“Exactly,” Savannah said with grim determination. “I don’t want him to know what is real and what is not.”
Her plan had to work. Niko had grudgingly helped her so far, but once the judge appeared, she was on her own. She had only ten days to carry out her plan—ten days to make Judge Horatio Webber fall in love with her.
Savannah got out of Niko’s truck and unwound the mass of raven-black hair she’d kept in a braid. She let it fall across the shoulders of her white peasant blouse while she shook out her bright print skirt and ruffled petticoat. Next she placed her grandmother’s gold chains around her neck, added her mother’s Gypsy earrings, and Zeena’s ankle bracelet with the silver bells that jingled when she walked. The first time they met face-to-face, she wanted to meet Judge Horatio Webber as a Gypsy.
“I’ll go back to the motel and wait for your call,” Niko said with obvious reluctance. “You have the number?”
“I have it. Don’t worry.”
“I still don’t like it, Savannah, but since you insist on going through with this … look—there he is. Won’t you change your mind while you still can? You could be the one to get hurt.”
“No, Niko. I have to do this.” Savannah gave the old man a quick kiss, moved onto the roadway, and started walking up the mountain. She was banking on the judge’s reputation as a man of honor and responsibility. He wouldn’t drive away and leave a woman on the side of the road.
She shivered, not from the cool air but from anticipation. She’d carefully worked out each sequential step in her plan, but there was always a chance that the judge wouldn’t cooperate. Then she heard the sound of his jeep.
Taking a deep breath, Savannah stopped at the side of the road. Just as the four-wheel-drive reached the stretch of road behind her, she stepped from the gray shadows into the path of the jeep and stuck up her thumb.
“What the …?” Rasch hit the brakes and slid sideways to a stop.
He blinked. It was very early. Wisps of fog rose from the pavement, curling into transparent little patches that reflected the parking lights on his vehicle. He closed his eyes and opened them again, slowly. This was no dream, no hallucination. There was a woman in the road.
No, the apparition in the road wasn’t just a woman, it was the woman, the silver-haired woman from the balcony, the auburn-haired woman from the street, the woman who’d plagued him unmercifully for the last week. He still had no clear picture of her face, but he knew it was she. And more than that, every nerve ending in his body recognized and responded to her presence, just as they had before.
This time she was wearing a long print skirt and no shoes. And her hair, her glorious hair, was neither silver nor gold; it was as black as a midnight sky, and wildly tousled as if she’d just rolled from a man’s bed.
He swore in the silence.
“Please?” she said in a low, melodious voice. “I seem to be stranded. Could you give me a ride?”
Her words became an almost verbal caress, and he felt his body surge in response.
He’d seen a truck with the hood open back in the trees. Was she alone? Was this some trick to lure him into a trap? He couldn’t see anyone else.
“I’m alone,” she said, almost as if she could read his mind. “I sent Niko down the mountain to get help. He’ll come back for the truck. But I don’t have time to wait.”
“Why? What are you doing up here?”
“I’m meeting someone. Please, may I get in? It’s cold in the woods,” she said simply, as if that answered his question.
It didn’t. But for now he’d go along with her story. Hallucination? Spirit? He might be tired and confused, but this woman was real, and it was time he got to the bottom of the mystery. “Get in.”
He heard the fleeting tinkle of bells, and suddenly she was inside the small truck, filling it with her distinctive, elusive fragrance, and the curious feeling of excitement that had seemed to follow him for the last three weeks. She was here, the object of his uncertainty and desire, and he was determined to know what kind of game she was playing with his emotions.
“That fragrance,” he asked, “what is it?”
“It’s made from the blossoms of the tea olive tree. Do you like it?”
“It’s very unusual.”
“Yes.” She didn’t volunteer any more, but placed her knapsack between her knees and settled back as if she were someone he’d known a long time, someone with whom he was comfortable enough not to need to make conversation.
“Where are you going?” he asked, slowly letting off the brake and listening to the crunch of the loose gravel on the road as the tires found traction and began to move.
“To Amicalola Falls. I plan to do some hiking. You?”
Once he decided to go along with her request, he’d stopped being surprised. “That’s where I’m going too.”
“I’m glad. It’s very early,” she said. “I’ve come a long way. I think I’ll take a nap.”
“But wait, who are you? What’s your name?” he started to ask. Except before he got the second word out, her eyes were closed and she seemed to be asleep.
Rasch shook his head in disbelief. Where had she come from? She had a backpack, but her feet were bare and scratched. How could his mystery woman possibly be in the same place as he, at the same time? From the moment she’d appeared on his balcony, his power of reasoning seemed to have deserted him.
Certainly she hadn’t been far from his thoughts either asleep or awake. He’d constantly looked for her, worried over his recollection of what he’d seen or imagined. He’d begun to doubt his own recall after a time. Now, here she was, sitting beside him, almost as if he’d conjured her up.
He looked across at her once more. The lines of her face were clear now. Her pale skin was like that of an Old Master’s Madonna. Lips as red as the dahlia that his mother grew in a bucket at his back door were closed serenely in sleep. Long velvety lashes feathered cheekbones that more nearly belonged on a painting than a real person.
