“Okay, when is she going to be here?” he asked, not looking forward to trying to connect with an academic since school hadn’t exactly been his thing.
“Any time now,” Sophie said, then when she heard him groan, added, “I’m sorry, David, time just got away from me.”
“You owe me, Sophie,” he said, then hung up the phone.
When he got outside, he saw that there was an unfamiliar car parked in front of the boarding house and quickly crossed the street. As he got closer to Millie’s, he saw that she was once again on her porch, but today she was talking to a someone in a baseball cap and jeans.
He didn’t think he recognized the person sitting next to Millie, wasn’t sure at first if it was a male or a female. But then he got a little closer and realized that it was a woman, and that she was staring at Millie intently. Opening the gate, he headed up the walk to the porch, trying to decide if the woman was the one he was supposed to be meeting.
She didn’t look much like what he’d imagined; dressed in jeans and a tee-shirt, her hair tucked up in the baseball cap, she looked more like a hiker than a researcher. When he got to the bottom of the stairs, Millie saw him and smiled.
“Well, David, that’s twice this week you’ve come onto my porch,” Millie said, then winked at him, clearly enjoying herself.
David smiled at Millie, opened his mouth to tease her back, but before he could speak, the woman sitting next to her turned and looked at him. Their eyes met, and all rational thought seemed to evaporate from his mind; he couldn’t seem to put even two words together as his heart began to pound furiously in his chest.
All the air came whooshing out of his lungs, and he stumbled back a couple of steps. The woman was beautiful, her features perfect, her blue eyes framed by lashes so long they brushed her cheeks when she blinked. Stunned, he took several deep breaths, his body tingling as desire raced through him.
Millie looked from him to the woman sitting next to her, and a big grin spread across her face. “David, this is Michelle McIntyre. She’s come to town to research Molly Swensen; isn’t that exciting?”
David could only stare; this woman couldn’t possibly be the one Sophie sent him to meet. She didn’t look anything like a researcher, or an academic; she looked more like a model. When she got to her feet, he saw that she was almost as tall as he was, something that made her even more attractive.
Knowing that she was probably very aware of his reaction to her, was probably used to men reacting to her this way, he tried to gather his thoughts. Finally, he managed to say, “Sophie got held up in Nashville; she called and asked me to meet you. Sorry I’m late.”
Michelle came down the porch steps, her hand out, and said, “It’s fine. Millie was just entertaining me with the stories she’s heard about Molly Swensen.”
David looked at her hand, suddenly afraid to touch her, afraid of what his reaction might be, afraid that once he did, he wouldn’t want to let go. But he reached out and slid his hand into hers; it was warm, and almost instantly his body began to tingle just as it had before.
Shocked by his response, he pulled his hand away and said, “Let’s get you moved in and then I can show you around town.”
Michelle looked up and down the street. “I don’t think that will be necessary; I think I can find my way around,” she said, then added, “I mean, I’m sure you have things to do.”
David had a million other things he should have been doing, but none of them sounded as good as showing Michelle around town. “That’s okay, I can spare a few minutes, since that’s all it will take,” he said, giving her a big smile.
***Michelle***
Michelle wanted to scream; she’d been enjoying her conversation with Millie and didn’t want to be interrupted. On top of that, his reaction to her had been written all over his face and she wasn’t in the mood fend off his advances.
She’d grown accustomed to the attention she attracted from men, had learned to either block it out or stop it completely with a few words. She wasn’t in the mood to do either; what she wanted was to spend the rest of the afternoon talking to Millie. But she was clearly stuck since David wasn’t going to take no for an answer, and she couldn’t risk being rude to someone on her first day in town.
Resigned to David’s company for the next hour, she smiled at him and said, “How can I refuse such a nice offer?”
“I’ll help you get your stuff from the car if you want,” David offered.
“Oh, I’ll unpack later,” Michelle said waving her hand at her car. “I didn’t bring that much with me.”
David looked over at the car, which was packed full of her books and clothes, then back at her. “Okay, but I don’t mind helping,” he said.
“It’s fine. I’d rather take it up a little at a time, but I don’t know where my room is,” Michelle said.
“Well then, let me introduce you to Stephanie,” David said, leading the way into the house.
Half an hour, a cup of tea, and two cookies later, she was standing in her room feeling like she’d stepped back in time. “We haven’t done much with the rooms yet, new mattresses and bedding of course, but everything else has been here for at least a hundred years, some things longer,” Stephanie said, going over to the windows and pulling open the curtains.
Michelle walked around the room, the afternoon sunlight pouring through the big windows making the old wood furniture glow. “Oh, it’s lovely. I wouldn’t change a thing. This is exactly what I expected,” she said, charmed by the room.
“The fireplace works, although I doubt you’ll need it this summer,” Stephanie said, going over to a door and opening it up. “I gave you this room because it has its own bathroom; can’t have you sharing with the men.”
