Mountain Mystic

by Debra Dixon

  “I’d love to.”

  Lara patted her hand one last time and let go. J.J. would have to step careful with this one. She wouldn’t accept half-measures. For this young woman it would be all or nothing.

  “Both of you, come inside. I’ve got water on the boil for tea.” A hoot owl called in the distance, and Lara shook her head. “Going to be a bad winter, J.J. You be careful on the roads this year.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Victoria grabbed hold of Joshua’s arm as she passed him, and whispered, “J.J.?”

  “Joshua John.”

  She smiled. “Of course. What else? It’s perfect.”

  Lara’s home was as lived-in as Joshua’s was sparse. Bits and pieces of her life were everywhere, from the delicate wood carving of a mother and child to the old television topped with the current issue of TV Guide.

  “Talk amongst yourselves while I get the tea,” Lara ordered with a dismissive wave as she slipped her shawl off and disappeared into another room.

  Instead of talking, Victoria explored the collection of photographs on an antique credenza protected by a lacy shawl. A very old sepia-toned portrait depicted a well-dressed but stern man and his wife who had a toddler straddling her knee and two other children in their Sunday best beside her. Victoria smiled. None of the children was wearing shoes, and the toddler had an unusually direct gaze that looked a great deal like the one Lara Logan leveled at her earlier.

  A picture from the early 1900s featured a handsome coal miner whose strong jaw and mouth reminded her of Joshua’s. Judging from the age of the photograph, she decided it was his grandfather. More often than not, however, the photos were of a dark-haired youth, at various ages and possessing only the ghost of a smile, looking directly into the camera.

  “Most of these are you,” she said.

  “Naturally. I’m her only grandchild.”

  Victoria turned to look at him. “Really?”

  “Don’t look so surprised. Surely you weren’t expecting me to be the seventh son of a seventh son?”

  “No, I wasn’t,” she told him indignantly before she realized he was actually teasing her. Then she smiled ruefully and admitted, “I was expecting another stereotype altogether. I assumed you were one of a passel of young ’uns raised barefoot on the mountain.”

  Joshua laughed. “Good Lord, I guess you have read all the travel brochures.”

  “Okay, so I was wrong. But you don’t seem like an only child. You’re too good at irritating me not to have had some sibling practice.”

  “Gran would have liked nothing better than to have had a passel, but my grandfather died in a mining accident after my father was born. Dad was an only child, and Gran never remarried. Now there’s just me.”

  Victoria didn’t have a chance to say anything else because Granny Logan’s footsteps announced her return.

  “I made regular tea for you, J.J. Victoria, I have chamomile if you’d like,” Lara offered as she walked into the room, carrying a tray with two teapots, one in a Blue Willow pattern and one decorated with dogwood blossoms. Carefully, she set the heavy tray down on the coffee table, “You strike me as the kind of woman who might enjoy chamomile.”

  “I’d love some,” Victoria assured Lara as she watched her pour with a sure and steady hand that belied her age and swollen knuckle joints. “You didn’t have to go to the extra trouble though.”

  “The regular tea’s the trouble. I have to stock it special for J.J. Myself, I usually have mint or chamomile. ’Course, now, in the winter, I’m partial to pokeberry juice ’cause it helps my rheumatism.”

  “Thank you.” Victoria accepted the cup from her and sat down in the sturdy rocking chair by the credenza. “I recommend chamomile to my patients on a regular basis. I swear by it actually.”

  Quickly, Lara looked up from pouring and straight at Joshua. “Patients? Don’t tell me you’ve unbent long enough to socialize with a doctor, of all things?”

  “I’m not a doctor,” Victoria rushed to explain, wondering what else Joshua had forgotten to mention. “I’m the new midwife in the Triangle.”

  A slow smile spread over the older woman’s face as she handed her grandson his tea. “Well now … that explains the babies.”

  “Babies?” Uncertainly, Victoria looked at Joshua for a cue.

  He shrugged.

