“No joke.” I swung my legs over the side of the bed and stood. The tail of his shirt fell to my knees.
He took half a step toward me. “You need to stay in”
“No.”
He watched, seemingly mesmerized, as I walked over to him. I wobbled the slightest bit, more from shyness than weakness. I’d never done anything so bold in my life, never approached a man without something to serve him in my hands. But instinct told me Harry wasn’t going to come to me . . . and I had an overwhelming need to touch him.
He flinched as I reached up, but he didn’t move away.
I ran my fingers across his forehead. “You’re just like me.”
“What?” He shook his head. “No. You’re beautiful.”
Tears stung my eyes. “No one has ever said that to me.”
“I can’t believe. . .”
“You feel like a freak, don’t you?” My harsh words made him blink, but I kept going. “You think no one wants you, so you hide high in the mountains.”
“I’m doing the world a kindness, believe me. Children have actually run away when they’ve seen me. My four-year-old niece screamed. . .” His voice choked.
“I have the opposite effect. People look right through me. I blend into the walls.” Hesitantly, I rested my hands on his broad chest. “So we are just alike. I’m your mirror image.”
“No, we’re not just alike,” he said. “You won’t eat, and I will.”
“Try me.”
We settled on opposite sides of a rough-planked table, which he told me he’d made. He’d fashioned everything in the cabin from wood he’d cut in the forest around him.
We talked the night through. There was no pretense, none of the silly games that men and women play as they get to know each other. Because we already knew each other’s darkest secrets, all that remained was catching up on our lives until now. We did that with avid interest. I was not at all surprised when I discovered that my Harry was a Dragon. A Taurus-Dragon. Might and bite married together in two earth elements.
Although he was living like one, technically Harry hadn’t made a career out of being a hermit. A Ph.D. in environmental botany had earned him a grant from the University of Georgia to study the effect of acid rain on the indigenous plants of the Appalachian Mountains. He lived up there alone in the mountains above Mossy Creek because he believed he didn’t fit in anywhere else. From the time he was old enough to notice, Harry had been taller and smarter than everyone around him. He was six-two by the time he graduated from high school at sixteen, and had reached his full six-foot-eight by twenty-three when he’d earned his doctorate. A serious house fire at twenty-seven had left him badly burned. He’d spent nearly a year in the hospital, then three years being scarred inwardly by people’s reactions to his appearance. Now he lived on Mount Colchik.
The next morning, Harry gave me my dry clothes and walked me down the mountain. He stopped a good mile from the edge of our farm, adamantly refusing to return to civilization. There, amid the falling leaves of a maple, he took me in his arms and kissed me.
When he drew back, we stared into each other’s eyes. It felt wrong leaving him. “If you won’t come down, I will go up.”
“You’re too young,” he said, as if trying to convince himself. “You don’t need to spend time with an old man.”
I rolled my eyes. “Thirty-two is hardly old. Besides, I’ve found you now, and I’m not going to let you go.”
I ran the rest of the way home. When I opened the door, I found my mother in hysterics.
“Where have you been?” she demanded.
“In a dragon’s lair,” I said, and nothing else.
Our relationship changed that day. She no longer intimidated me or made me desperately want to explain myself. I realized later that I didn’t just awaken in Harry’s cabin on that January day.
I’d been reborn.
* * * *
I trekked up to the top of Colchik almost daily for the next two weeks, to visit Harry. I quickly found out why I'd never seen him all those months he watched me. He was stealthy as a mountain lion. I would walk into the forest and suddenly he would be walking beside me, or he would scoop me into his arms, or a sprig of holly would appear in front of my face, held by a large, callused hand.
I wanted him desperately, but he was determined that we keep our distance. He'd given up the world, and I would have to as well, if I admitted I'd fallen in love with him. At that point in my life, I would've given up everything to be with him. He made me feel special and beautiful and sexy—me, Josie the wallflower who finished dead last in the Miss Bigelow Beauty Contest—and I loved him with every cell in my body. But as winter wrapped a firm grip around the mountains, my life began to change even more.
