Mountain Mystic

by Debra Dixon

  Except Joshua. Over the past couple of weeks, because of her busy appointment schedule, Victoria had tried to keep her thoughts about Joshua to a minimum. Except her thoughts weren’t friendly. They went way beyond friendship. They went way beyond thoughts. Technically, they were daydreams. But he was still the only friend she had.

  Giving in, she picked up the phone and dialed. After four rings he answered.

  “Hello.” His voice was rough and hoarse, as though she’d woken him from a nap. She could imagine him—shirtless, of course—grabbing the phone off the end table and pushing up to a sitting position on that long couch of his. Then he’d use his fingers to comb his hair out of his eyes.

  “Hi,” she said a little shakily, wondering what he’d do if he knew her thoughts. He’d made it abundantly clear that the only obstacle between them and an affair was her insistence that they were friends.

  “Hi, yourself,” he said, his voice snapping to attention. “Did we have plans?”

  Victoria smiled and twirled the phone cord around her index finger. She could get used to the concern in his voice. It made her feel like she belonged. “No plans. The phone’s all hooked up. I had to call somebody.”

  “Then I’m flattered it was my body you called.”

  She could feel the smile all the way through the phone. His voice did unbelievable things to her bones, and her reaction got worse every time she was around him. “Thanks for asking the crew to run my line on Saturday so I didn’t have to cancel any appointments.”

  “I guess you owe me one.”

  “I guess I do.” Victoria lay back on the bed. “I owe you several.”

  “What would you say if I told you that you could wipe the slate clean?”

  “I’m all for that. What do I have to do? Rob the bank in Bodewell? Scrub your bathroom with my toothbrush?”

  “Go to a dance with me.” His voice reverberated through her as he said, “Tonight.”

  FIVE

  Victoria sat up, one leg sliding off the bed and resting on the floor. “Tonight?”

  “Yes, tonight. It’s nothing fancy.”

  “But—”

  “But nothing,” Joshua interrupted. “It’s an annual fund-raiser for the academic scholarship fund. What’s the problem with a couple of friends showing up at the Harvest Dance together and having a good time? So … what do you say?”

  “I thought you didn’t like crowds,” Victoria asked, scrambling for time. A dance with Joshua. Bad idea, Victoria.

  “I don’t, but you’ve turned down all of my friendly dinner invitations. I thought maybe a crowd would make you more comfortable.”

  “I don’t know.” She hesitated. “I’m not sure this is a good idea. Dancing? You and me?”

  “It’s the least you can do, Victoria. You have rattled my skeleton over every pothole in these mountains.”

  “You picked all the roads!”

  “And you’ve forced me to sit on every porch between here and Knoxville. You owe me.”

  “But what—”

  “Be ready at seven. Wear a dress.”

  “I haven’t said—”

  “Bye, Vicky.”

  Promptly at seven, Joshua knocked on the door, and Victoria scrambled to spray perfume and slip on her shoes at the same time. She hadn’t been this nervous about a date in years. It’s not a date. It’s two friends having some fun.

  “It’s a date,” she said under her breath. “Who do you think you’re kidding? You’re wearing your best dinner-and-dancing dress, for God’s sake.” She put on a smile and opened the door.

  The smile fell immediately as she looked over Joshua’s attire. He had on black cowboy boots that crinkled up a little bit at the toe, boot-cut faded jeans, and a crisp long-sleeved cotton shirt that was a patchwork of muted colors. He looked carelessly sexy, and she was dreadfully overdressed.

  Forgoing the pleasantries, Victoria protested, “You said to wear a dress!”

  “And it’s a great dress,” he commented as he glanced at the neckline. It was as far off the shoulder as a dress could get without actually being off the shoulder. The sweetheart neckline curved and dipped over her bust, and the fabric was a richly textured cream color that stopped mid-thigh. He repeated, “It’s a great dress.”

  Seeing the laughter in his eyes, Victoria knew she’d been had. “That’s not what I meant. We do not look like we are going to the same place. You deliberately misled me, didn’t you?”

