Through Eyes of Love

by Pamela Browning

  "I haven't heard a recording of myself since I came here," Cassie said, looking stricken.

  "You and Sharon play the dulcimer together. You've sung with her." He knew he had to keep her talking or she might run into her bedroom and slam the door. Cassie, always running, always retreating to the innermost chamber of herself. But not anymore. He wasn't going to let her.

  "That's different," she said. "The old songs Sharon and I sing hold no memories for me except happy ones. They're not the ones I wrote myself when I was—when I was—" She stopped and swallowed. She couldn't go on.

  "When you were Kevin's wife," said John gently.

  She raised her eyes to his. "Yes," she said.

  John stood and paced the floor, running a hand through his hair. Suddenly he knelt before her. He took her hands in his and spoke with fiery determination. "Cassandra, I wish it hadn't happened this way. I knew that someday we'd hear your music, but I didn't expect you to react so strongly. I love your music, Cassie. So do a lot of other people."

  "My show business career is over," Cassie murmured. She knew he hadn't meant to hurt her. John would never hurt her.

  "You're acting as if your whole life is over." He raised one of her hands to his lips and kissed it. "Cassie, isn't it time for you to pick up and go on? You should face the fact that you lived, you didn't die with Kevin and Rory and you don't have to give up the rest of your life out of guilt."

  Cassie withdrew her hand. "Don't say these things."

  "I've watched you doing backbreaking work in your garden day after day. I've stood by while you mix balms and ointments and essences and give them away to any and all who find their way up this mountain. How long are you going to atone for their deaths?"

  The words assaulted her like a physical blow. "That's my business," she said.

  "Mine too," he shot back. "It's my business because I love you. You've said you love me."

  "I do," she said helplessly, hopelessly. "I do."

  "We're in this together," he reminded her gently.

  Then he was gathering her into his arms, and sudden tears flooded her eyes. He was so good to her, and she didn't deserve it.

  He kissed her tears away. "Let's not give up when we're beginning to make progress. And anyway, if you don't get that skunk away from the popcorn bowl, there won't be any left for us."

  Cassie pulled away from him with a watery smile and shooed Bertrand away. Thank goodness John could keep his sense of humor. If she didn't lighten up, she'd lose him long before he had to leave.

  "Well," she said shakily, "how about turning on the radio again? Let's start the evening over. This time maybe we'll get it right."

  John eased himself down beside her.

  "You've got a lot of spunk, Cassandra," he said, kissing her on the temple. Bertrand sneaked around the pile of cushions and nibbled tentatively at Cassie's hand where it was curved around the bowl.

  "A lot of skunk, too," she said wryly, pushing Bertrand away.

  And so they went on from there.

  * * *

  "The manager at the Juniper Inn offered me a salary. And I'm going to work every night but Sunday!" Sharon exclaimed over biscuits laden with Cassie's fresh strawberry jam.

  It was the day after Sharon's interview. The three of them sat on a blanket outside under the black oak tree, John having declared it the perfect day for a picnic brunch. Sharon had arrived earlier with her sister, and they'd gathered vegetables for the roadside stand. Bonnie declined food, but Sharon had lingered to discuss this exciting new development in her life.

  "When do you start?" asked Cassie, delighted with Sharon's success.

  "Tonight. And tomorrow's my birthday. A job—what a wonderful eighteenth birthday present! Will you come to my opening? I'm not telling them at home. I don't want Pa to come, and Ma won't. Bonnie said she'll cover for me and tell them something that gets me out of the house." Sharon's glance flashed expectantly from Cassie to John and back to Cassie again.

  "Oh, I—" began Cassie in a negative tone. She didn't want to go out in public, and she had reservations about Sharon's reluctance to tell her family.

  "Of course we'll be there," John said.

  "Wonderful," said Sharon, hopping up. "I've got to get home. Now that I have a job, I'll be able to buy new clothes." Her words bubbled over with excitement. "You have good taste, Cassie. I wish you'd come with me to shop."

  "I—I'll think about it," Cassie said faintly, aware of John's eyes upon her.