She was an enigma, this woman of silence and grace, yet beneath that calm was a hidden fire. He couldn’t see it so much as he could feel the tension. The interior of the truck felt charged with a strange energy, and he shivered.
Whatever she was, and wherever she came from, she’d appeared to him three times, and he had to know why. There were answers to his questions, and he meant to have them. He’d take her to meet her friend, for it suited his purpose to know more about her. He gave the vehicle gas and moved up the mountain.
Savannah Ramey let out a silent sigh of relief. She’d passed the first hurdle. She hadn’t expected it to be so hard, lying to him. From a distance the square cut of his jaw hadn’t been so intimidating. She hadn’t seen the laugh lines at the corner of his eyes, or their steely gray color that seemed to pin her down. But it was more than the way he looked, it was the sensual power of the man, more potent at close range, that had forced her to retreat into silent confusion.
She liked men, but after one mistake as a teenager, she’d never had a serious romantic relationship. She was never in one place long enough to develop intimacy anyway, so her circle of friends had been limited to the circus people, and she was the boss’s daughter. Being apart from the mainstream had suited her fine, but it hadn’t suited Tifton.
Tifton. She forced her attention away from the man beside her and back to her plan. According to the information Niko had gathered by following the judge and eavesdropping on his conversations with his friend Jake, she should have four or five days to reach the halfway point on the trail. Five days later the judge would meet Jake Dalton, who would drive him on into Asheville. She had ten days to complete her plan, and she had no intention of failing. She owed that much to Tifton, to the laughing, happy boy who’d died because of this man—this vigilante judge.
Rasch was content to study her as she napped or pretended to, until he was certain that she wasn’t up to something else under cover of sleep. By that time they were well into the foothills of
the mountains. “Do you plan to sleep all the way?”
Savannah opened her eyes and gave him a half-amused, half-sultry look. “Maybe.”
“That’s easier than talking.”
“Yes. Thank you for the ride.”
Her voice was vaguely musical. There was a breathlessness, a baffling hesitation in the way she paced her breathing between words, almost as if she were rehearsing lines she’d never read before.
“I probably should have taken you back to town. But it’s time I learn why you’re haunting me.”
“Haunting you?” She hadn’t expected the direct approach. She laughed uneasily, her confidence wavering. “Am I?”
The sound of her laughter seemed to ripple across the silence. “Yes, dammit. Since I first saw you on the patio, you’ve been driving me crazy.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She forced her gaze away from his strong face to his hands, which gripped the steering wheel with an unsettling intensity, and wondered for a fleeting second what they would feel like caressing her flesh. What was happening to her? She couldn’t back down now. She’d learned enough about the judge to know that he couldn’t accept not knowing. That would be the key to her reaching him. “Until now,” she said as evenly as she could, “we’ve never met.”
He didn’t believe that for a minute. But he could see that direct confrontation wasn’t going to work. “Technically you’re correct.”
He smiled, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “We have never met. I’ll accept that, for now. Let me ask you another question—where did you come from?”
She knew that his gaze saw through her, probed her inner recesses and aroused unwonted and disconcerting feelings within her, and she protected herself by looking away. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “It only matters where we go from here, doesn’t it?”
She’d been prepared for disbelief, questions, accusations. But the curious, calm acceptance by the man beside her was unexpected, and therefore intriguing. Who was becoming bemused?
Judge Webber wasn’t especially tall, but he gave the illusion of height and strength. He hadn’t shaved that morning, and there was a shadow of stubble across his chin that enhanced his virility. His dark blond hair was neatly cut, but his tendency to run his fingers through it kept it permanently tousled. His masculinity filled the cab and threatened to engulf Savannah.
In his courtroom, where she’d disguised herself so that she could watch from a back seat, his piercing gray eyes were often hidden behind thin black-rimmed glasses. Today they were unveiled, and she could feel the brunt of their disturbing penetration.
There were other differences today as well. From a distance she hadn’t noticed the strong beat of his pulse, exposed by the open button on his shirt, the way an unruly lock of hair fell across his cheek, the tightening of the muscles in his upper arms when he turned the wheel. From a distance she hadn’t noticed his disquieting maleness. Perhaps this wouldn’t be as easy as she’d thought.
From the first she’d liked his voice. There was a resonance there, a boldness that said he was willing to enter a debate and give it his best shot. But he didn’t rattle easily, and he wasn’t going to make it simple for her to defeat his innate logic. She’d forced him to take her along, and he’d agreed. Now it would be a cat-and-mouse game until one of them became the victor. Fine, she’d accept the challenge. She would win.
“Perhaps you’re right, mystery lady. Perhaps it isn’t the destination but the journey that’s important.”
Everything about this woman challenged him. She was a puzzle to be solved, and he was more than game. For the first time in months he felt fully alive, body, mind, and soul. “Do you consider yourself a philosopher?”
“No,” she said, “I don’t think so. Though I believe that we each have a function in life. I suppose you could call me a voyager.”
“A voyager? A traveler, an adventurer—in search of?”
“Knowledge, I suppose. Truth. And what are you?”
