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“Then why’d you give it up?”
She saw the darkness leap from his eyes, saw the way the smile drained right off his face and turned into a frown. “I got tired,” he replied, the words low and gravelly. “And disillusioned, I guess.”
“I can certainly understand both those feelings.”
He kept his head down, then turned so fast she almost had to step backward. “So…back to your job. Sounds as if you practically run the general store.”
“I try,” she admitted. She wanted to know more about him, but decided she wouldn’t press him for information. He might get suspicious and turn the tables on her. So she told him only superficial things. “I do like to stay busy, and the store is so ancient. No computers, no digital anything. Just the steady cling of the hand-cranked cash register. It’s very peaceful and soothing, spending my days there. And Mr. and Mrs. Curtis have already told me I can bring the baby to work with me for as long as I need. They live off the back of the store, so I can put Callum in a crib right near the door to their apartment.”
“That would be convenient,” he said, nodding. “Do they like children?”
“Oh, yes.” She smiled softly. “They raised three of their own and now have lots of grandchildren coming to visit. One more won’t matter a bit to them. And Mrs. Curtis can help me with him. She loves babies.”
“They sound like a wonderful couple.”
“They are. But I love all of the people here. They’re all like that, helpful and caring.” And protective. But she didn’t mention that particular quality to him. “I feel like I have a whole new family.”
“What made you come here?”
She didn’t want to answer that, because she couldn’t answer that. But she could tell him one of the main reasons she’d decided to live on the mountain. “This cabin has been in my mother’s family for generations.”
He gave her a surprised look, but didn’t press her. “And now it’s yours?”
“It’s all I have left,” she said, suddenly tired herself, her body drained, but her mind even more so. “I think I need to get back to bed.”
He turned her around, then urged her back toward the bedroom. “It must be hard, going through this without your husband.”
“Harder than I ever imagined,” she said. And that was the truth. “But I’m going to make it,” she added, her conviction ringing hollow in her ears. She hoped she was going to make it.
“Will you be okay here alone while I go for the doctor?”
“Yes. I’m just going to sleep.” She let him help her down onto the feather mattress. “Could you pull the baby’s bed close, so I can see him?”
“Sure.” Jared did her bidding, bringing the rickety bassinet to the side of the bed, by the nightstand. “Can you get to him from there if you need to?”
She nodded. “I’ll be able to sit up and reach in for him.”
“Well, just be careful. Now which way is the doctor?”
Jared found his truck right where he’d left it. The cold air made him breathe puffs of fog, but the sight of his bogged-down SUV made him say hot words. “No wonder I couldn’t get it out last night,” he hollered to the wind.
The big truck’s two front tires had slipped into a muddy rut just off the badly paved lane that served as a road. The darkness and the bushy thickets along the road had covered the mud hole last night, which in turn had caused him to shift farther into the gaping hole and get all four wheels stuck. From the looks of it, it would take a winch and a tow truck to get the vehicle out.
And the radio weatherman had said this storm’s aftermath would be very bad. Power outages might last for another day and night at least. All over half of the state, the roads were closed, trees were down, schools would be closed on Monday for a three-day weekend due to water and wind damage and lack of electricity. Everything was closed, which meant Jared was stuck on this mountain.
Well, he’d wanted to get away. And he’d told the travel agent to find him the most remote, most isolated spot she could find in the fringes of the Blue Ridge Mountains, the one spot he remembered from his youth. He was at least three hours from Atlanta, almost to the Tennessee border.
When Jared decided to get away from it all, he certainly did it right. But being back here soothed his frazzled mind. He’d had happy times on this mountain with his grandfather. Times he’d long since forgotten due to work and everyday distractions.
He turned and started walking up the slippery slope of a road that wound toward the little village on top of the mountain. He didn’t want to leave Alisha alone for too long, so Jared tried to hurry. Even though he hadn’t been mountain climbing in years, he was in pretty good shape physically from working out at a downtown Atlanta health club three times a week. But that didn’t seem to matter in this early-morning cold. In spite of the wool sock-hat Alisha had given him and the collar of his heavy leather coat pulled up around his face, Jared felt as if he were frozen solid. His cheeks burned and his lungs hurt. But he kept on walking, right past the road that probably led to his own cabin, right past the rickety, run-down trailer that Alisha had told him belonged to the Wilkeses.
She’d also told him that the Wilkes family took care of the five different cabins the village rented out to tourists. He’d need to see Mr. and Mrs. Wilkes, she’d said, if he had trouble getting into his own cabin. If that ever happened, he reasoned now, thinking he couldn’t leave Alisha helpless and with a baby to take care of. Surely the doctor could suggest someone to sit with her, someone better equipped to deal with all of it.