  "Okay. See you tonight. I'm so glad you'll both be there." And with a happy wave back at them, Sharon took off at a run.

  John stood up and tossed a green caterpillar off the picnic blanket.

  "You don't mind going, do you?" he asked.

  Cassie hesitated. "I guess not. For Sharon's sake."

  "What about for Cassie's sake?"

  "I haven't been out to dinner for years," she reminded him.

  "But things are different now," he told her as they walked back to the house.

  She sent him a sideways glance and tucked her arm through his. "I've noticed," she said, and a smile teased the corners of her mouth.

  "Today maybe you could take those pictures of Bertrand and Rupert," suggested Cassie as she stashed the picnic blanket in the chifforobe. One of the corners of the blanket swept a piece of paper to the floor. John bent to retrieve it, mostly as a stall. He still hadn't mastered the Nikon, and as for photographing Bertrand, he'd rather pass.

  "Is this anything important?" Then, because he couldn't help noticing that it was a song, complete with notes and scribbled words, he inspected it more closely.

  "It's nothing," said Cassie, moving to take it from him.

  "Wait," he said, and because of his height he could hold it out of her reach.

  "John, hand it over."

  "I didn't know you'd been writing music," he said.

  Cassie flushed. "Once in a while. When the mood hits me."

  "Play it for me?"

  "John, I couldn't."

  "You don't mind my reading this, do you?"

  "Well..." Cassie hesitated. Her feelings were wrapped up in the songs she'd written, and it was hard to share them. She was afraid that he'd compare them to songs she'd written for Kevin and that these would come up lacking. But she and John were so intimate and so open with each other that she hardly wanted to refuse.

  "If you don't want me to, I won't." He waited expectantly, and her reservations melted away.

  "It's okay," she said in a small voice, and suddenly feeling the need to do something with her hands, she rushed into the bathroom and picked up the scouring powder and sponge. She was surprised to find that her hands were trembling. She turned on the water, listening to it gurgle down the drain. What would he think about her song?

  She had written it with the taste of him still on her lips one night when she couldn't sleep after their lovemaking. She'd crept from the bed and scribbled her thoughts, writing quickly as she heard notes in her head. She'd titled it "For Love's Sweet Splendor," and it could have been an old tune, so regional was its flavor. But the words were unmistakably about John and Cassie and the wonder she felt at being loved by him.

  Through the door she saw John walk to the window, pensively studying her song.

  Let him like it, she thought, because she felt suddenly shy.

  "Cassie," he said quietly.

  She dropped the sponge and the cleanser and grabbed the cold porcelain sink, her heart beating wildly.

  "Come here," he said.

  She turned off the water. Slowly she came out of the bathroom, not daring to look full into his face. When her eyes met his, she saw that his brimmed with wonder and shone in admiration.

  "How well you put it into words," he said softly.

  "It was written for you."

  As he folded her in his arms, Cassie closed her eyes and was thankful for him and the changes he'd brought to her life. The moment would have become even more intimate had a car not rounded the curv
e.

  "One of your seekers," said John, pulling away before kissing Cassie lightly beside the ear. He had taken to referring to the people who came up the mountain for herbal remedies as seekers because Cassie didn't approve of calling them patients.

  This particular visitor drove a dark blue Lincoln Town Car and parked it under a tree.

  "Let me put this music away," said Cassie, taking the crumpled piece of paper from John. She stuffed it in the chifforobe.

  "Wait," said John, seeing other papers in the drawer as well. "Do you have more like that?"

  Cassie spared him a long, mute look. Since John had entered her life, she'd stopped writing in her journal. She now channeled her thoughts and energies into her music, much as she had done before the accident. Only now there was a more serious, introspective dimension to her songs.

  "I'll let you see them if you like."

  But there wasn't time to share her music now, not with the car door slamming outside and footsteps crunching on the gravel drive.

  Cassie smoothed her hair and straightened her blouse before glancing quickly at her reflection in the oval mirror on the chifforobe. She hurried to open the door. John was in the kitchen, rummaging in the freezer for ice cubes. He preferred to stay as far out of the way as possible when Cassie's seekers were around.

