
S. J. ROZAN is the author of the acclaimed novel Absent Friends, in addition to eight novels in the award-winning Lydia Chin/Bill Smith series. Born and raised in the Bronx, Rozan is an architect in a New York firm and lives in Greenwich Village, where she is at work on her next novel of suspense.
ALSO BY S. J. ROZAN
Absent Friends
IN THIS RAIN
A Delacorte Press Book / January 2007
Published by Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved
Copyright Š 2006 by S. J. Rozan
Excerpt from The Orphan of Zhao by Stephin Merritt used by permission of Gay and Loud Music.
Delacorte Press is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rozan, S. J.
In this rain / S. J. Rozan.
p. cm.
eISBN-13: 978-0-440-33654-9
eISBN-10: 0-440-33654-6
1. New York (N.Y.) Fiction. I. Title.
PS3568.O99 I6 2006
813.’ 54 22 2006047405
www.bantamdell.com
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