When they saw the first mosquito hovering in wait and humming its song of the hunt, John took her hand and led her into the house.
"You can make the salad," he said, whipping a large bowl from a cupboard and setting it down with a clatter. "Those greens look wonderfully fresh. Did you grow them yourself?"
She couldn't stop herself from warming to his enthusiasm. "I brought them in from the garden this afternoon." She busied herself tearing up lettuce, slicing crisp baby scallions, quartering tomatoes.
"I've always wanted to have time for gardening. It fascinates me, the idea of watching live things grow." He set the casserole and the salad on a table in the small alcove that served as a dining room. Outside, Pride's Peak cast purple and lavender shadows in the deepening twilight.
John helped Cassie with her chair as though they were sitting down to dinner in the most elegant restaurant instead of a plain mountain cabin. He's used to nice things, she thought. He knows how to act. Her mind shot back to other places, other times. Being handed out of a limousine; walking, head held high, through a maze of beautifully set tables, candle flames glowing, fine crystal tinkling, and silver gleaming in the light from golden chandeliers. She had known that sort of place once upon a long-ago lifetime.
"Well," John said, "will you?"
She pulled herself back to the present and stared at him. She had no idea what he'd said.
He saw the lost expression on her face and knew at once that she had been somewhere else, not with him. Pity stabbed through him. He'd have to remind himself that something sad had happened to her. He'd have to remember that if it weren't for her, he wouldn't be here. Wouldn't be anywhere, for that matter. His gratitude to her filled him up, emptied his lungs, hit him stronger than any other emotion he had known.
"If you don't want to talk," he told her gently, "we don't have to."
"I—I'm not used to being with other people," she said unhappily. "It makes me nervous." Not only that, but being with him stirred dormant emotions that made her uncomfortable. She didn't want to have sexual feelings for anyone, but they were impossible to ignore when she was around him.
"Is it me? Something I'm doing wrong?"
He was doing everything right if the object was seduction. Not that he seemed to have that in mind, but she was responding as if that was what she wanted.
She looked down at her plate. She'd barely eaten anything.
John slid his hand over hers where it rested on the table.
"I don't like upsetting you. But I enjoy your company very much."
She shook her head and shoved the chair back from the table, knocking it over in her haste. It fell with a jarring crash.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I shouldn't have come here. It was a bad idea."
He was up and after her before she made it halfway across the room.
"Cassie!"
"Please leave me alone," she said, the words falling out in a rush. "You have no idea how it is with me. Leave me alone." She struggled clumsily with the rusty door latch, but it wouldn't budge.
"I want to know what's wrong, Cassie, if only you'd tell me."
But her eyes were wild and her fingers on the latch were frantic, so, hoping to quiet her, John wrapped her in his arms.
Cassie felt his warmth through her clothes. She swallowed and squeezed her eyes tightly shut, unable to breathe.
"Don't run, Cassie," he said softly into her ear. His breath fluttered at her temple. "I'd never hurt you." His hand left her shoulder and slid under her hair. She drew a rapid intake of breath as her bones liquefied beneath his touch.
"I'd better go," she said. "I'm not comfortable with this. There's no point in our getting to know each other better. None at all." Cassie wanted to cry so the tension would go away, this terrible and awful tension that he had started, for which he was responsible.
He let her go. He was perplexed at how a simple dinner, which they should have enjoyed, had turned out this way. Accepting defeat, he released the door latch so that the door swung open. Before he could speak, Cassie darted an unfathomable look at him, and then, like a figment of his imagination, she flitted away and the woven shadows of the woods pulled her in.
What had just happened? What had gone wrong? Suddenly exhausted, John massaged the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, and when his eyes closed, Cassie was there. He flicked his eyes open again, startled, wanting beyond all reason for her to be there, really there.
Throughout his journey to find her, John had never expected her to be somebody like this, so vulnerable, so damaged, so in need of comfort. So in need of touching, and that was obvious.
What should he do about it?
