"Only for a visit?"
"My place is here," she reminded him gently. Parting from him would not be easy, but she knew it would happen eventually.
"You're afraid to go back, aren't you?"
She didn't know whether to answer this or not. "I don't like L.A," she said finally. "I'll admit that when I left there I was running away, but I've found peace on this mountain and a way of life I can manage."
"You're strong enough to leave Flat Top Mountain now, Cassie."
"Maybe. But don't you think it was a brave thing to do, coming here all alone to confront my own shortcomings?"
"You didn't have any. You only thought you did," he said with a twinkle of humor.
"Oh, John, you've made me feel better about myself, and I'm grateful to you for that."
"I know I'm tampering with a tender area, but it seems to me that you're forcing a punishment on life by withholding yourself from it. What's the point?"
Cassie inhaled a deep breath. The air was rich with the scent of trees and water. Arguments about this had become entirely too frequent. How could she make him understand that she had planted herself here much as she had the plants in her garden, that she was now coming to fruition and ready to gather herself in to preserve what she might? At least that had been her purpose before he'd arrived on the scene, plucking at her, shaking her, demanding that she separate herself from her security, her very roots, and prematurely, too, before full ripening had taken place.
"Come home with me, Cassie, for a visit. We could fly there, maybe take a long weekend during August. I'll show you my house, and we'll fly back on a Monday. Would that be so bad?"
Cassie began to toss cups and forks and knives into the picnic satchel. She was near tears; he must see that.
"Cassie?"
"I don't fly. I can't."
The silence lengthened. A dragonfly flitted past on cellophane wings, hovering over the water. A dragonfly didn't know, thought Cassie, of the dangers of flying. For dragonflies, flight was necessary to living. For people, it wasn't. The dragonfly zipped away, ignorant of the risks. Lucky dragonfly.
"I didn't know," John said quietly. "I should have guessed."
"That's why I retired. I couldn't go on tour. I would have had to fly, you see. And after—after... well, I couldn't get in an airplane. My heart would pound at the very thought, and I'd get dizzy and... I can't even stand to think of someone I know getting in one." Her sentence ended on a note both high and tense, and John felt helpless to confront such terror. He was also dismayed.
"Have you tried counseling?" he asked carefully.
Cassie told him about quitting Dr. Westwood. "Our sessions weren't helping, and Morgana was always hopping on a flight, and every time she'd leave the apartment I lived in terror until she came back. I finally left L.A. because here on Flat Top Mountain, I didn't have that kind of stress."
John looked grave, but his mind was racing. What would happen when he told her that he was not a photographer at all, but a pilot? As president of AirBridges Cargo Transport, he was concerned mainly with administrative duties, but he still loved nothing more than to climb into the cockpit of one of his planes and take it up.
If he revealed himself to Cassie as a pilot now, wouldn't that convince her that continuing their relationship was impossible? Flying frightened her, not only for herself but for others, and he understood why. But flying had been his life since he'd first flown for the Air Force right out of college.
He knew, with a sharp pang of regret, that he should have told Cassie the truth about himself to begin with. Lying to her had gone against his grain. He shouldn't have started this innocent fiction that he was a nature photographer, though at the time it had seemed an easy and reasonable explanation for his presence on Flat Top Mountain. Unfortunately, nothing had turned out as planned.
* * *
The woman strode up and down the path, flipping her long pale hair impatiently behind her shoulders much as a sprightly thoroughbred mare would toss her mane when miffed. She was dressed in a black silk jump suit with a stand-up collar and black leather stiletto boots. A hammered-silver belt was slung across her hips. In her boots, she stood over six feet tall.
Cassie stopped at the edge of the clearing, unable to connect the figure with reality. Then, startling John, she dropped the canvas picnic bag and ran laughing to envelop the waiting woman in a joyful embrace.
"Morgana!" exclaimed Cassie, blinking happy tears from her eyes. "You're the last person I expected to see on Flat Top Mountain!"