  “So shoot me for wanting to see you all dressed up and shiny instead of wearing business clothes and your hair stuffed into a knot on top of your head! Would you have worn that if I’d told you that we were going to an old-fashioned meet-and-greet at the high school gym over in Mention?”

  “Of course not!”

  “Well, there you go.” Joshua was clearly unrepentant.

  “Shiny enough for you?” Victoria snapped, and swung her head in an imitation of shampoo ads.

  Joshua answered with a slow, warm smile before he spoke. “You beat the hell out of moonlight on a clear night. And that’s not easy to do. At least not by my standards. You ready?”

  Joshua sounded so sincere, Victoria forgot about being irritated until she saw the motorcycle. “No. I’m not getting on that thing dressed like this. We’ll take the truck.”

  “This is my shindig. I’m picking you up. Not the other way round. When you ask me out, you can drive the truck. Right now we take the cycle.”

  “I cannot believe you don’t have a car.”

  “I do. It’s in the shop. The transmission died a while back, and the mechanic had to order one because they don’t stock something like that for foreign cars.”

  Putting her hands on her hips, Victoria asked reprovingly, “Haven’t you heard of loaners?”

  “They didn’t have one, and I already had the cycle,” he explained patiently. Part of him was testing her, trying to see how important her image was to her; trying to see if she cared about what people thought. The other part of him wanted her body resting on the back of his bike, curved around him. “Can we go now?”

  Victoria paused and looked down at the straight skirt of her dress, wondering how awkward it would be to sit on the back of the bike. She laughed at herself for even considering it. “Are you blind? I can’t get on that thing. Not in this dress.”

  “Sure you can. I’ll bring the bike right alongside the steps, and you can slide on behind me. What could be easier?”

  “Getting my truck keys.” Victoria crossed her arms, prepared to hold her ground.

  “I’ve got two helmets. Come on, Vicky. You owe me.”

  “No, I don’t. Going to the dance evens the score. You didn’t say anything about my having to ride on this machine when we struck the bargain. If you want me to get on that contraption, you’re going to have to do me a favor.”

  “I’d love to do you … a favor.”

  Victoria let out a gasp at his innuendo.

  “Something wrong?” Joshua asked innocently.

  Smart enough to avoid trouble, Victoria didn’t explain her reaction. Ever since Joshua asked her to the dance, thinking of him as just a friend had become hopeless unless the emotions allowed between friends were revised to include lust. She grabbed her purse from the shelf by the door and locked up the cabin.

  “Look, I’ll sacrifice my dignity and ride on your motorcycle if you help me track down a granny-midwife that might still be alive. One of my patients couldn’t remember the name, but said there was a mountain midwife actually practicing up until about fifteen years ago. I’ve been meaning to ask Dr. Grenwald, but he and Helen took that vacation to Minnesota to see their newest great-grandbaby.”

  Apprehension tightened Joshua’s shoulders as he watched her slip the key in her purse. A granny was practicing until fifteen years ago when I left the mountains, and she didn’t have a way to visit her patients anymore. The last thing he wanted to do was help Victoria find his ninety-two-year-old grandmother, who kept Touching History promine
ntly displayed on her coffee table. It was a miracle that he’d been able to keep his alter ego from Victoria this long.

  He was going to the dance in Mention only because he didn’t have much contact with anyone there. What little family he had left in the mountains lived around the Logan’s Hollow point of the triangle. He doubted he would be recognized at a crowded gathering of people who weren’t expecting the Joshua Logan to drop in on their festivities.

  He’d be safe tonight, but once Victoria met his grandmother, the charade would be over. He’d spent a great deal of time in the past few years feeling like a bug under glass. He didn’t want to go back to that. Not yet anyway. He hated the thought that once Victoria put two and two together, she would begin to look at him in that dissecting way that medical people had, trying to figure out if he was a fake or simply crazy. He didn’t want his grandmother subjected to that kind of scrutiny either.

