He’d brought a six-pack with him, provided by a cowboy he’d asked to buy it for him. He proceeded to get started on it by pulling a chair up to the window and drinking while he sat in the dark and watched the deluge. The gutters were lakes by now, water stood deep in the valleys of intersections, and tree branches had come down all over town. There had been a couple of times when he was sure his truck was going to stall, but he’d managed to roll it on through the high water, feeling like a barge captain.

Half a beer down, he smiled with satisfaction, remembering how he had manhandled Billy Crosby at the tavern.

Bastard.

One beer down, he glanced over at the two beds.

He was thinking of fading into one of them, but Chase didn’t have a key to the damned room. What the hell was taking Chase so long anyway? All he had to do was drop off Laurie…

“What the fuck are you doing?” he muttered to his absent brother.

When he was away from his parents, who forbade such language in their home, he liked to let loose with it. The word “fuck” made him nervous, however, when combined in the same sentence with his brother and Laurie. It wasn’t easy being crazy in love with his own sister-in-law and never letting anybody know it. It was painful knowing it was probably never going to come to anything, and always looking for any little sign that she even liked him, and knowing what his fathers and brothers would do to him if they ever so much as guessed what he thought about in bed each night. And when he was driving his truck. And when he was doing practically anything. Like, when he should have been studying.

He’d flunked out of K-State because he couldn’t stop thinking about Laurie.

He had this one fantasy he loved, even though he was deeply ashamed of it because it required both of his brothers being dead. It made him feel kind of sick every time he let it play in his brain. He already felt bad enough about betraying Hugh-Jay, even if it was only in his imagination, and this story only made that worse. In his fantasy, they were all back in biblical days and it was the law that when a man died his next oldest brother had to marry his widow, just as things had been back then in real life. That was why in the fantasy Chase had to be gone, too, of the plague or something, or being stabbed by a jealous husband, maybe. Laurie’s and Bobby’s parents and the whole community insisted on their marriage, so Bobby and Laurie didn’t have any choice in the matter. They had to get married to satisfy tradition and religion, so it didn’t matter if Laurie didn’t want to. In his fantasy, Laurie came around to appreciating that he was honorable and noble, and that he was only doing the right thing because he wanted to help and protect her. And then she’d have a chance to fall in love with him, like he was with her.

It was also hard to be in love with her because of Chase.

When he saw Chase talking and joking around with her, making it look easy, it ate him up with jealousy. It made him want to grab Chase and slam him up against the house and then stomp on him. Talking to women was easy for Chase, like swinging up into a saddle, or smoking a cigarette. Nothing to it, if you had the bullshit for it. It was hard for Bobby to talk to most people, but it seemed like his tongue swelled to twice its size when he was anywhere near Laurie. About all he could get out of his mouth was grunts, which sometimes made her give him a look like he disgusted her. Like this evening, when she’d complained he was too big to sit by her.

That’s real attractive, he thought, loathing himself.

Thinking about what really was attractive, Bobby reflexively reached for his left rear pocket where he kept a little photo of her.

When all he felt was denim-and he remembered where the picture was-he had a scary moment of thinking, Oh, shit! What if his mother found the picture when she washed his other jeans? He told himself she wouldn’t think anything of it, because little Jody was in the photo, too, so it was just an ordinary picture of his sister-in-law and his niece, like any loving uncle might keep.

Next time, though, he would put the photo in a more private place.

He didn’t know how he’d explain it if his dad or his brothers saw it, and how ragged and worn it was, which could only be from him handling it so often. Stroking her face. Her hair. Her mouth. And other parts of her. Chase would immediately suspect something, and he would never let go of it.

Where was Chase, for God’s sake?

This was pissing him off.

Bobby squashed the empty beer can in his right hand.

If Chase didn’t show up soon, he thought that he might have to get in the truck and go after him.

BELLE JUMPED when she heard pounding on the side door of the bank.

At first she thought it was noise from the storm, maybe a big branch blown into the door. But when it kept up, she made out a human voice mixed in with the thunder, rain, lightning, wind, and pounding. She weaved her way toward it and jerked the door open. As hard as it was raining, she was surprised that whoever it was hadn’t just come on in. Then she saw the screen door and remembered she had latched it to keep it from blowing open.

Meryl Tapper stood outside in the rain, looking in at her with a sheepish expression.

“Meryl! Come in, get in here!”

He had dropped her off and then gone back to his office to check on things there. She hadn’t expected him to come back, which made it all the sweeter that he had gone to the effort, especially in the storm. He had his shirt pulled up over his head for cover, leaving his belly and half of his chest and his back exposed. It didn’t keep him from looking as if he had been swimming in drainage ditches. His sandy-colored hair was plastered to his face and neck. Water streamed down his raised arms. His blue jeans were so wet they looked as if they’d be heavy to walk in. He looked like the most beautiful drowned rat that Belle had ever seen, and she was so eager to let him in that her fingers fumbled with the latch on the door.

Belle wasn’t feeling too steady. She didn’t often drink more than one beer, and the three she’d had that evening made her feel dizzy and reckless.

“You’re wet as a sponge!”

“It won’t kill me.”

“It might.” She started fumbling with the bolo tie she’d given him, trying to get the silver horse to slide down the twined leather so she could lift it over his head. “You need to get out of those clothes.”

He put a hand over her hand to stop her.

“I don’t have anything to change into, Belle.”

Belle, who was a virgin, swallowed hard and said, “That’s okay.”

Meryl instantly realized what she was saying. He took her forearms in his wet hands and said, “Then I’m going to ask you now before this goes any further. Will you marry me, Belle Linder?”

Belle laughed a little. “You don’t have to marry me to have sex with me, Meryl.”

“Yeah, I do.”

She stared at him, feeling confused, not sure whether to be disappointed or glad.

“We’re going to get married first,” Meryl told her, “if you ever remember to say yes.”

“What about your wet clothes?” she asked, feeling stupid the second after she said it.

“They’re going to get wetter because I’m going on home.”

“Did you come here just to ask me to marry you?”

“Yeah.” Meryl grinned. “Come hell or high water.”

“Are we in love?”

“I’m pretty sure we are, Belle.”

“Yes!” she said. “I’ll marry you, Meryl Tapper.”

He kissed her without holding her, for fear of soaking her, but Belle wasn’t having any of that kind of restraint. She pulled him toward her, wrapped her arms around him and got just as wet as he was.

WORKING ON his third beer can, Bobby peered through the heavy rain and recognized a truck that splashed by.

“What’s Hugh-Jay doing here?” he asked the storm. He was positive that was his eldest brother’s truck, the one that was supposed to be in Colorado by now. Bobby raised up out of the chair so he could follow the truck’s rear lights down the dark street. It was hard to see, so he could have been wrong, except there wasn’t another silver truck like that in Rose.