First of all, he'd have to let go of the fiction once and for all that his attraction to her wasn't sexual. It hadn't started out that way, but now...
Now, with that premise scuttled, he'd proceed from here. Somehow.
Chapter 4
Cassie's hair blew free in the salty wind of the bay, and when she turned to look at Kevin at the wheel, a wayward strand flapped in her eyes. Laughing, she plucked it away with her fingers.
The speedboat curved, plowing dazzling blue water into white-bright froth as they sped toward islands in the distance. Rory grinned when she pointed out the wind-furled sail of a catamaran; Rory loved the water and played with his toy boats in the swimming pool for hours at a time.
The bitter taste of salt rimmed her lips, and she licked it away. She saw Kevin's face as he'd looked at their wedding in Las Vegas, or was it Acapulco? She couldn't remember, but she felt the ring slip on her finger and her white wedding veil whipping in the wind. Then, without warning, their boat spun around, dizzying her, and plunged sharply beneath the sunstruck water, now turquoise (a Navaho charm?), now sapphire (my mother's ring?), now navy (a sailor I once loved?). The boat dissolved in a spurt of misty bubbles, and she was swimming desperately, trying to catch up to Kevin and Rory, who were tumbling down, down into the depths of the cool, quiet water. Cassie strained to keep her eyes on them, but it was no use. She couldn't sink no matter how hard she tried, even though her mind screamed, "Wait! I'm coming!" Her lungs burned hot and hotter, finally igniting, and the fire propelled her violently to the surface until she burst through the watery skin into daylight screaming their names.
Abruptly she awakened to find herself sitting up in Gran's bed. The salt water on her face was her own tears.
She let her head fall limply on her upraised knees as she waited for her erratic heartbeat to slow. Another of those nightmares. She'd thought she was over them. Well, she'd be sure not to skip chamomile tea at bedtime from now on.
When Bertrand pawed at the side of the bed she got up and padded into the kitchen to feed him. She let Tigger in from his night-long romp and poured food into his dish as well.
It was the unsettling arrival of John Howard that disturbed her peace. She'd been getting along fine, enjoying her garden and the preparation of Gran's remedies, and the bad dreams had stopped. And now he'd arrived, with his deep voice and his kindness and his body talking to hers with no need for words, and nothing was the same.
She nibbled distractedly at a thin slice of toast spread with butter and homemade preserves. As she sat at the table staring out the window, she saw John's car pass her house on its way down the mountain. He didn't look in her direction.
After yesterday, he must think she was crazy. And perhaps she was, a little. But she was fighting her own way back to normality, and she would make it, John Howard or no John Howard.
She'd visited Morgana's psychiatrist after her leg had healed enough to go out. Dr. Westwood had been a round dumpling of a man, jolly and sympathetic. But when Cassie realized that he didn't have a magic cure-all that would make everything all right, when she understood that the work had to be done inside herself where it counted, she'd decided to stop seeing jolly Dr. Westwood.
The task of piecing together the jigsaw puzzle of herself could be accomplished best in the quiet of Flat T
op Mountain. There she could center and find her own harmony. Over Morgana's objections, Cassie fled to the little house where she had spent so many pleasant summers in her youth. Now she never wanted to leave.
She picked up her breakfast things, eager to begin working in the garden.
"Cassie?" A hesitant tap at the screen door, a shadow against the light.
"Sharon Ott! Come in! I haven't seen you since you stopped by on your graduation day, and that was over a week ago."
The girl who entered was only seventeen but a woman full-grown. Her curves filled a pair of jeans cut off at the knees and a pink blouse faded from too many washings. The shabby clothes didn't diminish her beauty, however. If anything, they let it shine through.
Sharon set a carton of eggs on the table and hugged Cassie. "It's been hard for me to get away, what with Ma's new baby and all. I brought the money from the roadside stand, and my hens have been laying." Sharon kept chickens at that ramshackle house down the road where she was the eldest of a large brood of unruly children. Cassie had befriended Sharon and her sister Bonnie early in her stay here, and the girls were Cassie's friends—her only friends—on Flat Top Mountain.
