Falling for Rain by Gina Buonaguro, Janice Kirk Page A

over the water.
    "Of course. I’ve been away.  I don't have amnesia." She had tried to summon some sarcasm to hide behind, but it was unconvincing even to her own ears.
    "Are you sure?  I remember a time when you would have gladly kissed me," he said gently.
    "That was a long time ago,” she said sadly. You can’t go home again. It was a cliché but perhaps in her case fitting.
    Yet it wasn’t that she hadn’t wanted to kiss Rain. It was that she couldn’t. She had been suppressing her feelings for so long that she could no longer express them. The moment his lips had touched hers, she had run for her very life. She told herself it was better this way – she couldn’t risk being hurt again.
    "Look, Rain,” she said, trying to keep her voice from betraying her fear. “I came back here to sell this place, to end this part of my life forever. I didn't want to come back. I would’ve been perfectly happy never to see this place again.” She took a breath. “And don’t try to kiss me again," she added feebly.
    Rain took heart in the unconvincing tone of her last words but decided it was best not to say anything about what had almost just happened between them. He focused on the first part of her speech. "Okay, fair enough. But how about me? It’s my home, and I love it.” Like you used to love it...and me too , he thought.
    No response from Emily. He was still talking to her back. She may be determined to hate him, but that didn’t mean he had to give up trying. “Just before your father died, he asked for you. He wanted to tell you how glad he was the farm would be in your hands and not going to strangers."
    This made her turn around. She felt defensive anger rising in her throat. "Don't try and make me feel guilty, Rain, because it won't work. This place killed my mother, so I don't think him wanting to pass it on to me was exactly a gift from a loving father. If he had really loved his family, he would have sold it long ago."
    " Em ." Only Rain had ever called her Em . She had allowed it in the same way he had allowed her to call him Rain .  "Your mother's death was an accident." His voice had become very quiet, and she was conscious of the quiet lapping of the waves against the pebbly shoreline. "She could just as easily have been killed in a car accident in the middle of the city."
    "But, she wasn't, was she?” she said bitterly. “She was crushed to death by a piece of farm machinery.” She held stubbornly to her fear and hatred, last night’s dream playing again in her head.
    Rain wondered not for the first time how much Emily knew of the events surrounding her mother’s death. And not for the first time he wondered if he should tell her everything that happened that day. Resting against the tree, he closed his eyes and counted slowly to ten. But he hardly stood a chance with her as it was.  If she knew everything.... Later , he promised himself, when the time was right …
    Emily looked at Rain. He looked so comfortable and easy in these wild surroundings, his head tilted toward the sky as if to catch the cool wind on his face, his eyes closed. It was true she had panicked when he tried to kiss her, but she had wanted that kiss very, very much.
    She gathered the jacket tighter to her and sat down on a rock overlooking the lake. It was a small lake, about one square mile in size. Maple Tree Farm bordered the northern shore, crown land the southern shore.  In the centre of the lake was a small tree covered island that also belonged to the farm. Who gets the island? she wondered idly.
    Rain opened his eyes. "Do you remember when we dug for pottery shards and arrowheads on the island?" he asked, as if he knew her thoughts. She nodded. "I’ve since learned Huron Natives lived on the island and all around here. But by the time your great-great-great- great grandfather Michael Alexander was given this land in the early 1800s, the Hurons were long gone from the area." He told the story as if he knew his