  As he casually descended the steps and threw a leg over the gleaming black motorcycle, he made a decision. If Victoria was going to find his grandmother, she’d have to do it on her own, without help from him. He maneuvered the bike into position beside the bottom step and held out his hand to steady Victoria as he asked, “Why do you want to waste time talking to someone who hasn’t delivered a baby in fifteen years?”

  Victoria widened her eyes at his negative attitude. “Waste of time? How can you say that? You grew up here. The Appalachians are the oldest mountains on this continent. Some of the oldest healing in America is centered right here. You betcha I want to track this woman down if she’s alive.” While she talked, Victoria put her hand in his, held the edge of her dress, and eased onto the motorcycle behind him. “Think of what she can teach me about folk medicine. She’d actually have used herbal medicine instead of repeating what someone told her. Think of how many babies the woman delivered, how many problems she’s faced, how much she knows that can’t be learned from books.”

  Joshua handed her a helmet, silently cursing the enthusiasm he heard in her voice. She wasn’t going to be easily discouraged, but he tried anyway. “Fifteen years is a long time, and she was already an old woman when she retired.”

  “You know her?” Victoria exclaimed, stopping in the middle of putting on the headgear.

  Joshua winced, glad she couldn’t see his face. “No. I figure she had to be old if she retired.”

  “Oh,” she said, her enthusiasm dampened but not gone. “Well … I still want to try.”

  Turning the key, Joshua let the noise of the engine drown out his need to give her an answer. “Hold on.”

  Victoria forgot the conversation as soon as the bike lurched forward and up the hill. Instantly, her arms went around Joshua’s chest of their own accord. Safety was obviously more important to her subconscious than her pride, which wanted her to keep a safe distance from the heat of his body.

  When her arms circled him so naturally, Joshua smiled. He was going to enjoy this ride even more than he usually did. Telling the mechanic not to deliver his car yet had been a calculated risk, but worth it.

  Neither of them tried to talk. Joshua knew shouting against the roar of wind and engine was futile; Victoria wanted Joshua’s full attention to be focused on the road. The first few minutes she kept her eyes closed, not wanting to see the sheer drops on her right. Gradually she opened them and began to enjoy the incredible feeling of freedom.

  The air teased her as it rushed over Joshua’s shoulders, catching the stray ends of hair she hadn’t managed to stuff into the helmet. When she burrowed her face against his back, she breathed in the scent that she associated with Joshua—woodsy, clean, strong. Beneath her fingers she could feel the muscles of his abdomen bunch and twist as he used his body to control the motorcycle through the turns.

  Gradually, Victoria realized that riding behind Joshua was the sensual equivalent to being given a license to steal. So what if she accidentally pressed her breasts to his back and her hands slipped to his waist and hips? It wasn’t her fault. Joshua had wanted to take the bike. So what if the bumps and turns in the road jostled them until she thought she couldn’t take another minute of rubbing against him? Too soon and yet not soon enough, the mountain road began to twist and curve in the downward descent toward Mention.

  Joshua slowed the bike as he approached the smallest of the three Triangle anchor towns. Mention boasted a population of only about two thousand people, but was fortunate to have persuaded the school board to build a brand-new county high school in their community. A grocery store, two gas/convenience stores, a tiny motel, a Dairy Ice Hut, and a business selling concrete yard statues were about the only buildings on the main drag. He bypassed them all and pulled into the high school.

  Carefully he stopped the bike close to the curb that edged the school driveway and killed the engine. As soon as he did, Victoria dropped her hands and pulled away from him. Shaking his head, he wondered what he was going to have to do to get Victoria to give in to the physical side of her nature. He knew it was there. He’d seen flashes of it before she could disguise it.

  “We’re here,” he announced.

  “I can see that.” Victoria placed her hands on his shoulders. “You sit right where you are while I get off.”

  “I was going to help you,” he teased.

  “Oh, please. I can just picture that. Thank you, but no thank you. I’d prefer to crawl off this bike without an audience.”

  His laughter rang out into the growing darkness as he took off his helmet. “Baby, you’ve got an audience. Take a look around.”