  Lara didn’t explain until she poured her tea, sat down in the armchair, and had the first sip. “When you came up to the steps, I thought to myself that you had the feel of babies about you. I’ve always been partial to babies.”

  “That’s one of the reasons I asked Joshua for an introduction. I understand that you were the lay midwife in this area for quite some time.”

  “Lord, child, longer than I care to think about.” Lara put her feet up on small three-legged stool and adjusted the pillow behind her back. “Nigh onto fifty years. Had to quit because I couldn’t get around anymore.”

  “Rheumatism?”

  “No. J.J. finally grew up and went off to college. When he left, I couldn’t get around the mountain like I was used to. At night, I can’t see my feet at the end of my legs, and the good Lord knows that new babies love the night.”

  Victoria grinned. “Seems like it. Those are the ones we remember, at any rate. You know, I seem to be providing care to women whom you delivered. Naomi Marlowe, for instance. In fact, she said you attended her mother a number of times.”

  “Lord yes!” Lara shook her head and sighed. “For a while I counted the seasons by Willie Marlowe. Come fall every year, she had another. Naomi was an easy one. But the last … now, that one was touch-and-go for a while.”

  Stunned, Victoria really hadn’t expected the midwife to remember. “Can you recall all of your deliveries that well?”

  “No, but Willie had eight in a row. She kind of stuck in my memory. You’ll have ’em that lodge in your memory too. It’s unavoidable. If you care about your people.” Lara looked at her long and thoughtfully before she said, “And you do.”

  “Yeah, I do.” Victoria was beginning to get used to the piercing looks and the long silences from the older midwife. “I like that connection with my patients. But getting the practice going has been difficult. If it hadn’t been for Joshua, I’d still be floundering around, I think.”

  “What have you got to do with all this, J.J.?”

  “Not much, Gran. I’m a glorified chauffeur. That’s all.”

  It was his turn to endure one of her silent inspections. He didn’t bother to try to hide his feelings for Victoria, deciding to let his grandmother make of them what she would. He sure as hell wasn’t certain exactly what they were beyond a fundamental caring and a physical lust.

  Raising her eyebrow, his grandmother turned away and spoke to Victoria. “Well, you certainly couldn’t have picked a more experienced man. Lord knows, he rode me around for years,” Lara said as she turned to Victoria. “Long before he had his driver’s license, he was hauling me over these roads in the dead of night.”

  Victoria shot a look at Joshua as he leaned comfortably back into the sofa. “Did he drive unconscionably fast then too?”

  Laughing, Lara said, “Yes. He always did have a feel for the road though. I never worried a moment when he was driving. ’Course, I was younger then. Not so sure I could take it now.”

  “I’ll remember that the next time you want to go into town,” Joshua told her dryly.

  Calmly, Lara sipped her tea. “There’s a lot of things you’d best remember, Joshua John. Not the least of which is that I still cook your Thanksgiving dinner.”

  Victoria laughed out loud. Joshua pretended to be chastised. Lara nodded her head in satisfaction and turned her attention to the younger woman. “Where are you from? A voice like that ain’t bred in Tennessee.”

  “Connecticut.”

  “Then why are you delivering our babies?”

  “The Triangle made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. They helped me pay for my education.”

 
; “In return for what?”

  “In return for working here for three years.”

  “And after that?”

  “And after that I won’t feel like a weight is hanging over my head.”

  “You don’t plan to leave?” Lara asked, casually swirling the liquid in her cup.

  “No.”

  “There’s not much money around here,” she warned.

  “I’ve begun to figure that out. But there are other benefits. I’ve always had an interest in folk medicine and medicinal herbs. It’s an expensive hobby in the city, but out here … well, I can’t wait for spring.”

  Joshua watched as his grandmother set her cup down and eagerly began an earnest discussion of her favorite remedies and the dried stock she had on hand. Before long they were huddled together on the couch, heads bowed over his grandmother’s journal, which was filled with recipes she’d written down over the years. He’d known that Victoria and his grandmother would suit each other. In many ways, they were alike. While they talked, he refilled his cup and quietly enjoyed their pleasure at finding a kindred spirit.