Someone who wasn’t highly attracted to her and mystified by her, Jared thought as he huffed another short breath.
Thinking back over their earlier conversation, Jared remembered how evasive she’d been in answering his questions. She obviously valued her privacy. And she obviously loved living here in the quiet of the mountain, safely away from the outside world.
But why? his logical brain had to ask. Why was she here? Alisha was an intelligent, beautiful woman. A woman who had chosen to live alone in a remote cabin, without transportation or a phone.
Was she so destitute that she couldn’t afford those things? Or was it something else?
Thinking maybe he’d get some answers from the doctor, Jared finally reached the summit and the center of the small town. He’d like to help Alisha. He’d like to get to know Alisha.
And he’d really like to know what she was hiding.
Chapter Four
J ared pounded on the wide, creaking, glass-and-wood doors of the Dover Mountain Mini-Mart and Grocery, then pushed, surprised to find the store open this early on a Sunday morning. The indoor heat hit him with a dry, hot rush as he left the cold behind. The door was unlocked, but the place was dark and deserted. “Hello,” he called, glancing down the crowded aisles. “Anybody here?”
“In the back,” came a voice that sounded as aged and cracked as some of the old pickle barrels sitting around the place looked. “What can I do for you, fellow?”
Jared followed the sound of the voice to a rocking chair beside a puffing wood-burning buckstove. This whole store creaked and swayed and puffed, he decided, wondering how it had stood up through last night’s storm.
“Mr. Curtis?” he asked as he took off the sock-hat and ran a hand through his hair, his gaze on the old man who sat smoking a pipe while he steadily rocked back and forth.
“That’d be me,” the old man said, his grin revealing a gap-toothed smile. “Warren J. That’s what they call me. And who are you, stranger?”
Jared liked the directness of the other man’s question. “I’m Jared Murdock. I came in last night. Rented the second cabin on the left—”
“Number 202,” Mr. Curtis said, nodding. “Heard we had some city fellow coming to stay for a while. Don’t get many people from the city, mostly hunters or fishermen during the different seasons. Get a few rafters who like to ride the river in the summertime—too cold for that today, though. Goin’ to do some fishing and hiking, camping maybe?”
“I haven’t decided,” Jared replied, trying to get past the niceties. “Mr. Curtis, I got stuck in the storm and I went to the wrong cabin last night and…well, I helped Alisha Emerson deliver her baby.”
“What now?” Mr. Curtis shot up out of the rocking chair so fast, Jared had to catch the man to keep him from falling into the roaring heat from the furnace. “Let me get Letty.” He whirled in a mist of pipe smoke and overalls, his brogans carrying him to the back of the store with a clamoring clarity. “Letty, Letty Martha, come on out here, you hear?”
Jared heard a shrill voice responding. “Coming. Coming. Do we actually have a customer this morning? Well, I did tell you we’d need to open up just in case people needed things.” She stopped talking for a full second. “I was just about to go for a walk to survey the damage—before I change for church. We might not have electricity, but this is Easter Sunday. We’ll hold the service out underneath the trees if we have to.”
Jared waited, listening to the voice calling out from the back. Did the woman ever take a breath?
Warren J. stomped a brogan against the plank floor, causing the whole store to shake. “Not just a customer, honey. A man who says Alisha had her baby last night.”
That brought a rustling movement from the back. Letty Martha appeared in the doorway, wearing a bright pink nylon windsuit over a thick white turtleneck sweater. Even thicker white-and-purple bunny-rabbit-decorated socks folded like a ruffle against her battered athletic shoes. Pushing at the tufts of gray hair surrounding her jovial face, she gave her husband a direct head-to-toe look. “Did you say Alisha had her baby?”
“That’s what I said,” Warren J. replied, clearly agitated as he turned back to Jared. “And this here man, what did you say your name was now, son?”
“Jared Murdock,” Jared said, mustering a reassuring smile toward Letty Martha.
“This Jared says he helped deliver the baby,” Warren J. said, his watery eyes suspicious and full of utter disbelief.
“I don’t believe it,” Letty said, echoing the look in her husband’s eyes, her hand flying to her mouth. “Surely you’re joking us, mister. A baby born on Easter morning?”
“I’m not joking,” Jared said, hands on his hips. “Alisha wanted me to stop by and tell you first, but I need to find Dr. Sloane.” At the panicked look in the couple’s eyes, he held up a hand. “Mother and child are both doing fine as far as I can tell, but we still want the doctor to check them.”