  But Bertrand didn't. The skunk refused to make himself scarce when Cassie had company; his curious nature brought him out sniffing and scampering and making mischief. He seemed to delight in people's shock at seeing a real live skunk running loose inside the house.

  Cassie stumbled over Bertrand on her way to the door, but the second round of knocks was so loud that she didn't take time to remove the skunk to the spare bedroom. She nudged him aside with her toe as she opened the door.

  On the front porch stood a familiar stocky figure wearing the perennially rumpled suit with which she identified him. She stared in amazement while a broad smile lit up his face to reveal gleaming gold caps. Bald, snub-nosed, disheveled and stout, he was a funny-looking man—but what was her former agent doing here?

  "Kajurian!" she exclaimed as she held out her arms in a welcoming hug.

  At that moment, Bertrand, who had managed to slip past Cassie, hissed and stomped his feet, but Cassie's attention was elsewhere.

  And so Bertrand let go.

  Chapter 11

  "Tomato juice," said Cassie. "It's the best thing in the world for skunk odor."

  "I read somewhere the smell lasts for days." Kajurian stood, glum and reeking, in Cassie's kitchen as she rummaged through the pantry.

  "It's on the higher shelf," said John, reaching over Cassie's head for the can. He was thankful he hadn't been Bertrand's target, and his sympathies were with Kajurian. The trigger-happy Bertrand had been banished to the shed.

  "What a welcome you give me," moaned Kajurian. "Morgana warned me that you probably wouldn't be overjoyed to see me, Cassie, but I didn't know about your secret weapon."

  "Bertrand doesn't like men," said Cassie. "Morgana should have mentioned that."

  "I spoke with Morgana when she came back from here, and the sum total of our conversation was, 'Kajurian, you go up that mountain and talk sense into Cassie.' I should have stayed back in L.A. There it's only bad drivers, not skunks. Bad drivers I'm used to."

  Cassie held out the can of tomato juice. "Take this in the bathroom and wash yourself in it."

  Kajurian looked at her as though she were crazy.

  "I mean it. It'll work. Pour this juice through your hair and then wash it out with shampoo. Rub it all over your skin before you take a bath."

  "You got any vodka? I sure don't feel like taking a bath in straight tomato juice."

  "Go," said Cassie, giving him an encouraging shove. "You'll find towels. John will bring in your luggage so you can put on clean clothes."

  "Here are the car keys," Kajurian said morosely, handing them over.

  Cassie hurried to fling wide the few windows that weren't already open. John went outside and eyed Bertrand in his cage in the shed. No doubt about it, Bertrand's stay here would be short now that this had happened.

  John carried in Kajurian's suitcase and handed clothes through the bathroom door. Cassie went out to the shed to confront Bertrand, taking Tigger with her. John watched through a window as she spoke earnestly to the skunk. He repressed a smile at the sight of Tigger, who was twitching his nose and listening in smug superiority from the tree stump where he'd perched.

  Kajurian emerged from the bathroom. "We'll have to bury my suit," he said unhappily.

  "Maybe the local dry cleaner can do something," John said, though Kajurian would be better off without it. The suit was probably twenty years old.

  "Well, Kajurian," said Cassie, coming back in. "You're smelling better."

  "Humph. I'm not the only thing around here that stinks," was Kajurian's disgruntled reply.

  "What in the world are you talking about?" said Cassie.

  "You. Specifically, you hiding up here on this mountain. Come home, Cassie. Show business needs you. Morgana needs you. I need you. More to the point, my agency needs you."

  "Why? So you can lose more money at the race track?"

  "If I wasn't cut out to be a gambler, I'd never have survived in this business. Come back to L.A., Cassie. Let me set up a comeback appearance for you. Maybe in Vegas. We'll make millions together, you and me, like we did in the old days."

  "Sorry, Kajurian. I hope you'll be able to stay the rest of the week, but when you leave for home, you go alone."

  John interrupted. "Look, I'll let you two hash this over together. I need to get ready for Sharon's opening. Kajurian, we're going to the Juniper Inn for dinner. Will you join us?"