"Believe me, darling, I feel like the last person in the whole world. I've been waiting hours for you to come home. This place is so isolated! How do you stand it?" Morgana assessed Cassie with anxious eyes, but her friend looked well and tanned and happy and much healthier than the thin and woebegone wraith who had left Los Angeles almost two years before.
"The isolation is what I like about it," retorted Cassie. She noticed the black Cadillac parked at the side of the house, and she regretted not being home when Morgana arrived; Morgana hated to be kept waiting.
"Whose car is that?" she asked her guest. "And please say you're planning to stay."
"I had a ghastly time trying to rent this car at the airport, and I am planning to stay, although not long. Why didn't you answer my letters? Why don't you get a telephone like any civilized person? I can't even email you. And who is that over there? Why doesn't he come out from behind that tree?"
Not knowing which question to answer first, Cassie followed Morgana's gaze and saw John hesitating.
"John," she called. "Morgana's here."
John approached cautiously, filled with apprehension. Morgana could easily destroy his tenuous relationship with Cassie. Before he'd met this friend of Cassie's in L.A., he'd pursued her by phone for months. Finally she'd agreed to meet him for a drink, and after they'd polished off most of a bottle of twelve-year-old Scotch, she'd written down Cassie's Scot's Cove address for him. Please, Morgana, he thought desperately, pretend you don't know me. Please.
Morgana took in Cassie's breathlessness and her face alight with love as the two of them watched John walk in their direction. She sensed the worry in John, caught the warning in his eyes. Morgana's native intuition told her that the pair were lovers.
"Morgana, this is my friend John Howard," announced Cassie with obvious pleasure.
Cassie had left L.A. in pieces, and now she seemed much better. Morgana had no idea what part John had played in Cassie's recovery, but she suspected it was major. She would do nothing to tear down whatever he and Cassie had built.
John stood before Morgana, his eyes clouded with doubt, waiting for her to speak the sharp words that would slice his relationship with Cassie to bits.
Morgana gazed at him unblinkingly, her face expressionless. He thought it was all over.
And then, "How do you do?" Morgana said coolly, extending her hand as though she'd never seen him before in her life.
* * *
"My God, Cass, what is this? A zoo?" Morgana stared at Bertrand waddling to and fro in the kitchen before her startled glance took in Rupert peering around the edge of the bathroom door. Her gaze finally came to rest on Tigger curled up on a chair.
"Don't worry, I'll put the cat out when it gets dark," said Cassie. John carried Morgana's luggage into the guest room, and Cassie whispered as soon as he was out of earshot, "What do you think of him?"
Morgana fixed her eyes on Tigger. "He's a delightful animal, I'm sure," she said loudly and deliberately.
"Not the cat, Morgana. You were never dense." Cassie smiled. It was so good to have Morgana here.
"Only when I choose to be, darling."
Cassie laughed. She'd forgotten what it was like being around Morgana.
"John, why don't you uncork a bottle of that wine?" said Cassie when John returned.
Morgana raised an eyebrow. "Wine? What kind of wine?"
"Scuppernong," said Cassie.
"Please," groaned Morgana. "Spare me. I don't wan
t to know if you make it out of dandelion stems or porcupine quills or some disgusting root you dug up in the wilderness. Just pour me a large glass and I'll try not to think about what's in it."
John grinned. They gathered on Cassie's front porch to drink it, Morgana sitting on Gran's comfortable old rocking chair, Cassie perched on the porch railing, and John comfortably ensconced on the steps.
"So how did you two meet?" John asked.
Morgana and Cassie exchanged a look and laughed.
"I was looking for an agent," said Cassie.
"We found ourselves sitting next to each other in the William Morris Agency waiting room," supplied Morgana.
"I'd rented a place—remember that awful apartment, Morgana? On impulse I asked Morgana if she wanted to be my roommate when she mentioned that she didn't have anywhere to stay."
"Hah—I'd been thrown out of my rented room that morning for nonpayment of rent. I was still dashing and flashing my way to stardom in those days. I hoped to star in a remake of Wonder Woman, but they didn't want a blonde. I cried for days. I could have worn a wig. Dyed my hair. But if I'd been Wonder Woman, I probably wouldn't be directing documentaries these days. Great Hera, it's funny how things turn out." She held her glass up to the light and narrowed her eyes. "This wine is making me unaccountably mellow."