  Surreptitiously, Victoria glanced toward the two double doors opening into the gym. Seven or eight gentlemen were gathered on the sidewalk, taking a smoke break. Every one of them was looking in her direction. “I can’t believe this. I should never have gotten on this bike.”

  “There you go again. Thinking about what you should and shouldn’t do.”

  “I should have tried to get a loan from some city in Iowa,” Victoria told him sharply. “I’m sure they wouldn’t have stuck me with a guide who has a rebel-without-a-cause motorcycle fixation.”

  Gingerly, she rested the toe of her shoe on the curb and slowly shifted her weight to it. Standing up, she tugged her dress as far down as she could and still swing her leg over the back of the motorcycle as if she were dismounting a horse. “Okay, I’m off.”

  Joshua turned his head toward her and then wished he hadn’t. The rustle of material and the shimmy of her body as she readjusted the fit of the dress was torture. What bothered him the most was that she didn’t have a clue what she was doing to him. To Victoria it was a gesture to recover her modesty; to Joshua the movement was downright erotic. Adding insult to injury, she unbuckled the helmet and shook out her thick, glossy hair, drawing his eyes to her pale shoulders as the windblown curls settled around her neck and covered her collarbones.

  Finally, she held out the helmet and gave him a ingenuous smile. “I hate to admit it, but that was kind of fun.”

  “Wait until we do it in the dark,” Joshua told her with a devilish look as he secured the helmets and got off the bike.

  “Wh-what?”

  Joshua put his arm around her waist and walked her toward the gym. “Don’t worry. I have excellent night vision. I hardly ever drive off the edge.”

  “Stop scaring me,” she complained, and slapped him lightly on the chest.

  “I’ll add that to the list.”

  “What list?”

  “Things a person should and should not do according to Victoria Bennett.”

  “I’m not that bad,” she defended herself as they walked up the fanlike steps.

  Joshua didn’t say anything.

  “Am I?” she asked uncertainly.

  “Let’s just say that the list keeps getting longer.”

  While Victoria mulled over his comment, he paid the entry fee to the teenage girl who sat behind the ticket table in the gym lobby. The teenager lowered her blond head as she rummaged in the old metal box to make cha
nge for his twenty.

  “Hope you don’t mind ones,” she said with a bright smile as she counted out ten of them. “It’s all I have.”

  Joshua noticed her name badge, which read LISA STONE—HONORABLE MENTION SCHOLAR. “How much are you trying to raise this year?” he asked as he opened his wallet to put the cash away.

  “Three thousand. The top three seniors get to split the interest on the fund and half of what we raise this year.” She hesitated softly, “I finished fifth my junior year.”

  “Do you think you’ll raise that much this year?” Victoria asked.

  “Hope so. It’s a lot of money, all right, but if we raise more than that, we might be able to include more students than just the top three.” She smiled. “That would make me feel better about my chances.”

  Joshua fished out a business card and held it out. “You have the head of the committee give me a call. Maybe I can help you reach your goal this year.”

  The girl took the card, her eyes widening. A chill went through Joshua, and he knew he’d made a mistake. Quietly, he waited for the inevitable.

  “But you live in Bodewell,” Lisa read from the card. “They have a high school too. Are you sure you want to give us your money?”

  Breathing a sigh of relief, Joshua grinned. “Absolutely. You have someone give me a call first thing Monday. In fact, have your parents give me a call. Okay?”

  “Yes, sir!” Joshua grabbed Victoria’s hand and led her toward the sound of soft, slow music. The girl called after them, “They don’t want high heels on the gym floor, but anything else is okay, Mr. Logan.”

  The lights were dim, and the gym was decorated with streamers. A concession stand was set up between the two locker room doors on the opposite wall. About a hundred adult couples were scattered throughout the room, some sitting in groups on the bleachers, others dancing to music that must have been taped, since Victoria couldn’t see a band or a disc jockey.

  “Hey, that was pretty nice of you,” she said softly as she slipped off her high heels and gave them to the tall, lanky kid manning the shoe-check booth. “Giving that girl your card and promising to help.”