  “What do you mean by this?” Victoria asked, and pointed to an entry.

  Lara studied it for a moment. “Oh. Claudie Anderson’s boy burnt his hand while his mother was down. I always stayed with the families for a day or so after the babies were born. Doing whatever needed to be done. Most times it was catching up the wash and making a meal or two.”

  “It says here that you ‘fixed up his burn.’ ”

  “Wasn’t much of a burn. Only took a second. Hardest part was getting him settled down so I could pull the fire out of it.”

  “What did you use?”

  “I like to use a bittersweet salve, but I didn’t have any that day, so I used the touch. It wasn’t much of a burn. Didn’t take no more than a second or two.”

  Joshua straightened in his chair, waiting for Victoria’s reaction. This is what he was afraid of—medicine meeting the unexplained. Accepting psychic abilities in the field of archaeology was a far cry from accepting what most people labeled as faith or psychic healing. He set his cup down, the chink of it against the saucer rim breaking the quiet.

  “Touch?” echoed Victoria. “You have the ability to heal by touch?”

  “Not the way J.J. does, but I can do a fair job with burns.”

  Victoria shot a stunned look at Joshua, who returned her stare, neither admitting nor denying his grandmother’s offhand comment. He was testing her again, waiting for a reaction. “Joshua can do it too?”

  “You get him to show you sometime.”

  “Oh, I will,” Victoria said, her eyes still on Joshua’s. Though his expression was unreadable, his eyes had darkened to a deep blue.

  “It’s late,” he said. “We need to get back.”

  “He’s right,” Victoria said, and everyone stood up. She handed her cup to the older woman. “Is it all right if I come back and see you? I don’t want to be a pest, but I’d be willing to pay for your time if you’d show me some of what you know about medicinal plants.”

  Lara smiled and nodded. “I’d like that, but I won’t take your money.” She raised a brow and looked at Joshua as she said, “Passing on what I know would be a treat.”

  Kissing her on the cheek, Joshua said good-bye and hurried Victoria to the car. The silence lasted for a scant five seconds.

  “Okay, let’s start with why you didn’t tell your grandmother why I wanted to see her.” Even though she had her seat belt on, Victoria managed to turn and wedge herself between seat and door so she could keep an eye on him.

  Why hadn’t he? Joshua wondered. Simple. He had wanted to see if his grandmother could read her any better, and Gran could. That much had been obvious after the hand-pat on the porch and the baby statement. “I wanted to know if you kept everybody out, or just me, Looks like it’s just me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What you said about not having any fresh intimacies on your conscience? That was good thinking. I think Gran probably knows more about you than you want known.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Gran’s been rifling through your emotions. Her talent is based on touch too. That hand-patting on the porch? That’s pretty much how she camouflages her snooping.”

  “And you let her!”

  “Would you like to tell me how I could have stopped her? You’re the one who wanted to talk to her. I didn’t exactly drag you up there.”

  “No, you didn’t,” she conceded, but with a tiny twinge of lingering resentment.

  “If it’s any consolation, Gran won’t tell me what she knows. She won’t even hint about what you’re hiding.”

  “What makes you think I have anything to hide?”

  “The eight-foot wall that keeps me out.”

  “Oh, that.”

  “Yeah, that. She also likes you. I’ve never seen her share her journal with anyone.”

  “It was fascinating,” Victoria said. Remembering the journal sparked excitement all over again. “She said she has a couple of books that are older than the one she showed me. I can’t even comprehend how much information is crammed on those pages, and she truly doesn’t think they’re anything special. You know, she was charting deliveries without even knowing she was doing it; noting down which medicinal plants she found to be effective and which were a waste of time.”

  Joshua negotiated a sharp curve as he murmured, “The two of you looked thick as thieves.”