"And what was Cassie like?" John prodded before Morgana stopped feeling reminiscent.
"Cassie? She was this shy little folksinger fresh out of the South," said Morgana. "She rode into town with a funny-looking instrument no one had ever seen before and she played it with a goose quill. All she had to do was start tickling that dulcimer with a feather, and people would fall out of their chairs laughing."
"It's true," Cassie agreed. "Except for meeting Morgana, my first year on the Coast was the most awful year of my life. I knew I couldn't return to the little Piedmont town where I'd grown up. My future would have been eking out living as a shift worker in a paper mill. My dulcimer—Gran's dulcimer, really—was all I had. I had to succeed."
"I can hardly picture you working in a mill," said Morgana. "I can't imagine you staying here and mixing up herbal remedies for the rest of your life, either. When are you coming back, Cassie?"
The question hung in the air, ready to fall, and John held his breath.
"I'm not, Morgana," said Cassie.
"Not? How can you not?" Morgana frowned at her.
"I don't want to talk about it," said Cassie abruptly, jumping down from the porch rail. "I think I'll go see if those butter beans are cooked." Quickly she went inside and slammed the door.
"Well, well," said Morgana, talking to the liquid in her wineglass. They sat in silence for a moment. A horsefly droned against the screen door behind them.
John drew a deep breath. "Thanks, Morgana," he said.
"Whatever I've done, you're welcome," she returned. "Whatever you've done, it had better be in our Cassie's best interests. I don't want her to get hurt." Morgana tipped her head and fixed him with a warning look.
"Neither do I," John said quietly. "I'm in love with her, for whatever that's worth."
Morgana looked startled. "These days it's usually not worth much, at least from most people. But with you..."
She let her words trail off, assessing him. There was that sincerity; it was the reason she'd trusted him enough to reveal Cassie's whereabouts. She'd taken a chance on that, but from what she could tell about Cassie, it appeared that it had paid off. John had reached Cassie—that was obvious. No one else had accomplished it.
"She doesn't know I'm a pilot," said John, speaking softly and hurrying to get the words out before Cassie returned. "I haven't told her that I'm the recipient of her husband's corneas. It's taken me this long to earn her confidence, and—" he lifted his shoulders and let them fall helplessly "—I can't ruin it. Not yet. I love her and I want her to come back to L.A. with me. But there are so many things I'll have to convince her about, lots of stuff we need to talk over."
Morgana nodded somberly. She would never forget Cassie in those months when she'd stayed with her in Century City. Morgana didn't like to see anyone suffering, especially the people she loved.
"Go to it, fella," Morgana said softly before tossing down the contents of her glass. "And good luck. You're going to need it."
* * *
The next morning, Morgana prowled the length of the front room, gleaming inappropriately in gold satin lounging pajamas with a deeply slit neckline. She and Cassie had breakfasted on fresh eggs and whole wheat bread that Cassie had baked herself.
Cassie sat on the hearth brushing Rupert's long hair with a stiff-bristled brush. The raccoon had almost completely recovered from his semi comatose state the night of the storm. He'd become a sociable pet, becoming immediately housebroken and driving Cassie crazy by stealing shiny objects such as spoons and thimbles and hiding them away in secret places. Rupert and Tigger and Bertrand edged carefully around one another for the most part, adopting a pragmatic policy of live-and-let-live. Bertrand, however, still seemed to take perverse pleasure in threatening John with his scent glands, a fact that amused Morgana immensely.
"Haven't we lazed around long enough?" asked Morgana anxiously, pulling her cell phone out of her purse.
Cassie released Rupert, who immediately disappeared behind the sofa. "Laze? You never laze, Morgana. And stop checking your cell. It won't work here. They never do."
Morgana groaned. "No cell phone. No internet. No television. So what are we going to do today?"
"We're doing it."
Privately Cassie was amused. Life in Morgana's high-powered world was fast-paced and reckless, interrupted by frantic telephones and seasoned by a bizarre array of characters. No wonder Morgana was bored after only one quiet night on Flat Top Mountain.