  "An opening? What kind of opening?" Kajurian's ears, attuned for more than forty years to show business, perked up.

  Rose o' Sharon Ott would never have a better opportunity than the one that was standing in front of Cassie now. Kajurian was tops in the business.

  "It's a local singer," said Cassie. She didn't want to appear too eager. "She's a pupil of mine. She plays the mountain dulcimer."

  "You mean there's more than one dulcimer player? More than one Cassandra Dare? This I do not believe." Kajurian looked uncommonly interested.

  "There aren't many dulcimer players with a voice like this girl's," said Cassie. She shot John a look. "Am I right, John?"

  John realized exactly what Cassie was up to. "You're absolutely right, Cassie. Sharon can sing."

  "Like you? She sings like you?"

  "Not like me. Different. She has an amazing range, and—well, why try to describe it? You'll go with us tonight."

  "I thought you never stepped off this mountain. Morgana said—"

  "For Sharon Ott I'm going to the Juniper Inn. Come back around five, John. We'll have a glass of scuppernong wine before we go." The wine had put Morgana in a mellow mood; maybe it would do the same for Kajurian.

  "Scuppernong wine, she says. Never in my life have I drunk scuppernong wine. What is it, anyway?"

  After Kajurian retired to the guest room to dress for the evening, Cassie flipped through the clothes in her closet. She hadn't bought any in the past couple of years. Finally she selected a loosely fitted but nevertheless classic and sexy silk dress in cornflower blue. Bertrand had destroyed her last pantyhose, so she'd go barelegged, but her legs in strappy sandals were so tan that it wouldn't matter.

  Promptly at five, John drove the Explorer into the side yard. He and Cassie plied Kajurian with wine for the next hour. Kajurian relaxed to the point where he was able to laugh off the incident with Bertrand, and Cassie was grateful for that. She wanted him to be in a good mood when he first saw and heard Sharon.

  They rode down the mountain, the three of them in John's SUV. Cassie made no comment when they passed the Otts' tin-roofed shack, and neither did John. Cassie raised a hand to wave at the hollow-cheeked man sitting hunkered over on the porch, but she received no answering greeting. The man was Sharon'
s father.

  John glanced at Cassie. She was taking a major step forward in going to Sharon's opening. His plan to draw her inexorably back into the mainstream of life was actually working.

  When they arrived at the Juniper Inn, Cassie was overwhelmed by the press of people, their talk, their laughter, their unaccustomed mingled scents of perfume and after-shave lotion. Sliding a protective arm around Cassie, warming her with a reassuring smile, John guided her smoothly as the hostess led them to their table.

  The Juniper Inn was a mansion formerly belonging to a timber magnate and recently refurbished to its original glory. Fireplaces, banked with huge sprays of rhododendrons, graced every room. Walls had been torn out and rooms rearranged so that each dining area opened to a large central space.

  Cassie, John, and Kajurian sat near the stage. Cassie inhaled a deep nervous breath. For the first time since she'd moved to Flat Top Mountain, she was out in public and sitting among people who might recognize her. Kajurian grinned hopefully across the candlelit table, and she knew she would have to convince him that she was never going back to L.A. All of it was almost too much to handle.

  John's hand clasped hers beneath the table and she clung to it. His knee pressed comfortingly close to her thigh. For the moment, Kajurian was gazing at the stunning mountain view beyond the windows.

  "I love you," mouthed John silently.

  "I love you, too," she pantomimed in return.

  They smiled at each other, sharing the secret. They squeezed hands. And Cassie felt better immediately.

  The waiter was bringing their dessert when Sharon appeared. She slipped in quietly from a side door and climbed the steps to the stage, where there was a high stool, a floor microphone and nothing else.

  "That's Sharon," she whispered to Kajurian, who immediately focused his attention on the beautiful girl who was adjusting the mike as if she'd done it many times before.

  The sweater Cassie had given her outlined Sharon's curves nicely. It was a soft shade of coral and emphasized the natural tint of Sharon's strawberry-blond hair. The full-blown rose with which she'd pinned back her curving locks on one side brought out the pale beauty of Sharon's translucent skin.