It was as if change begat more change.
Yet Harry wouldn’t come down from the mountain, wouldn’t venture into my world. At the same time, my world began to expand as if the change in me showed.
* * * *
I entered The Naked Bean coffee shop on Main Street and ordered a cup of amaretto-flavored cocoa and two shortbread cookies, then settled into a seat at a far corner table.
I'd nibbled halfway through one of the cookies, closing my eyes to savor the rich buttery taste, when the scrape of a chair made them pop open. Jayne smiled at me a little sadly as she sat down carefully. I barely knew her—she was new to town—but I’d heard all about her and her tragic story. Her husband had died of leukemia. Right after the funeral, she’d learned she was pregnant. Mired in grief and searching for comfort, she’d moved to Mossy Creek from Atlanta with nothing but her savings, her cat, Emma, and her unborn baby. She patted her large, pregnant stomach and began to ask questions . . . about me.
No one except Harry had ever showed an interest in what I did—mainly because I didn’t do anything—so I was leery at first. I’ve watched people for a long time, however, so I recognize false interest when I see it. Jayne’s was sincere.
“I hear you have a talent for decorating,” she said.
“I . . . only fold napkins.”
“Now, really? That’s fascinating.”
She mentioned how badly The Naked Bean needed a professional touch and asked how Martha Stewart would redecorate. I gave her a few suggestions—and I have to admit they weren’t all Martha’s. Jayne particularly liked one of mine. I suggested hanging the works of local artists on one wall.
“That’s great,” Jayne said. “Not only would it be something for people to talk about, it’d be a reason for them to visit the shop.”
“I’m sure some of the local artists would love to use one of your walls as a gallery to sell their work.” I got up enthusiastically and began measuring her front windows with the span of my arms. “I can picture blue toile curtains on these windows, and over there in that corner, a whitewashed antique cupboard full of tea cups, and a delicate little white lamp on a tiny shelf in that corner, and. . .” I stopped, embarrassed.
Her eyes sparkled. “You’re hired.”
“What?”
“How soon can you have a re-decorating plan outlined for me?”
The door chimes jingled. She got up to meet her neighbor, Ingrid Beechum, who entered carrying a carrot cake from her bakery. I sat there with my mouth open.
Someone would actually hire me to decorate? I would do it for free, and I told Jayne so when she returned to the table.
“No, you won’t,” she insisted. “You’ll never be a professional until you charge money.”
And so I did. Not much, mind you. Just enough to satisfy her.
When I finally climbed Colchik a few days later, I saw Harry when I was still thirty yards away—which should’ve been my first clue something was wrong. I never saw Harry until he wanted me to see him.
He picked me up as I ran into his arms. “Where have you been? I was so worried.”
“Don’t squeeze so hard,” I said. “I can’t breathe.”
He set me on the ground and pushed the hair off
my face with trembling hands. “I thought something horrible had happened to you.”
“My dearest Harry. Something wonderful happened.”
I told him about my work for Jayne in vivid detail as we walked the mountain. I didn’t notice until we reached Josie Falls that misery had settled in his dark eyes.
I stopped. “Why aren’t you happy for me?”
“I am happy. It’s just that you’re finding your place in the world. Down the mountain—in Mossy Creek. I envy you. But it tells me you don’t belong up here. With me.”
I stood back from him and said simply, “There will never be a single moment in my life when I don’t want you.”
He touched my face very gently. “Stay tonight, Josie.”
I didn’t know what to do or say. I wanted him so much, but I was afraid I’d never go back down the mountain if I let myself fall more in love, and I owed him the truth. I bowed my head. “Swee Purla is a famous decorator down in Bigelow. She saw the work I did at The Naked Bean and offered me a job as her assistant. She did some mean things to an assistant named Geena Quill last year, but I’ve heard she’s trying to be nicer to her employees, now.”
He didn’t move a muscle, didn’t say a word.
I took a deep breath of cold mountain air. “I accepted.”
“So you’ve come to say goodbye?”