Cassie waved the money away. "I told Bonnie to keep the herb money for her college fund, but I'm glad to have the eggs."
"Bonnie'll hand over the money to Ma," Sharon said darkly, tucking the loose bills in her pocket. "You know how Ma has a hard time managing with Pa out of work and all." Sharon's father was the town reprobate, and the entire family's reputation suffered. Otts had frequent run-ins with the sheriff and were famous for their tavern brawls.
"Tell Bonnie to give your mother whatever she feels comfortable with, and I'll open a bank account for the two of you so you'll have a stash of your own." Sharon's one-year-younger sister was a straight-A student who had set her sights on a better life.
"Cassie, Bonnie and I have decided that you're the best friend ever!" Sharon threw her arms around her in a big hug.
Cassie returned the embrace. "I couldn't manage my garden without you both." After a moment, she disentangled herself and went to the kitchen to put the eggs in the refrigerator.
Sharon followed along, chattering happily. "Ma took the littlest kids to visit Aunt Monda this morning. That means I have time to play and sing for a while, Cassie, if you don't mind."
"Of course I don't," Cassie told her fondly. "You know I'm always happy to listen to my prize pupil." Sharon Ott was a fine musician who had developed her ear for music while listening to her uncle's bluegrass band practicing in his kitchen. She could play the fiddle and the guitar but loved the dulcimer best of all.
Cassie lifted the dulcimer case down from its shelf and ran her fingers over the handcrafted leather. Kevin had commissioned the case made to order when they were on vacation in Italy. The leather was butter-soft, the inside padded with moss-green velvet.
"I'm going to use a popsicle stick to pluck the strings today," Sharon said. She picked up the instrument with reverence.
"A popsicle stick will work. Let's hear it." Cassie used a goose quill as a plectrum, the way Gran had, but she'd encouraged Sharon to develop her own distinctive style and to experiment with new techniques.
Cassie's dulcimer was a one-of-a-kind instrument created by a skilled mountain craftsman of black walnut wood, the surface smooth as silk. Its shape was an elongated oval, something like a stretched-out violin. Many of the old-time players, Gran among them, had played the dulcimer by plucking it. Cassie, however, had learned, in addition to plucking, to strum it much as she would a guitar or banjo. It was a more complicated way of playing, but it gave a different sound.
Sharon strummed experimentally with the wooden stick, humming "Little Turtle Dove," which was one of the old-time regional Appalachian songs that she'd learned in her uncle's kitchen.
"I like the way this sounds," said Sharon, and then she went on to sing the whole song in her low, full-throated voice. Sharon had a languid way of playing, easy and relaxed, and as she held the dulcimer on her knees and moved her hands gracefully across the strings, she seemed to become uniquely one with the instrument and the tune.
When the vibrating strains of the last chord filled the room, Cassie stood. "Much as I'd like to," she regretfully told her pupil, "I'd better not stay to listen. I want to gather chickweed before the sun gets too hot."
"Need some help?" Sharon looked eager, but Cassie knew how much Sharon valued her practice time.
"No, I'll enjoy listening as I work."
"What would you like to hear?"
"Anything." Smiling, Cassie lifted a burlap bag from a peg on the wall.
As she worked in the garden, Cassie reflected on Sharon's spunk in standing up to her parents and insisting on finishing high school over their objections. Most Otts dropped out of school after the eighth grade or even before if the authorities didn't complain, and usually they didn't. Not only had Sharon finished high school, but she earned her own spending money by selling eggs at Cassie's roadside stand. She was looking for a job, so far with no success.
Cassie was startled out of her thoughts as John Howard's white Ford Explorer unexpectedly zoomed past, stirring up a cloud of gray dust. She bent her head over the burlap bag, hiding her face in case he glanced back. He didn't.