  “I could have talked to her for hours. I’ve never been much of a diarist, but after seeing hers, after seeing all those experiences and emotions jump off the page, I realize that I don’t want to forget the details of my life. I don’t want my children to forget.”

  “Gran says, ‘We don’t bequeath what we collect; we contribute what we create.’ ”

  Softly, Victoria repeated the saying. “What a wonderful way of looking at life. My grandmother, on the other hand, would say, ‘The one with the biggest pile of stuff wins.’ ”

  Chuckling, Joshua asked, “And is her pile the biggest yet?”

  “Let’s just say that she is definitely in the semifinals. She’s completely different from your grandmother. How old is Granny Logan? Exactly?”

  Joshua did some fast math. He never bothered to keep up with the actual years, mostly because he didn’t want to face the reality of all those years adding up. “Ninety-two come January.”

  “Has she always been able to heal?” Victoria asked, and then realized she’d probably trod on a sensitive area. When Lara Logan confessed to having a healing touch, Joshua’s face had done a fair imitation of immovable granite. She doubted he wanted to discuss the subject now, but she’d already broached it. So she hurried to assure him that her interest wasn’t idle curiosity.

  “The reason I ask is that I’ve done a little reading about therapeutic touch, and I’ve seen it used in hospices. It can have such a calming effect as well as reducing the level of pain. I wondered if she learned it or if it was simply something she could always do.”

  In a flat tone Joshua said, “I don’t know. I never asked.”

  Victoria blinked. “You never asked?”

  “We don’t discuss the subject.”

  “The healing?”

  “Any of it.”

  “Why?”

  “We don’t agree.”

  “About what?”

  “Any of it.”

  Victoria’s eyebrows rose in surprise at his curt answers. Softly, she said, “Your grandmother said you could do it too. The healing.”

  “But I don’t. Now, can we drop this interrogation?” His tone was as effective as a warning siren that the topic was off-limits.

  “Okay.” After that response she didn’t dare ask him anything else about his ability to heal. However, she noted that he said he didn’t heal, not that he couldn’t. “But I do have to ask one more question.”

  Joshua sighed, anticipating the worst. “All right.”

  “Would yo
u mind stopping for dinner? I’m really hungry.”

  Pleasantly surprised, Joshua agreed, knowing dinner would give him a chance to remind Victoria of the chemistry between them. “What do you have in mind?”

  “There’s that little hole-in-the-wall place down past Mention.”

  “Why would you want to go there?” Joshua asked, a little disturbed that her choice felt more like a buddy-date place.

  “Last week I saw a tractor parked in front of it. I swear!” She held up her fingers in a Girl Scout oath. “I figure if a guy is so eager for lunch that he won’t take the time to get off his tractor and get in his car, then the food has got to be pretty good.”

  “Good point.” Joshua nodded his head in understanding. It wasn’t the first time he’d noticed that Victoria took her food seriously. “Katie’s Grill it is.”

  By the time dinner was done and he was standing on Victoria’s front porch, Joshua had a whole new appreciation for buddy-dates. He’d discovered they had a way of turning into something unexpected. He’d been out on two real dates with Victoria, and both times all he thought about was her. When he was with her, the world faded away. Like now. He was aware of only the dark night with a quarter moon, the woman in front of him, and the bed behind the door.

  “Well … good night.” Victoria was absently playing with her key, rubbing it between her thumb and index finger. “And thanks for dinner.”

  Carefully, Joshua took the key, and reached behind her to unlock the door without ever shifting his gaze from her face. “Most women would be scared living out in the middle of nowhere like this. I’d be happy to check and see if any bears have broken in while you’ve been gone. If you need me, that is.”

  Victoria cleared her throat. He was too close. All of a sudden the relaxed and laughing friend who’d sat across the table was gone, and in his place was a very sexy man. The intensity that always affected her equilibrium was back in his eyes. She managed to say, “I don’t need you. But thank you. I’m sure the bears are all asleep for the winter. I’m probably safe.”