Excerpts

Things to Do When It's Raining Virginia has always loved the rain. She never hides inside: she goes fishing or for a walk, and she doesn't mind getting wet. Even now, when she knows that rain means danger, she tilts her face up to meet the droplets. The fear retreats for a moment. But then she lowers her head and keeps on across the ice, faster now because she knows she must find her husband, somewhere out on this river, and save him before it's too late. In the distance, she hears what sounds like a gunshot: the ice surrendering. If she'd known it was going to rain, she'd have gone for help. Usually, she feels it coming. But this time the clouds gathered and she didn't notice. There were bigger things on her mind. And now that she's out on the river she can't turn back. He needs her. The river, which tells her where the biggest fish are when she goes out in her boat, which tells her so many other things because she listens, is telling her now that Chase is in danger. She's known everything about Chase since the moment he stepped off his family's yacht and onto her family's dock six years ago. She tossed her braid over her shoulder, rolled her eyes and helped him tie a proper sailor's knot, and then he looked straight into her and said, "Thank you," but he meant other things and the world stopped spinning for a minute. Later he told her he felt an axis tilt, a realignment of planets. He saw a constellation of freckles on her nose. She fell in love with him because he said stuff like that to her. None of the boys in Alexandria Bay talked that way. And now he needs her. She knows. It would be the same if their daughter were in danger: the river would whisper the threat in her ear and she would go find Mae. But their girl is out of harm's way, up in the attic of Virginia's parents' inn, also her home, playing with her friend Gabriel, oblivious to the ice that is shifting and about to crack in her world. There's another splitting sound in the distance just as Virginia approaches Island 51. She stops and looks at the shack with its boarded-up windows. She's afraid to move, afraid to stay still. Pointless to even try, but maybe Jonah Broadbent is her only hope. Part of her still believes in this boy she once knew--now a broken man--so she climbs the slippery bank, scrambles up the stairs and pounds on the door of the shack, but then doesn't bother to wait for an answer. It's unlocked, as always, so she turns the knob and walks in. Excerpted from Things to Do When It's Raining by Marissa Stapley All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.