“Of course not. It’s just a part-time job. I’ll only be working when she needs extra help. I’m sorry I haven’t been to see you, I just got so involved in the project, and before I knew it, five days had passed. I’ve never had an opportunity like this, and I probably never will again. I have to see it through. I have to see if I’m any good at it. If I don’t, I’ll wonder all my life.”
He stepped back. “It feels good to be appreciated, to be accepted. I know.”
“Mossy Creek would accept you if you’d come down off this mountain. People are herd animals. We’re meant to live together, not like hermits.”
“Then live with me.” His deep voice held a thin edge of pleading. “Decorate my cabin. Keep me from being a hermit.”
“We’d just be two hermits, then.” I took one of his hands and held it against my cheek. “Come to town and live with me, Harry. We could have a house at the edge of the forest. You wouldn’t have to socialize often. The people in Mossy Creek are all a little weird themselves, anyway, so they would never say anything to”
He grabbed my hand and began dragging me toward his cabin.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going to show you exactly what they’d have to accept.”
When we reached his cabin, he dug a mirror and razor out of his chest. He hung a small mirror on a nail in the wall, dipped soap in hot water from the cauldron he kept over coals, and shaved off his beard. After he wiped off the last trace of soap, he hesitated, then turned to me.
The burn scars curved around his face, half red, half white, crudely forming the shape of the classic symbol for yin and yang.
My eyes wide with wonder, I edged closer to him and ran my fingers along the scars, whispering reverently, “You’ve been kissed by the Dragon.”
“A fire-breathing dragon.” But his ire was uncertain now, as if he didn’t know how to react to my reaction.
“Yin and yang represent perfect balance—dark and light, positive and negative, male and female. Opposites working together to create a balanced whole. Mirror images.” I smiled. “Like us. Oh, Harry, you’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen. I love who you are—here . . .” I placed a hand over his heart. “. . . And here.” I put my other hand on his cheek. “Now I know why I developed a sudden interest in studying Eastern philosophy. I was getting ready for you.”
“Josie. . .” His hands circled my wrists.
I met his gaze squarely. “I have to take this job, Harry.”
He nodded. “I know.”
“The only way you and I can spend more time together is for you to come down off this mountain.”
His eyes were bleak. “I’ve been there, done that. It wasn’t fun.”
“But I wasn’t there.” When he was silent, I knew. “Then there’s nothing else to say, is there?”
He searched my eyes. “Is this goodbye?”
“No. I don’t know. Yes. You want me to give up the world.” Tears blinded me. “I want to share it with to you. You don’t know how long I’ve waited.”
“Yeah, I do. That’s why I won’t stop you.”
END EXCERPT
* * * *
“Josie, do you ever stop folding napkins?”
Startled by the wry voice, I looked up to see Katie Bell standing on the other side of the refreshment table. I’d already decorated the table, making it ready for the desserts everyone brought to sweeten the Presbyterian Church’s annual Valentine’s Sweetheart Bingo.
“No, ma’am,” I said.
Though Katie Bell’s words were sharp, she didn’t intend them to be mean. She was a Taurus-Tiger, after all. They pounced on everything. That’s why she was such a good journalist, and certainly why her gossip column was a must-read for everyone in Mossy Creek.
“Practicing your talent for next year’s Miss Bigelow Contest?”
I tucked the tail on a napkin whooping crane into its spine and set it alongside the dragon I’d made first. Dragons always came first. “No. My beauty pageant days are over. Now I only make my napkin animals for the good of mankind.”
“Have you told your Mama you’re not making another run for the crown?”
“Yes, ma’am.” I picked up another napkin, wishing Swee Purla had allowed me to spend the extra little bit for deluxe napkins. They had so much more body than these cheap bulk things.
Katie Bell let her gaze wander around the fellowship hall of the Presbyterian Church. “I’m the first one to arrive?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Then I added, “You always are.”
The smile Katie Bell turned on me reminded me of a cat that had created some trouble I didn’t know about yet. “It’s the reporter in me. Got to get a jump on things, you know.”