Morgana arranged herself dramatically on the settle as she watched Cassie clean the raccoon's hair out of the brush.
"Kajurian called me," she said, without preliminaries.
"Oh?" said Cassie, expressing mild interest.
"He wants to know why you never answer his letters."
"I don't answer any letters," Cassie pointed out. "Tell Kajurian he's not being discriminated against—I'm simply not interested in bookings."
"Cassie, you're a fool. Thanks to your hit single—and, I might add, thanks to me—you could be making a million dollars. Kajurian's bummed, and I can't say that I blame him. You were his top moneymaker, and you ran off to this mountain without regard for him or anyone else. Lord knows my documentary could use the publicity generated by your comeback."
Cassie rocked back against the stone of the hearth. "Morgana, from what I've heard, All the Way Home doesn't need me to be a commercial success. As for Kajurian, what's he been doing—losing money at the racetrack?" Unmarried and childless, Cassie's former agent had a penchant for the ponies.
"Well," said Morgana, "how would I know? He didn't discuss that. I've heard rumors that things are not going as well for him as they might be, but Cassie, if you want to know, call him up."
Cassie thought for a moment about the man who had taken her on only because he'd owed Kevin a favor and who had stuck with her when she was a nobody. She'd liked Kajurian and he'd liked her. She hated the idea that her old friend might be having financial problems, but Kajurian and everything he represented were part of a past that she'd left behind.
"Morgana, you're a manipulator," said Cassie, but not unkindly. "Stop playing on my emotions. I've already told you that I've parted company with Los Angeles for the last time. Believe it." She started to get up, but Morgana began to pace the floor in great sweeping strides.
"I suppose it doesn't even mean anything to you that your song 'Where the Heart Is' was nominated for two awards? That the American Academy of Film Arts may very well bestow on you its top honors? That—"
"Wait a minute, Morgana. Slow down. What awards?"
Morgana looked flabbergasted. "The AAFA awards, you idiot. Don't you read Billboard?"
; "Um, not lately."
"Then I have the honor of informing you that 'Where the Heart Is' has been nominated for Best Theme Song By A Female Vocalist, and you, Cassandra Dare, have been nominated for Songwriter Of The Year." Morgana stood, hands on her hips, one eyebrow cocked as she waited for a reaction.
"I—I'm stunned," said Cassie at last.
"Well you might be," Morgana shot back. "The nominations were just announced. Surely you're not planning to send regrets to the AAFA Awards Spectacular Committee? No one, my dear, but no one, does that."
"When is the Awards Spectacular?" Cassie was still so amazed that she couldn't think. The nominations were tied to a very special kind of documentary, one that made a statement. In the old days that would have meant a great deal to her.
"It's in October. That gives you a couple of months to slide down off this mountain, dust yourself off, and buy decent clothes." She scanned her eyes none too admiringly over Cassie's customary loose shift. "I hardly need to tell you that short, shapeless sacks are hardly considered a fashion statement this year, darling."
For a moment Cassie wavered. Thinking about sweeping into the Awards Spectacular on John's arm, of his delighted pride in her, and then of actually winning—but the scene frosted over and faded away. Creeping in to replace it was the stark, awful fear, the anguish of spirit that accompanied the very thought of setting foot in an airplane again. The only other way to get to the West Coast from here would be by train or car. Cassie couldn't face the idea of that. The automobile trip here from L.A. had been long and debilitating and full of emotional turmoil.
"It's out of the question," she said, removing Gran's straw hat from its hook on the back of the door and clamping it over her hair. She lifted an empty bushel basket off the floor and cradled it in the curve of her arm. "I'm going to work in the garden, Morgana," she said, and turning her back on her friend, she hurried outside, the expression on her face remote and sad.
From the window Morgana watched Cassie bending low over the straight green rows of tomato plants in her vegetable garden, and she swore softly under her breath.
"In that case, Cassandra," she said out loud, "it's time to send in the rest of the troops."
Through Eyes of Love Page 8