by Webb, Peggy
“So... what’s up?”
“I’ve got a chance to sell that piece of property on West Main.”
“Sell it.”
“The offer could be better.”
“Then don’t sell.”
“Don’t you even want to hear the offer?”
“It’s only money, Joe.”
“It’s half a million. What’s wrong with you?”
“Insomnia, but I don’t think it’s fatal.”
“Dammit, Nat. When are you going to quit kidding around?”
Nobody in his family called him Crash except his great-uncle Nathaniel for whom he was named. Joe said it made him sound like a train wreck about to happen, and though his father didn’t say so, Crash knew that he agreed.
“When are you going to start enjoying life, Joe?”
There was a long silence at the other end of the line. Crash didn’t bother to fill it with explanations. Joe knew what he was talking about. Four generations of Beauregards had dedicated their lives to the law. They’d labored to bring justice to the masses, leaving their offices and their courtrooms only long enough to see that their wives and children were comfortable. They’d all died in harness, and they’d all died young.
“Look, Joe, do what you want with the property. Sell it or keep it. Either way is fine with me.”
There was another telling silence. Crash could see Joe leaning back in his burgundy leather chair taking a long draw on his pipe.
“When will you be back, Nat?”
“Another few days. Maybe longer. Whenever the mood strikes.”
“Come by the office when you get back, okay? And be careful on that damned Harley? Will you?”
The only thing Crash was careful about was in not repeating the mistakes of his ancestors. His brother knew that as well as he did, and so Crash just laughed.
“See you, Joe.”
When he got back to his camp the sun was high, the temperature had risen, and Crash was hungry.
Whistling, he unwrapped his cast-iron skillet and set about making corn bread. Out of the corner of his eye he glimpsed Philadelphia’s car. She must be inside her tent. Probably working. Though he hadn’t seen her briefcase, he’d be willing to bet she’d brought it with her.
“Forget about her,” he muttered.
He mixed and measured and poured, not exactly according to directions, but according to the way he felt at the moment. “Cooking by the seat of your pants,” his grandmother used to say. “It’s always the best.”
He could tell by the way the batter sizzled when it hit the pan that the bread would be delicious. It smelled good too. He glanced across the way to see if the aroma would bring Philadelphia out of hiding.
There was not a sign of her, nor of Baxter. Where could they be?
And why was Crash wondering? She was cut from the same mold as his Beauregard ancestors, driven to succeed at all costs.
The conversation with Joe played through his head. True, their father was in Alaska enjoying the sights, but he’d done too little of that over the years. He’d spent the best years of his life slaving away for lost people and lost causes, and what did he have to show for it—a pile of money he was almost too fragile to enjoy; a wife who loved him but didn’t even know what kind of food he liked because she rarely saw him at mealtimes; and two sons, one a successful clone, the other a defiant rebel.
The law was a profession that ate your heart out, and Crash would be a fool to get involved with a woman born with a brief in her hand and torts in her blood.
He took his skillet off the fire and tested the corn bread with the end of his finger. Perfect. He waved the skillet under his nose and inhaled. Delicious.
There was not a sign of life in Philadelphia’s camp. Where was Baxter? You’d think the smell of food would have brought him running.
“Forget it,” he told himself as he cut off a big hunk of bread, doggie size.
“Here, boy,” he called. “Here, Baxter.”
That ought to bring Philadelphia on the run. Madder than a hornet. With the skillet in one hand and the treat in the other, he whistled for the puppy.
Nothing stirred. Not even a leaf.
There was only one explanation. Philadelphia had taken up with somebody else.
“Who gives a heck.”
Somebody with a giant brain and a small mouth. Somebody who didn’t know Harold Arlen from Herbert Hoover, somebody who thought a Harley was some kind of secret government weapon.
“Great Caesar’s harmonica.”
Crash stowed his corn bread, then jumped on his Harley and headed for the main lodge. There was always something cooking up there, a game of volleyball or Ping-Pong, a good card game, a lively discussion about the latest bird-watching adventure.