Letty Martha and Warren J. both swung into action, almost colliding with each other in their nervousness and haste.
“I’ll call Doc right now,” Warren J. said as he held out two hands to steady his plump wife.
“And the midwife, too,” Letty Martha said, wagging a veined finger in the air. “Alisha wanted Miss Mozelle there, too, remember.”
“Well, I can only call them one at a time,” Warren J. replied in a curt voice. “I can hardly see without a light.”
Letty found a candle, lit it and held it to the phone so her husband could see. “Now then, do it, do it,” Letty Martha said, waving her hands in the air after her husband stubbornly took the candle from her. Turning back to Jared, she let out a laugh. “You’d think we’d never before had a baby born around here.”
Jared had to smile at that while he remembered his own nervousness from the night before. “I guess anytime a baby is born, things become a bit exciting.”
“You can say that again,” Letty replied, her hand reaching out to pull him down into one of the matching rocking chairs. “Sit down here and tell me everything. How is the darling? How’s the mama? That Alisha, she is such a sweet little thing, isn’t she? And been through so much—”
Letty Martha froze as if someone had put her in a trance, her vivid sky-blue eyes centered on her husband. Jared turned just in time to see the warning in her husband’s eyes, as well as the finger he had pressed to his lips, silently telling Letty Martha to be quiet.
Jared looked from the man with the phone to the woman in the rocking chair opposite him. “What’s wrong?” he asked, wondering if he was going to get a straight answer after all.
“Nothing, nothing,” Letty Martha said, waving her hands again. “I ramble on and on about everything. Warren J. was just reminding me to mind my manners. Now, would you like a good strong cup of coffee and a slice of apple bread?”
Jared could only nod and watch as, before he could decline, she disappeared in a puff of pink, an aura of almond-scented lotion following in her wake.
“Phone’s still not working,” Warren J. said as he ambled back over to the furnace. “You’ll have to walk to the doctor’s clinic. It’s just around the corner, but he might not be there, what with this storm and all. Just about everything in town—and that ain’t much, mind you—is shut down ’cause the power’s out.”
“What about his residence?” Jared asked, trying to be patient.
“It’s back behind the clinic,” Warren J. replied, rocking back and forth on his heels. “A white two-story house.”
“I’ll find him,” Jared said as Letty Martha came back in with his coffee and a large chunk of moist-looking brown bread, centered on a pink-and-purple-checked napkin. Apparently, pink and purple were Letty’s favorite colors.
“Eat, eat,” Letty Martha suggested, a serene smile on her face. “Did you walk all the way up that mountain?” At Jared’s nod, she added, “Take a quick rest, then. That’s a hard trek, even on a good day.”
Jared took a quick bite of the wonderful apple bread, then drank deeply of the fresh coffee. Chewing quickly, he thought he should just hurry to get the doctor. He’d only stopped in here to let them know about Alisha—at her insistence—and to make sure he was headed in the right direction toward the clinic.
But now he really wanted to know why Warren J. Curtis had made his wife hush before she could tell Jared exactly what Alisha had been through. Jared knew she’d been through a lot, losing her husband, moving here, then giving birth to a child alone, but there seemed to be more behind the story. He’d seen the look in Warren J.’s eyes. It had been a definite warning. Jared got the distinct impression that this lovely couple was in on some sort of secret.
Some sort of secret about Alisha Emerson.
While Jared talked to the Curtises, another man stood looking out at the silent town.
He knew a secret.
He stood at the window of the run-down house, staring out at the cold, wet landscape. Without electricity, there was no chance of getting anything done today. The roads were empty and dead silent, the ridges and woods eerie-looking and treacherous with fallen debris and limbs. Besides, he wasn’t in the mood to work anyway. And he sure wasn’t going to church to celebrate Easter with all the fine folks of Dover Mountain.
He hated storms and he didn’t like God very much either.
“Could go on back to bed,” he told himself as he shivered in his undershirt and flannel pajama bottoms. If that aggravating phone company got the lines back up, he could go back to his latest obsession, surfing the Internet, hanging out in chat rooms, finding out secrets people didn’t necessarily want to be found out.
Like Alisha Emerson, for example. Alisha Emerson, the pretty, pregnant woman who’d mysteriously appeared on Dover Mountain in the fall and set up house in an old cabin that she claimed had belonged to her mother’s people.