She continued her task as the strains of Sharon's music drifted across the mountain, and it was almost as though Cassie were traveling back in time to when Gran would send her to tend the garden in the morning and she could hear Gran's sweet songs wafting from the house.
The memory made her feel more secure, as though everything was the way it had been back in those long-ago summers when she'd been happy here, before—well, before everything. And as far as John Howard was concerned, she need not worry. After that disastrous dinner last night, John would likely keep his distance. She had put him off with her histrionics, no doubt about it. It was for the best.
Later Cassie returned to the house and fixed sandwiches for lunch. She and Sharon sat at the kitchen table while Sharon told her about her father's latest job loss and her middle sister's failing in school. "If it weren't for my music, I'd be seriously depressed," Sharon said.
On impulse Cassie said, "You can take the dulcimer home with you if you like."
"Cassie, I couldn't do that. The other kids might get hold of it and break it."
"People are more important than things. I could always get another dulcimer."
"No, I'll come over here to play," Sharon said firmly. She took another bite of her sandwich.
"How's the job hunt going?"
"I've applied a few places." With her high school diploma under her belt, Sharon hoped to find steady work.
"Any call-backs?"
"One, from Chick-a-Burger over near the Interstate, but they want to know what hours I'm available. I don't have reliable transportation, so I'm trying to find a ride with someone who doesn't mind coming up the mountain to get me. Then there's Ma. She needs me to look after the kids now that Bonnie's working at the roadside stand. So many obstacles." Sharon sighed but brightened immediately. "I'll figure it out eventually."
If she allowed herself, Cassie could work up a case of anxiety over the Ott family. When she first realized their situation, she'd offered assistance in the form of herbal remedies, only to be rebuffed. What can you say about a mother who accepts having a baby every other year as her sad lot in life and a father who is often as not falling down drunk and unemployable? How much could you do for children whose parents distrust the whole world and refuse help from anyone but the welfare system?
"Does the baby have colic?" Cassie asked. Sharon had mentioned a few weeks ago that little Riley cried a lot.
"That might be what's wrong. He's still not sleeping through the night."
"Try chamomile tea," Cassie said. She instructed Sharon in the use of the tea for infants and tucked a bag of it in Sharon's pocket as she prepared to leave.
"I'll be back tomorrow to help you pull weeds," Sharon told h
er. "See you then." With a cheerful wave, she started toward home.
Cassie sighed in frustration. "Face it, Bertrand," she said to the inquisitive skunk, who was nudging his nose against the dulcimer case. "We can't cure the whole world from the top of Flat Top Mountain."
Or even Cassie Muldoon, she mused. So far, anyway.
In the next couple of weeks, Cassie caught glimpses of John Howard jogging past on the road most mornings, his lungs apparently undaunted by the thin mountain air. He delivered her mail every day without comment, and if he knew she was peering at him through the curtains, he made no sign. Cassie felt a twinge of guilt at those times and whenever she saw the Explorer fly past, but since he seemed to take no notice of her, she finally relaxed.
If only she didn't find herself thinking about John at odd times! The peculiar expression on his face when she'd told him Bertrand wasn't descented, his eyes as blue as the summer sky, his tall and ruggedly masculine form. Lacking real-life memories of John, Cassie began to create artificial ones. At first he crept into her thoughts unnoticed—for instance, when she was weeding her garden, she would imagine him there with her. She began to wonder what it would be like to have him around the house as she moved about her daily tasks.
She was lonely. She'd depended on the animals and the Ott girls to alleviate her loneliness, but suddenly they weren't enough. Now, with John just a short walk through the woods, her self-imposed solitude seemed like too much to bear.
One night, when the ache in her leg told her that it would soon rain, Cassie reluctantly let Tigger out at his regular time.
"Head for the shed," she warned him, but he only winked at her in the mysterious way of cats and disappeared, tail held high, into the forest.
"No, Bertrand," she cautioned the skunk, barring him from the open door with her foot. "You're not quite ready to take on the world."
Through Eyes of Love Page 4