Read Online Raising Rain by Debbie Fuller Thomas - Free Book Online Page A

cover to cover. Today would have been Hayden’s turn to bring in the paper and the coffee.
    Rain pulled on a light robe as she went into the kitchen for her coffee. She hadn’t bothered to wear one until Hayden left. Somehow she now felt exposed running around the house in her camisole and baggy shorts. As if a robe would be some kind of protection. It made no sense, and she knew it.
    Noah curled around her ankle while she stood by the coffeepot, his stub of a tail twitching as he meowed. “Hungry?” she asked. “You must have really worked up an appetite last night.” She shook some crunchies into his bowl. “Next time you cry at my window at 3:00 a.m., I’m dropping you back off at the clinic.”
    Bebe had introduced her to Noah after he was brought to the clinicby an elderly man who found him treading water in a ditch in the pouring rain. He hadn’t been even three months old, and his tail was so badly infected that it had to be amputated. He wasn’t feral, but he didn’t have a chip and they couldn’t locate his owner, so they nursed him back to health and Rain adopted him.
    It occurred to her that, although he did provide some company, she’d had too many one-sided conversations with Noah in the last four weeks.
    She had cancelled the Sunday paper in a burst of anger when the carrier called to renew two weeks before. When she thought about it afterward, she realized what a sensible thing it had been. It was one less thing to carry down to the Dumpster and she saved some money. She only enjoyed the front page and the entertainment section, anyway.
    She settled into bed with her laptop and her coffee and read the paper online instead. She checked her e-mail, deleting miscellaneous trash and spam that had gotten through the filter. She checked her Facebook page, but there were no messages or updates. She removed some pictures she’d posted of both of them at Bodega Bay and one at his last year’s birthday dinner at Luigi’s. None of her friends were online, so she logged out.
    She tried to connect with Lisa to catch a movie in the afternoon, but it was her mother-in-law’s birthday and they had to drive to Gilroy. Her friend Sarah offered to bring her along while she shopped for wallpaper for the baby’s nursery, but she begged off.
    Rain showered and dressed and went to Whole Foods for some groceries. She found it challenging to plan meals for one person. She tossed a large bag of frozen prawns into the cart (Hayden hated the smell) and planned to have them twice in the same week. She bought Heirloom tomatoes for a tomato and mayonnaise sandwich on white bread, like Bebe’s mom would make, and which Hayden would have frowned on. She threw in a container of pesto and whipping cream for pasta and a tub of Dreyer’s Girl Scouts Thin Mint ice cream. Hayden was lactose intolerant. And because he bordered precariously on vegetarian, she bought bacon for BLTs, and a juicy, organically raised rib-eye steak with garlic butter.
    She bagged up a big orange sweet potato and picked up miniature marshmallows to melt on top. She bought an aromatic plug-in scented with mango, which most certainly would have set off his allergies, and another one in vanilla for the bathroom. She found a bar of heavenly lavender soap. She even tossed in a catnip mouse for Noah. Last, she cruised the flower aisle for a small bouquet of yellow roses and baby’s breath. Then she headed to the cashier, admiring all her purchases as a sort of rebellion.
    The total rang up to a little more than she’d expected to pay, but she’d made her point and there was no going back. She’d never realized how much of herself she’d changed for Hayden.

    The boys went to church on Sunday with Bebe and Neil since Scott was leaving that afternoon. They went out to lunch together afterward and let Scott choose the restaurant.
    He chose Ruby’s Roadhouse where he filled up on