“Knowledge? Truth? Rasch felt a tingle of unease. She’d given back the answer he might have spoken. “If I had to put a name on my life’s mission, I’d have to say that I’m a crusader.”
She turned her dark eyes on him, fusing her gaze with his to the point that he lifted his foot from the gas for fear of running off the road. “So we both travel the same path.”
“Perhaps. A crusader and a voyager, each with a quest.”
“Ah, then you are searching too.” Her voice was almost a whisper, though it was clear and passionate. “What are you seeking?”
“What all crusaders seek, I suppose—wisdom, justice. I try to make things better, to right certain wrongs.”
“And are you always right, Judge Webber?”
“How do you know my name?”
She broke the connection by raising her gaze to the sheaf of papers stuck behind the visor.
He followed her movement and read the name on the envelope that threatened to slide from its niche. The Honorable Horatio Webber, superior court judge, it said, and gave his office address.
So she wasn’t psychic and she wasn’t a mind reader. Her powers were strong, the vibration of his nerve endings attested to that, but she relied on normal answers just as any other mortal would.
Mortal? Why had he even thought that? He was getting squirrely. What he needed was coffee and food. Surely this creature of his imagination ate human food. He was going to have a hard time finding pomegranates and figs in the mountains of north Georgia.
“Shall we have breakfast together? There’s a little place up the road where fishermen and hunters stop for a good meal. Nothing fancy, but it’s filling.”
“Fine,” she said, and rewarded Rasch with a smile so warm that it brushed away the last of the gray fog in his mind. She was a woman, and he was a man. Perhaps that was enough.
So maybe there were no figs and pomegranates in the North Georgia Mountains. Maybe she’d settle for coffee and doughnuts. Not food for the gods, but they were hot and sweet, and hot and sweet seemed just about right.
Two
The Gold Rush Grocery and Café was tucked into a hollowed-out place in the side of the mountain. There were three parking spaces and room for one camper. This morning most of the regulars had already come and gone, so Rasch had no trouble stopping in front.
He climbed out and started around the jeep to open the door for his hitchhiker. He took her pack and threw it into the back, then stopped. She knew who he was, but he still didn’t have a name to call her. The passenger door opened wider, and a bare foot extended itself and slipped to the ground with a tinkling sound. He’d heard that sound before. Then he saw it, an ankle bracelet with little silver bells. She’d been so still in the jeep that the bells hadn’t made a sound.
“Is something wrong?”
Her voice sounded like the bells, which sounded like her laughter. Every movement, every sound, was a kind of music, and he smiled again without being aware that he was doing so.
“Your feet,” he said. “You aren’t wearing shoes.”
“No.”
She closed the door and came to stand beside him. “Is that important?”
“No, I mean yes. You can’t hike a mountain trail without proper boots. You do have boots in your backpack?”
Now it was her turn to smile. “No.”
He shook his head disapprovingly. “Some preparations you’ve made! No matter—they carry hiking and camping supplies inside. You’d better buy a pair of boots.”
“All right, and tell me what else I’ll need,” she said. “The only thing in my pack is my sleeping bag and some food.”
“Don’t you know that it can get cool on the trail at night? The weather forecast is fair for the next couple of days, but in this area that can change within hours.”
“Oh, dear. I guess I ought to confess that I’ve never camped out before.” On a trail, she ought to have added. Circus performers spent a lifetime camping out. But she had her
own van, with her own bed and supplies. This was different. “Please help me, Crusader.”
“I suppose I’d better, or I’ll end up rescuing you again.” He laughed, and Savannah found his warm laughter surprisingly sexy. She’d heard of bedroom eyes, but never of bedroom laughter. Yet suddenly she had an all-too-delicious sensation of sharing a cozy bedcover with Judge Horatio Webber. “I’ll make you a deal,” he went on. “My help in exchange for some revelations of the truth about you. Agreed?”
“Revelations about me? All right. There are many truths, Horatio Webber. I’ll reveal mine, but only when the time is right.”
Savannah followed him inside. He didn’t know it yet, but the die was cast. She would share his journey in exchange for the truth—only she knew that there were no friends to meet her, and that the quest she was embarking on was to claim his soul.
Rasch felt a tinge of excitement. She’d agreed to tell him what he wanted to know. He wished he felt more confident about the wording of her promise.
Inside the little store, Rasch picked up white cotton socks, and brown wool ones, then helped Savannah select a pair of boots that felt to her as if she had lead weights on her feet.
Savannah exchanged the brown socks for red.
Rasch selected a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, and a heavy flannel shirt to go along with the boots. He gathered up packets of food and canned goods and added them to their cache. As the grocer rang up the goods, Rasch shook his head. The truth had already cost him $98.00, even before breakfast, and he had yet to hear a word of it. But to find this woman he would have paid a lot more.
Savannah wandered into the restaurant side of the building while he paid their bill and carried their purchases to the truck. He found his sultry traveling companion at a corner table between two windows. She didn’t acknowledge his presence; instead, she stared intently out of the window.
“What are you looking at?” Rasch asked, sliding into a chair across the table from her.
“There’s a chipmunk out there, beneath that rotten limb by the fence.”
The Judge and the Gypsy Page 2
