Hugh-Jay ran through the pouring rain to his truck.

He was going to tell Laurie that he would take the blame, if she would promise never to do anything like that again. And then he would face his father and tell the necessary lie, and the old man was never going to forgive him, but he could spend the rest of his life, if need be, trying to regain his father’s trust again. His decision killed him, because he respected his father above all other men, but his love for his baby daughter wouldn’t let him brand her mother a thief.

Hugh-Jay drove back into town, barely aware of the pummeling rain.

SHORTLY AFTER Hugh-Jay drove past the Rose Motel and turned the corner toward home, Chase opened the motel door that his brother Bobby had left propped open with a pen to keep it from locking. When he walked into the dark room, he saw Bobby seated by the window, drinking beer, and staring out at the rain.

“What took you so long?” Bobby asked him in a surly tone.

“What are you talking about? It didn’t take long. Long enough to grab some dry clothes, is all. Here, I brought some for you. I can’t believe you’re sitting there sopping wet like that.”

Chase tossed dry jeans and a shirt at his brother, who parried them with his left hand so they fell to the floor.

Chase started getting out of his own wet clothing.

“I saw Hugh-Jay drive by a few minutes ago,” Bobby told him.

“Couldn’t have. He’s in Colorado by now.”

“No, he’s not. It was his truck, plain as thunder.”

As if on cue, thunder actually rolled at that moment, so loud they had to wait before they could hear each other speak.

“You sure?”

“Hell, yes, I’m sure. I think I’d know that truck!”

“Did you tell Dad?”

“Why would I? If Hugh-Jay didn’t get on the road, it’s not like Dad can do anything about it now.”

“I guess not. And it’s not like he doesn’t have a home to sleep in.”

Bobby took a long drink from the lip of a beer bottle. “Laurie okay?”

“Fine, why wouldn’t she be? A little drunk. How drunk are you?”

“Shut up.”

Chase was glad to do that and went right to bed to prove it, leaving his younger brother still at the window, morosely looking at the rain until he fell asleep in the chair. A crack of lightning woke them both up a few minutes later, along with waking up their father two doors down.

ON THE STAIRCASE, Laurie let the tips of her fingers slide along the wall so that her arms were spread out as if she were about to take off and fly. When she reached the first floor, she wandered into the dining room, touching things, letting her hands slide up and down the curved tops of the walnut chairs, clicking her fingernails over the spines of the books on the living room bookshelves. She lay down on her back on one of the sofas and stared out the window at the rain coming down, spreading her legs as if for a man, imagining making love in this storm, in this room, on this couch, in the darkness lit by lightning.

She got up and went to a window, naked and invisible to the world.

Finally, she walked lightly through the foyer, past the mirrored, walnut tallboy against the wall, stopping for a long admiring look at herself, turning to the right and the left and then all the way around to see herself from every angle, trying to view her body as men saw her, voluptuous and lush, a special woman to stroke and please and pamper and adore. She sighed with the contentment of the moment. Then she walked on and pushed through the swinging door into the kitchen and went to the sink to get a drink of water, running her fingers under the water first, then drinking slowly, breathing between every sip. The thunder was crashing all around, blocking out every other sound, and intermittent lightning illuminated patches of the world outside her windows.

She felt safe inside the great vault of a house, and protected by the storm.

And yet, what she wanted to do in that instant was leave. Not forever. Just for this moment, this wild moment when she felt the thunder in her bones. She wanted to run outside, naked, into the rain and lightning and let it pour on her and flash around her and scare her, and she wanted to keep running until she was out of Rose, out of her marriage, out of her life, away from her child, just for a little while.

“Or, maybe I’d never come back,” she dared herself, putting the glass down.

She thought she heard noises on the kitchen porch, muffled by the storm.

At the sink, she tensed, listening, but didn’t run to put on clothes.

Then she heard the kitchen door open behind her, heard the rushing sound of the noise of the storm coming in, heard it cut off when the door closed.

She gripped the edge of the sink and closed her eyes.

The storm was so loud she couldn’t hear the stocking-clad footsteps coming toward her, so the first she knew of his presence at her back was when his hands came around and cupped her breasts.

She gasped and leaned back into him.

“I thought you’d be with Belle,” she murmured as Meryl’s hands moved down, and she gasped again. “Why aren’t you with Belle?”

“Because I can’t be until we’re married,” her husband’s best friend said as he turned her to face him. “Because it practically killed me not to screw her tonight when she begged for it. Because you called me, you little troublemaker, and told me he’d be gone tonight. Because it could be a long time before we get a chance like this again.”

“What?” she mocked him. “Not because you love me?”

“No,” he said, leaning down to kiss her. “Because I want you, and you want me.”

She always had wanted him in this way and this way only, in those years when Meryl Tapper was still slim, and athletic, good-looking and sexy. They’d been Homecoming King and Queen together when he was a junior and she was only a freshman, but she’d never had her eye on Meryl for anything but fun, and he’d never had his eyes on her for anything but that, either. They had their hooks set for bigger prizes-the Linders, Belle and Hugh-Jay, and even managed to convince themselves, sometimes, they loved them.

“Did you park in back?”

“I left my truck at my office and walked over.”

He was in his socks, which were wet clear through.

“Walked?” she laughed. “You really wanted this.”

“So much I barely could walk,” he said, making them both laugh at his dirty joke.

She gave him a teasing look. “What are you waiting for?”

Without taking off his own clothes, just unzipping his jeans, Meryl lifted her and took her once with her back against the sink, the metal rim cutting into her until her skin broke and she bled and complained to him. Then he led her upstairs-moving so fast they knocked over a chair, and laughed about that, too. On the second floor, she stepped ahead of him, pulling him to the small guest room at the end of the hall, where they always went, because they didn’t want to leave any clues in the master bedroom for Hugh-Jay to find, not that he’d ever in a million years suspect what they did now and then, they assured themselves whenever they did it.

“Do you feel guilty?” she asked him as he pushed into her again.

Hugh-Jay never talked during sex; he treated it like a sacred ritual, making love to her in reverent silence as if she were a virgin every time. It irritated and bored her so much that she did everything she could to get it over with quickly. Sex was supposed to be fun, it wasn’t supposed to be church.

“No, I don’t feel guilty, do you?” he asked. “It’s not as if we don’t care about them.”

“I know. Want to meet me out of town somewhere?”

“What?” Right in the middle of things, he laughed, which she loved. She loved the fact that they didn’t take it seriously. Her back felt raw and bruised and it stung where he had rammed her into the edge of the sink, but the pain pleased her, as if it were a badge of sexual merit, like hickeys and whisker burns used to be when they were kids in high school. The evidence of their mating had changed, but the cause remained the same, and she also loved that and wanted to show it off by wearing hip-hugger jeans or a bikini.