He barely noticed the beauty of the mountains on his hell-bent-for-leather dash to the main lodge. There were crowds of people playing Ping-Pong and shuffle-board, and a large group was engaged in a hotly contested game of volleyball, but Philadelphia was not among them.
He felt like a teenager, cruising for a glimpse of the woman who sent his hormones raging. There was no way he was going to make a fool of himself over her.
“She’s the last woman on earth I’d want to get mixed up with,” he muttered.
The lodge was up ahead, and he could probably find somebody more to his taste inside at the pool tables or the pinball machines. Determined to put Philadelphia out of his mind, he headed toward the lodge, but at the last minute he made a sharp U-turn and cruised back by the game area to make certain he hadn’t missed her.
Even a cursory glance told him she wasn’t there. Tall and regal, Philadelphia was the kind of woman who stood out in a crowd.
He raced up to the lodge and parked his Harley out front. If he was going to make a fool of himself, he might as well go all the way.
Philadelphia wouldn’t be caught dead in the game room, but he checked it out anyhow, not even trying to disguise the fact that he was looking for her. Next he tried the snack bar and the pool area, though it was far too cold for swimming. The dining room had a few stragglers eating a late lunch, but Philadelphia was not one of them.
There was no way she could have come all the way up there without a car unless the perfect Mr. Uptight and Righteous had brought her.
Crash spotted the camp director’s wife.
“Hi, Betty Lynn,” he said, leaning against her desk “How are you?”
“Better now that you’ve brought a breath of fresh air into this place. We don’t see much of you up here, Crash. How’re you doing? Everything all right up there at your campsite?”
“Great to both questions. I could take on six grizzlies just for the fun of it.”
“Lord... why don’t you bottle that attitude and sell it. We’d all be better off and you’d be rich.”
They had a good laugh. “I’m looking for a woman, Betty Lynn.”
“That’s a switch. They’re usually looking for you.”
“I don’t know her name, but she stands out in this crowd like Queen Victoria at a convention of chimney sweeps.” He described Philadelphia, right down to the tiny heart-shaped mole at the side of her mouth.
“Saw her this morning,” Betty said. “She was looking for maps.”
“Did she say where she was going?”
“She had a little dog with her, said something about getting dog food.”
“Did she ask about anything else?” He tried to think of all the things that would interest Philadelphia. “Restaurants, antique shops, museums?”
“Lord, Crash, you sound like a lawyer.” Betty laughed. “That’s all I know.”
He’d made a bigger fool of himself than he imagined. Philadelphia was not only with somebody else, she was off at some secret hideaway, her lush body spread across a cheap bedspread while Mr. Big Time Score explored all those delightful places that had cost Crash a good night’s sleep. Obviously the man didn’t deserve a woman like Philadelphia, otherwise he would never have taken
her to a cheap motel on their first date.
When Crash was in a bad mood, he always tried to outrun his troubles on the Harley. He’d been to the Smokies so many times, he knew all the mountain trails by heart. Sometimes he thought he could drive them with his eyes shut.
He took the trail that led past a favorite hangout of bird-watchers hoping for a rare sighting of the American bald eagle. A few of them perched on the rocky outcroppings with their binoculars trained to the sky, but there was no sign of the magnificent bird that never failed to thrill those lucky enough to spot him.
Crash stopped long enough to stand on the cliff and scan the skies, then hunger pangs drove him to the nearest general store. Thinking of the good hot corn bread he’d left behind, he picked up cheese and crackers and a good supply of Mountain Dew, then headed into the deep green heart of the mountains.
o0o
The woods exploded around her in a dozen shades of green. Spring fresh and dripping with raindrops that sparkled when the sun caught them, the trees were almost worth B. J.’s hike into the mountains.
Almost. Her feet hurt, her left leg cramped, her sweater was torn, and she was hungry. Who’d have thought it would take all day to get to Rainbow Gulch? And why had she come in the first place?