“Like riflin’ through the bingo cards until you find your lucky one?”
The surprise in Katie Bell’s eyes was gratifying, but it lasted only a second before she chuckled. “I’ve always had the feeling you aren’t what you seem What’s with the wallflower act you’ve been maintaining over the years? Surely your Mama—of all people—has told you that shy girls don’t get husbands.”
“Like you, Katie Bell?”
She guffawed. “Shy is one thing nobody’s ever accused me of being.” She studied me shrewdly. “You stand back, taking it all in, don’t you? You’ve got good observation skills. Are you planning on stealing my job as gossip columnist?”
To hide my smile, I lowered my eyes and began transforming a red napkin covered with tiny white hearts into a butterfly. “No, I’ll stick to decorating.”
“Uh huh.” Losing interest when she couldn’t get a rise out of me, her attention returned to the room. “The bingo cards are under the sign-in table like they always are, I suppose?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She padded off. Katie Bell always moved stealthily, like the tiger she was.
I returned to my napkin folding. People made fun of it, especially since it was the only talent I could come up with when Mama forced me into entering the Miss Bigelow Contest. Few considered it the art form it was, close kin to origami. I took a mundane, functional napkin and transformed it into something magical—all with a Martha Stewart swash.
My heart twisted. Harry kept a collection of my napkin animals on his mantle.
I glanced up to see if Katie Bell noticed the misery I couldn’t keep off my face, but the Reverend Hollingsworth had come in with the cash box. He had Katie Bell’s attention and was about to have the money for her lucky bingo cards. He was followed by a trail of church ladies and townspeople, wandering in the crepe-draped door in twos and threes. Most toted Tupperware containers or covered dishes filled wit
h goodies, which they brought to the table where I worked. I interrupted my napkin folding so I could sort the dishesall of them desserts—into Sweet, Very Sweet, and Melt-Your-Teeth Sweet.
When the table was half-full, Eustene Oscar set down a plate of divinity candy, then smiled. “Hey, Josie. Your Mama here tonight?”
“No, Mrs. Oscar. She wasn’t feeling up to it.”
Mrs. Oscar’s unnaturally bright red hair—Rainey Ann Cecil’s salon work, no doubt—glowed in the fluorescent lights. “She’s been feeling poorly for several months now, hasn’t she, dear?”
“Yes, Mrs. Oscar. Since last spring.”
“Since the Miss Bigelow Contest.” The no-bones statement came from the no-nonsense mayor of Mossy Creek, Ida Hamilton Walker. She nailed me with a kind but penetrating smile. “Isn’t that right, Josie?”
“Yes, ma’am.” I placed Mrs. Oscar’s candy next to the carob-dipped strawberries Maggie Hart sent over by way of her boyfriend, Tag Garner.
The mayor went on, “When Josie didn’t win, her mother couldn’t decide whether to murder the judge or go into a decline. Since the deciding judge was our very own Amos Royden, I was able to convince her that a decline is so much more elegant for a Southern lady than wearing a tacky orange prison uniform.”
“Mama hates orange,” I agreed.
Mayor Ida laughed. Sagittarius-Dragons always enjoyed a good joke. “I do believe you’ve grown up, Miss Josie McClure. A year ago you wouldn’t say boo to me. Was it dealing with all those beauty contestants, or working for Swee Purla?”
If our mayor only knew.
Luckily, I didn’t have to answer because my attention was stolen by Jayne, who came in pulling the bright red wagon Ingrid Beechum had given her. Strapped into the wagon was an industrial-sized cooler of spiced tea, a winter specialty at The Naked Bean. And her pregnant!
I excused myself and hurried over.
“No, just one set,” she said to the Reverend as he tried to sell her bingo cards. “I doubt I’ll be paying much attention to them, anyway. Just trying to help the cause.”
“Did you haul that wagon all the way from The Naked Bean?” I asked.
Jayne smiled. “Who else was going to haul it?”
Reunion at Mossy Creek Page 3