Michelle walked into the bathroom and gasped, sure now that she’d stepped back in time. The room was huge, the floor covered in black and white tiles, and right in the center was a huge claw-foot bathtub, with an old shower attachment. Against one wall was an old pedestal sink, the wall above it full of mirrors.
“I can’t wait to take a bath in that tub,” she said, walking over and running her hand over the white porcelain.
Stephanie laughed. “This was the only indoor bathroom in town for a long time. Judge Wilson spent a pretty penny putting it in for his wife. This used to be the nursery.”
“Well, it makes a great bathroom,” Michelle said, wandering out of the bathroom and back into the bedroom. “I think I’m going to enjoy staying here.”
Stephanie smiled at her. “It will be nice to have another woman around,” she said.
Michelle smiled back at her wondering if she’d just made a new friend, something that had always been hard for her to do. Just like men, women always seemed to notice her beauty first; many made assumptions about who she was based on her looks, assumptions that had nothing to do with who she really was.
“I’ll unpack my car when I get back. David volunteered to show me around town,” Michelle said, heading for the door.
“Well, then I’ll see you back here in a few minutes,” Stephanie said, pausing at the top of the stairs. “I bet that happens to you all the time.”
Michelle wasn’t sure what she meant. “What do you mean?”
“Well, you’re incredibly beautiful. I bet it can be difficult at times,” Stephanie said.
It was the last thing she’d expected Stephanie to say, but it was an honest observation, and she didn’t sense any malice in her words. For just a second, she let her magic flow, relieved to find only empathy in her new friend.
“It can be, but I’ve learned to handle it,” Michelle said, shrugging her shoulders.
“David is a nice guy,” Stephanie said.
Michelle could hear the warning in her statement. “Don’t worry, I’ll let him down easy.”
Stephanie seemed satisfied with that answer. “Well, then don’t let me keep you from the big tour.”
When they came out of the boarding house and said goodbye to Millie,
she had a satisfied look on her face. “Looks just right to me,” she said when she saw them.
“What?” Michelle asked.
“Oh, nothing, just an old woman thinking out loud,” Millie said.
“I’m going to show Michelle around town; anything you need?” David asked as they went down the steps.
“Nope, I’ve got all I need right here,” Millie said, waving them away. “Get out of here and have some fun.”
When they were far enough away that she was sure Millie wouldn’t hear her, she said, “Millie’s quite a character.”
David laughed, “You wouldn’t know it to look at her now, but she stayed shut up in that house for twenty years.”
Michelle looked back over her shoulder at the house, which suddenly didn’t seem quite so charming. “Alone?”
“She had people come in and clean, a woman who cooked her meals, but other than that, no guests, no visitors and she never came out, not even onto the porch.”
Michelle shivered a little bit at the thought of being that cut off from the world. “How old is she?”
“No one is quite sure, but she has to be over a hundred,” David said.
They’d reached the two white tents set up next to the school, and Michelle was distracted from her thoughts of Millie. “Why are these here?” she asked.
David explained about the plans to put Gypsum Creek back on the map. When he’d finished, he said, “I still have my doubts about this working, but it’s nice to see people happy and busy for a change.”
“Well, it’s a good investment if you ask me; this is a beautiful place, and lots of people will want to come here when they find out about it,” Michelle said, looking at the mountains around them.
“I hope you’re right,” David said, his face serious. “A lot of people are going to be disappointed if it doesn’t.”
Seeing David so upset, Michelle found herself wanting to comfort him. Since they’d started talking about the town, he’d relaxed, wasn’t so distracted by her looks. “You really care about this town, don’t you?” she asked.
David shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know why I do. I shouldn’t,” he said.
Michelle could tell that she was missing something, but before she could probe further, David changed the subject. “This is our school. Sophie is the teacher. She fixed it up a little when she first came here, but we’re going to give it a full renovation as soon as the store is done.”
Chapter Five
***David***
David couldn’t believe that he’d almost confessed his greatest fear about bringing tourists to Gypsum Creek to Michelle, that he’d almost told her about the wolf-shifters that made the mountains around town their home. It wasn’t something you told people, especially not strangers, but the impulse to tell her had been so strong he’d had a hard time resisting.
He’d tried to talk to Jessie about it, but he’d blown him off. “The shifters aren’t going to bother the tourists; everyone here knows how important this is to the town. Besides, how many of you are there left anyway? Most of the younger generation left, so that only leaves the old-timers, and they’re all too old to cause much trouble,” Jessie said.
“And what if someone finds out that there are werewolves living here? All it’s going to take is one rumor, and we’ll be flooded with the wrong kind of people. I don’t think you and Kara are going to like that much,” he’d countered, thinking that Jessie was ignoring the obvious.
Jessie sighed. “My sister and I are perfectly capable of putting a stop to any rumors that pop up.”
David shook his head. “If you say so. What about the moonshiners? Do you really think they’re just going to give up their territory without a fight?” he asked, using his last argument.
“They’re not going to be happy, but don’t forget, we’ve got the town behind us this time. They’ll just have to move deeper into the forest,” Jessie said, then changed the subject.