“To see a rainbow,” she muttered to Baxter.
Any fool knew you didn’t see rainbows every time it rained.
Maxie had brainwashed her. If she stayed in her house much longer, B. J. was going to end up just like her sister.
The sun turned deep orange and dropped over the edge of the mountain, leaving behind a patch of sky as red as a rosebud. She’d seen sunsets, but never one as spectacular. In the mountains she seemed closer to the sky, almost as if she could reach up and touch it. Shivers ran through her. If she weren’t careful, she might start enjoying nature.
The sun dropped from sight and a chill descended over the mountain. B. J. pulled a windbreaker from her backpack.
“Always be prepared.” She ruffled Baxter’s fur, then picked him up and started back down the trail. “Aren’t you glad you have such a smart mistress?”
At the bottom of the incline, the trail forked in three directions. B.J. dropped to a log and pulled her map out of the backpack. With her finger she traced her path to the camp.
“Good grief, I didn’t know we’d come so far.” Baxter didn’t seem worried. At the sound of her voice he thumped his tail and licked her hand. No matter what she said or did, she pleased Baxter.
It was a pity all the male population couldn’t be like him.
She glanced up from her map at the trails. They all looked alike.
“It’s the one on the left,” she told her puppy, not at all sure.
She knew nothing about nature, and even less about hiking. What if she were wrong? Nobody knew she’d gone hiking. Nobody would miss her. Nobody cared.
Except Maxie, of course. And B. J. would be food for the vultures before Maxie even knew she was missing.
“I just won’t be wrong, that’s all.”
A big rock shaped like a turtle loomed ahead of her. She’d seen it on her way up. Hadn’t she?
o0o
Sometimes the darkness dropped so suddenly over the mountain that you didn’t know it was evening until you looked up and saw stars. That’s what happened to Crash.
One minute he was washing down his cheese and crackers with a Mountain Dew, and the next he was looking up at a sky filled with stars.
Standing on a bare outcropping of rock, Crash absorbed the wonder and the beauty. All of a sudden loneliness soaked his soul, and he caught a glimpse of himself ten years from now, standing in just such a place, his Harley parked nearby, seeing the splendor of nature all by himself.
No one to share. No one to care.
Philadelphia floated across his mind in bits and pieces, the scent of her skin, a wisp of satiny black hair, the curve of hip and thigh. The small empty spot inside him grew until it was the size of the Grand Canyon.
Crash jumped on his Harley and roared down the mountain, trying to outrun his thoughts, but they were waiting for him at his camp, waiting in the form of a silent tent across the way and a car still parked in the exact spot he’d last seen.
The back of his neck prickled. Something was wrong.
He raced to her tent for a look around. The toys she’d bought for Baxter and his dog food were just inside the tent, with just enough food for one meal missing. She’d been gone all day.
Philadelphia loved Baxter. She wouldn’t stay gone all day without taking enough to feed him.
Crash had always depended on his instincts, and they were screaming at him now. He ran back to his tent, stopping only long enough to fill a backpack with supplies, then he jumped on his Harley and set off to find Philadelphia.
o0o
“We’re lost.”
The mountains swallowed up B. J.’s voice, and she sat on a fallen log to think what to do. She’d been lost for. the last hour, but too stubborn to admit it. The sound of herself saying the words was a painful admission.
B. J. had always prided herself on being capable of handling any situation, but since Stephen had dumped her, she’d felt like an eagle shot from the sky and spinning out of control.
The woods were pitch black, and she sensed predators standing behind trees just waiting for her to make a wrong move. As painful as it was for her to admit failure, she knew she’d made plenty that day, starting with a hike into the mountains without telling anyone. She should at least have stopped by the lodge to tell Betty.
Worrying about what she should have done wasn’t going to help her. The thing she had to do was come up with a plan to survive a night in the wilderness.
