Read Online Leave it for the Rain: A Love She Couldn't Remember—A Woman He Couldn't Forget (Grayson Brothers Book 6) by Wendy Lindstrom - Free Book Online Page A

up the small nugget, noting that it was lighter than his own stone, that the shape and the grooves had a different flow, a different feel than the ones he knew so well in his own stone. Knowing that Rebecca had held and rubbed the stone, worried the smooth channels as she faced her problems and challenges, made him ache.
    Adam didn’t like to think that Rebecca had worried or hurt or wanted for anything, but he knew she had. She’d probably kept most of those concerns to herself, mulled them over right here in her room. This had been her chamber for two decades, and her light lavender scent lived in the bedding and the rose colored curtains and the floral wallpaper. In this pretty little room she slept, dressed, read his love letters, and studied the veterinarian skills she was learning. She daydreamed here about marrying him, having their children, and traveling to Crane Landing and the other places Adam had told her about. To realize that all her dreams could end in this tiny room made Adam’s throat constrict around a wad of grief.
    He clutched her stone in his hand, remembering their last moments together.
    Rebecca’s pain-filled groan snapped him around. He leaned over and clasped her hand, the worry stone between their palms.
    “I’m here, love.” He said the words with strength and purpose, hoping that she could hear, could understand that he would help her bear whatever agony and discomfort gripped her.
    For a moment, she seemed to listen, but her eyes didn’t open. Her forehead scrunched, and she released another moan and rolled her head left as if trying to escape the pain.
    Adam couldn’t bear to see her hurting. He shot to the top of the stairs. “Doc Milton! Rebecca is stirring!”
    Before the doctor could heave himself from the wingback chair, Radford raced to the top of the stairs, his eyes filled with dread.
    “She moaned, sir,” Adam said, regretting that his shout had scared Radford. “I hope it means she’s waking up.”
    In three strides, Radford ducked into Rebecca’s room. He sat beside her and cupped her face. “Come on, sprite. Open your eyes, sweetheart.”
    Adam leaned in the doorway, watching Radford plead with his daughter. Seeing the man’s anguish twisted Adam’s gut. He, too, felt that helpless feeling, that intense love, that sickening fear that was reflected in Radford’s eyes.
    Doc Milton stepped past Adam and quickly tended to Rebecca. He checked her eyes, her breathing, her heart, and her head wound, then sat back on the edge of the bed. “She’s still out, but she’s feeling pain now. Might mean she’s coming around. Might just mean she’s hurting. I’ll give her a small dose of laudanum to ease her suffering a bit.”
    After he administered the opiate, the doctor checked her pulse and looked down in surprise. “What’s this?” He turned Rebecca’s palm toward the ceiling. Using his thumb, he inspected the object wobbling in her lightly closed fist. “It appears to be a... rock of some sort.”
    Adam’s heartbeat doubled. Their worry stones had been one of many secrets the two of them had shared. He would hate to have something so special be revealed under such awful circumstances.
    Evelyn, who had entered the room behind the doctor, shrugged and said she didn’t know what it was.
    Radford shook his head, appearing as confused as Evelyn and the doctor. “Maybe one of the children put it there.”
    Doc Milton harrumphed. “Whatever it is,” he said, “it seems to bring her some comfort.”
    A sad smile lifted one corner of Radford’s mouth. “I’m sure this is one of her treasures,” he said, his voice hoarse with emotion. “From the time she was a baby, she dragged in more sticks and stones and leaves than an old hound dog. She’d make a fuss about every item and show me in detail why they were worth keeping.” He stood silent for a minute as if lost in thought. “She sees beauty in everything around her.”
    “She’s a special young lady, for