David had given up then, used up all his arguments against the project and decided that he didn’t have much choice but to work as hard as he could to make Jessie and Sophie’s plan work. But showing Michelle around town reminded him that things might not be as easy as Jessie thought, and that Michelle could easily be the one who spread the exact stories they wanted to keep quiet.
He could tell that Michelle was more interested in what he was saying than the school, but he kept talking. “The school was built in 1920; before that, school was held in the church,” he said.
Michelle looked up and down the street, then spotted the little church next to the store. “How old is the church?”
“It was the first real building in town, finished around 1850, and we still use it,” he said.
“I’d love to see it,” Michelle said, then asked, “Are there church records going back that far?”
“I honestly don’t know; there are boxes and boxes of stuff in one of the back rooms,” David said. “It should be easy enough to find out.”
Michelle followed him down the street to the church, sighing loudly when they walked through the front doors. “It even smells that old,” she said.
David laughed. “I never really thought about how old buildings smell, but you’re right, it does smell old.”
Michelle walked around the church, then turned and asked, “Where are those boxes?”
“You don’t waste any time, do you?” David asked, leading her to the back of the sanctuary and through a door.
When he opened the door to the room they’d been using for storage for years, he was a little embarrassed. It was packed to the ceiling with piles of stuff. “Umm, no one around here ever throws anything away,” he said.
Michelle waved her hand in the air. “I’ve seen worse; some of the best treasures can be found in places like this,” she said, “I bet the old records are in the back.”
He watched as she wound her way around piles of stuff, almost collapsing several piles before she got to the back of the room. She disappeared behind a huge pile of boxes, but it wasn’t long before he heard her voice.
“I found them, or at least some of them,” she said, emerging with an old leather-bound book in her hands. “This one is from the early 1900s. I bet with a little digging I can find the rest.”
David wasn’t so sure that it was a good idea to let her start digging around, but he couldn’t make himself stop her. “That might take a while, and you might want some help.”
A blush spread across her cheeks. “Oh, gosh, I’m sorry, I’m sure you have other things to do, and I shouldn’t be digging around without asking,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “I get carried away sometimes.”
“That’s okay, I get it,” he said, although he didn’t really understand.
“I need to get unpacked anyway,” she said, setting down the book and winding her way back through the piles.
“We could go over to the diner and have a cup of coffee and maybe a piece of pie first if you like,” David offered, thinking that she looked even more beautiful covered in dust and cobwebs.
Michelle looked down at her clothes. “I think I’d better skip the diner. I’m a bit dirty now,” she said.
David laughed. “This is Gypsum Creek; no one is even going to notice.”
***Michelle***
Michelle didn’t really want a cup of coffee or a piece of pie; what she wanted to do was get unpacked, come back to the church, and search for records of Molly and her family. But since that wasn’t going to happen, she decided that the friendly thing to do was to accept his offer.
He’d calmed down now that they’d spent a little time together; the stunned look had faded from his eyes, and he wasn’t ogling her any longer. “Okay, that sounds like a great idea,” she said, then almost laughed when she saw the shock on his face.
“Oh, okay, good,” he stammered.
When they came out of the church, he said, “Oh, I almost forgot to show you the store; it’s almost as old as the church, not nearly in as good of
shape, but we’re working on it now.”
The store was a bit of a mess with all the renovations going on, but she could see what it would look like when it was finished, “This will be the center of town when it’s done. Where did you get the old soda fountain?”
“It’s been here for almost a hundred years,” David said proudly. “When the store is opened again, I’ll make you the best soda you’ve ever had.”
“Sounds good,” Michelle said, meaning it since she’d never been to a real soda fountain, and certainly not one that old.
“Let’s go get that cup of coffee; there’s not much more to see. The living quarters up above are full of merchandise right now,” David said, guiding her out of the building with a gentle hand in the middle of her back.
Michelle was a bit shocked to feel a spark ignite deep inside her; it was nothing more than a slight tingling, but she recognized it for what it was. Stepping away from him, she crossed the street and headed for the diner, relieved when the tingling went away.
When they walked into the diner, which was packed with people, the room fell silent, and all eyes turned to them. David ignored the crowd and steered her over to the counter and the last two seats in the dining room.
“Hope you don’t mind sitting here. I forget sometimes how busy this place has gotten,” he said, then added, “Sally has had to hire three new servers and a couple of dishwashers. I’ve never seen her happier.”
It wasn’t long before a woman dressed in jeans and a brightly colored sweatshirt came up to them, grinning broadly at David. “Who do we have here?” she asked before he could introduce her.
“This is Michelle McIntyre; she’s going to be staying at Millie’s for the summer to work on her master’s thesis,” he said, then turned to Michelle. “This is Sally; she owns the diner.”
Sally gave her that look that a lot of women gave her when they first met her, then said, “This seems like a strange place to do that.”
Young Love: Wolves of Gypsum Creek (A Paranormal Romance Story) Page 3