It was too dark to see. Though she was certain that she’d been walking downhill instead of in circles, still it was foolish to keep going until she could get her bearings. But how was she going to get her bearings, even in daylight?
She was not the pioneer type. She wasn’t even the adventurous type. She was a Philadelphia lawyer who had no business in the wilderness.
B. J. wrapped her arms around herself, shivering. She’d gotten her windbreaker out of her backpack two hours ago, and she was still cold. Besides that, she heard a crackling in the bushes. Wolves? Bears? Bigfoot on the prowl?
Tucking Baxter under her arm, she started gathering sticks, venturing only a few feet from her log. Was that a slithering sound in the leaves? Snakes?
That’s all she needed, poisonous reptiles slinking around waiting for their chance to sink their fangs into her.
“Go away,” she said. “Shoo, scat, get out of here.” Baxter thought the whole thing was funny and thumped his tail merrily against her chest.
“If we ever get out of this, I’m going to give you watchdog lessons. Don’t you know you’re supposed to bare your teeth and act vicious?”
She cleared a spot in front of her log and stuck a match to her pile of twigs.
“Keep your fingers crossed, Baxter.”
A dozen attempts and half a box of matches later, she had a small fire going.
Wasn’t fire supposed to deter wild animals?
Chapter Eight
The bad thing about Philadelphia was that she made Crash think too much. A wandering man couldn’t afford to ponder. He needed to be on the move, on the money, on the make.
But the really bad thing, the kicker, was that she was somebody every one of his family would approve of. She was like them, driven, hidebound by convention, upright and uptight to a fault.
And the taste of her was so sweet, he couldn’t forget her for a moment, not even in his dreams.
He pushed himself, taking hairpin curves at speeds far beyond the limits of safety. There were dozens of trails, hundreds of directions she could have gone.
Not once did he stop to question whether she was lost on the mountain. He knew. It was that simple. The part of the mind that knows extraordinary things told him she was out there somewhere. The trick was to find her.<
br />
Off to his right he saw movement. Idling the Harley, Crash shone his flashlight into the trees. A deer bounded away.
He swept the light in a wide arc, searching for any sign of her. In daylight the task would have been difficult; at night it was almost impossible. Still, Crash had to try. Philadelphia was not the kind of woman who knew how to take care of herself in the wilderness.
The trail forked, and Crash swerved to his left, traveling by instinct. He knew this area like the back of his hand. He was nearing Rainbow Gulch, a favorite spot of his. Once he’d seen a rainbow so enormous, the entire sky looked as if a paint box had spilled across it, leaving behind ribbons of red and yellow and orange and blue and green. It was the kind of rainbow that made you believe in a pot of gold at the end.
The hair on the back of Crash’s neck prickled. Philadelphia was near. This was just the kind of place she would come to, nature’s art gallery.
He parked his Harley and scouted the top of the ridge. That’s when he saw it, a tiny bit of blue-and-white wrapper. He picked the paper up and sniffed. Almond Joy. Crash grinned.
So, there was another side to Philadelphia. Any woman who carried Almond Joys on hikes couldn’t be all bad. Some folks might argue that the candy bar wrapper could belong to anybody, but he knew better. The minute he touched it, he knew it belonged to Philadelphia.
Jumping on the Harley, he took off down the trail that snaked to the right. From a distance came a flicker of light.
As he descended, the light became bigger and brighter. It was a campfire. And beside it sat Philadelphia with Baxter on her lap. Caught in the glare of the Harley’s lights, she looked like a wide-eyed deer, scared and ready to bolt.
Relief flooded over him, and hard on its heels something so close to joy, he was afraid to examine it. He killed the engine, and for a moment he could do nothing except sit and marvel that he’d found her.
“It’s me, Philadelphia.” He strode toward her.
“Crash?”
She flung herself at him so hard, he almost lost his balance. Caught between them, Baxter yelped. She set the puppy down, then grabbed Crash around the waist and squeezed.