Well, he’d done some digging around. Thanks to a few blabbermouths around here, and his ability to track people’s background information, he knew a few things about Alisha Emerson. And he intended to find out more. He had a plan. And that plan included wanting more than he was getting, wasting his time and his talent on this trash pile of a mountain. And if what he’d heard—what someone had let slip—was true, Alisha Emerson could help with those plans. He’d already tried to get closer to her. He’d been friendly and sympathetic to her plight, but the woman was stubborn and quiet. She liked to keep to herself, didn’t hold with sharing much personal stuff. That was okay. He’d learned enough when she’d first come here. And he could be patient as far as the rest. He could bide his time.
But first, he had to get all his ducks in a row. He had to be armed with enough information to make it worth his while. Enough information to make Alisha Emerson sweat just a little bit. Once he had her convinced, she’d give in to him. She’d be his then. He’d get back everything he’d lost, and together they could leave this dreadful place.
Speaking of sweating, he was freezing now. That’s how it went, hot and cold. Hot and cold. Shaking one minute and calm and still, burning, the next. He was just about to turn around and head back to his bedroom when he saw a movement coming up the road, headed toward the store just around the corner. He squinted against the cold, cracked window.
“Now, who’s that?” he wondered as he watched the tall man wearing a black leather overcoat go trudging up the muddy, potholed road to the south. There was a stranger on the mountain.
Tourists. Dover Mountain only got a few, but he hated them. They were just so nosy and demanding. A real pain to deal with. But this one looked like he had money, at least.
He snorted and scratched at his belly. “Some city fellow got lost in the storm. How tragic.” He laughed, thought about offering the man some help, but then decided he just felt too miserable for the effort. “You got yourself this far, I reckon. You can keep on moving.”
Besides, soon he’d have plenty of money himself. Wouldn’t have to depend on strangers for handouts, wouldn’t have to depend on this town, or these people to keep him above water. Soon, he’d be on his way off this sad little mountain and on to better things. No more worries. No more nagging memories. Freedom at last.
And all thanks to the beautiful Alisha Emerson.
Jared found Dr. Sloane. He had to pound on the door of the white house several times, but when the doctor finally came to the door, Jared was shocked at what he saw, and more than a little relieved that this man hadn’t had anything to do with Alisha’s delivery.
Dr. Sloane’s face was the color of saffron, yellowed and aged like dried newspaper. His hazel eyes sank back against his jaundiced skin like two pebbles trapped in stagnant water. His thick silver-streaked hair stood up in oily clumps around his forehead. He looked to be around fifty or so, but he was apparently suffering from what Jared could only guess was a tremendous hangover. Was this the best medical help the people of Dover Mountain could get?
“What you want?” the doctor asked, his bloodshot eyes moving over Jared’s face with contempt. “The clinic’s closed on Sundays, and I can’t open up, anyway. I don’t have electricity, so I can only deal with true emergencies.” He moved to shut the door.
“I have an emergency,” Jared said, his hand coming up to block the door. Hoping he’d be wrong, he asked, “You are Dr. Sloane, right?”
“Yep, but—”
Jared held the door. “Alisha Emerson had her baby last night. I helped deliver the boy. We just need you to come and check on them both, that is, if you think you’re able.”
Dr. Sloane’s head came up, his skin becoming a strange florid shade as he glared up at Jared. “I’m perfectly capable of seeing to Alisha’s needs, thank you.” Then he pointed a finger in Jared’s face. “And just who exactly are you? We don’t cotton to strangers here, you know.”
“I’m beginning to see that, yes,” Jared said. “I’m Jared Murdock. I live in Atlanta—”
“Where in Atlanta?”
It was almost the same question Alisha had asked him last night. “Buckhead. In a house that’s been in my family for close to seventy years.” Jared didn’t go into detail about his uptown penthouse. It was none of this man’s business, anyway.
The doctor teetered on his bare feet, his liver-spotted hands pulling tightly at the sash of his threadbare plaid flannel bathrobe. “Old money, huh? Y’all think you can come up here and take over this mountain—tourists and troublemakers—”
“I’m not a troublemaker, and I’m really not a tourist,” Jared replied, anger making the words harsh. “But if you don’t get in gear and come with me to see about Alisha, I’m going to make trouble, a lot of trouble.”
“I don’t take to threats,” the doctor said, leaning in so close Jared could smell the leftover alcohol on his breath. And see the fury in his eyes.
As they stood staring each other down, Jared heard church bells ringing, then the soft, sweet sound of voices lifted in a song. The Easter service had begun, and the sound of the celebration echoed out over the mountain, reminding Jared of Alisha’s gospel music. Reminding him that he’d left her alone.
“Do you care about Alisha and her baby?” Jared asked the doctor, doubt and worry making him think Alisha was better off without this old coot. No wonder Alisha had insisted on having a midwife present, too.
