More Than Magic (Books of the Kindling)

by Donna June Cooper

  It was a strange tableau, everyone waiting for the little meter to finish—and pretty much everyone frowning at him, including Grace.

  The meter clicked off.

  “That’s…good.” Grace looked a bit surprised.

  “Am I gonna live then?” Annie asked.

  Grace’s eyes met his over Annie’s shoulder, but he couldn’t read anything in them—probably because his radar was overwhelmed by the enmity coming from all directions. “Lean forward for me, Annie,” Grace said.

  With an effort that involved some groaning, Annie leaned forward in the chair.

  “And I’ll tell you another thing. Them as take them evil drugs deserve what they get. It’s like a plague on the earth sent by the Almighty to strike down those who ain’t righteous. That’s what it is.” Annie shook her finger at Nick, but he had a feeling it was also aimed at the two man-boys lurking in the doorway behind him.

  “Now take a deep breath for me,” Grace said, frowning.

  And Nick realized everyone in the room was obediently breathing in at the same time, including him.

  Chapter Ten

  Grace sank back into the seat of the SUV as Nick drove out of the hollow.

  “You okay?” Nick didn’t take his eyes off his rearview mirror.

  Grace thought about what she had felt while she was in the house and realized she couldn’t put words to it—not yet anyway. And even then, she couldn’t really share it with anyone, especially not Nick.

  “It was strange. I mean—I’ve never seen those two act quite like that. Boyd’s always a jerk and Mitch just follows along, but—” She rolled her shoulders and pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to ease the headache. “I felt like I was walking out through a gauntlet or something. Or was that just some kind of male territory-marking ritual?”

  Nick made a non-committal sound. He was still focused on the view out the back of the SUV. She twisted in her seat to look behind them. Boyd and Mitch were standing on the edge of the porch watching them leave, looking as if they wished they had their shotguns.

  “Very odd,” she sighed, rubbing her neck.

  He finally seemed to relax when they rounded a bend and left the hollow behind, but his foot was a bit heavy on the gas for her comfort.

  “Nick?”

  “Hmmmm?”

  “Did you get what you wanted?” she asked.

  “Yeah. I did.”

  “Well, that’s good. Because I don’t think you’d be welcome back even if you hiked over the ridge carrying flowers and candy.”

  “Yeah, I kind of figured that.” Nick looked over at her. “And I don’t like the thought of you going over there either.”

  Neither do I. But not for the reasons you think. She shrugged. “Pops was usually with me. Maybe that made the difference.” She shrugged. “But I tend to have my shotgun when I hike over.”

  “Boyd gets too close to you for a shotgun to be of much use,” Nick said.

  Something about the way he said it, almost growling, made her insides quiver.

  “He’s never really tried anything—”

  “Yet.”

  Well, you knew this would happen. It happened to Tink. He’s feeling possessive and over-protective. It will wear off. Just deal with it.

  “I’ve taken care of myself for a long time. And I know the Taggarts. Boyd’s all talk. He blusters and prances around like a rooster—”

  “He hates you.”

  “Wha— Why do you say that?” It had come out of nowhere, but maybe it made sense. Boyd felt different somehow. More bitter. More angry.

  “Body language. The way he looks at you, calling you ‘Princess Grace’. Maybe this has been going on for a while, but he resents and wants you at the same time. Not a good mix. I have a feeling that if Old Annie were gone—” Nick shook his head. “I don’t like it.”

  Grace had to think about that for a moment. It was hard to think of Boyd as a real threat because she had grown up with him. To her he was just that little Taggart boy who pulled her hair and called her “Carrots”. Perhaps, as Nick said, it had gradually turned, much uglier. That much hatred, hidden for so long—

  “Tell me something,” Nick said.

  “Hmmm?”

  “Did you notice anything out of the ordinary? Anything that didn’t look or feel right?”

  Grace shivered. Yes. But I can’t tell you why or how or even what. I need to think.

  “Sorry. You cold?” Nick reached for the controls, cranking up the heat.

  “Thanks.”

  “So, did you notice?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like the flat screen TV, the fancy kitchen appliances, all those DVDs?”

  Grace blinked. “No. I-I guess I didn’t. I don’t know when she got those.”

  “But— You did notice the new garage.”

  “Yes. They must’ve bought that recently.”

  “Did you notice the new truck in the garage?”

  She opened her mouth to reply, then stared at him. “No. Their old beat-up pickup wasn’t around, but— What are you trying to say?”

  “You said neither of the boys work for a living, right?”

  “Well, no, not that I know of. They’ve been living off Annie for years, and whatever money Gabe sent. Like I told you, Boyd tried to make it in Atlanta not long ago, but that didn’t work out. And Mitch. Well, Mitch is—Mitch has difficulty with sticking to anything for long.”

  “That would be a ‘no’ then.”

  “No, but—”

  “But what?”

  “I think they make a living poaching.”

  “Poaching. Going into public land and stealing plants like Jamie was talking about? Can they make a living off of that?”

  “Oh yes. Steal enough ginseng or goldenseal or galax or log moss— Yes, you can make good money if you find dealers who’ll take it. But—”

  “But what?”

  “But I meant the other kind of poaching. I think Boyd was bragging about it right in my face today.”

  Nick looked surprised. “When?”

  “When he talked about Evan being out bear hunting. A lot of poachers kill black bears just for their gallbladders and claws. I once lectured him on the subject, telling him if you hunt, it should be for your dinner, not just for animal body parts to sell to someone overseas,” she said. “I think when he talked about the bear hunting he was making a point.”

  “This Evan, is he an older guy? Kind of rough looking? Wears Army fatigues?”

  “Yes, Evan Veatch. A Vietnam vet. Looks like an old survivalist type. Why?”

  “Just a hunch,” Nick said. “So you’re telling me you think they could make enough on poaching plants and bear body parts to buy all that stuff?”

  “I don’t know. I never thought about it, but I suppose they could. I haven’t been over there for a while.”

  “Hmmm.”

  “Why? How do you think—You don’t still think they’re dealing in drugs, do you? I mean, look at them.” Grace shook her head. “Don’t most dealers use? Isn’t that why they deal in the first place? To afford their habit?”

  “Yes. Most do.”

  “My point.”

  Nick didn’t respond. A muscle twitched in his jaw.

  “Maybe you’re just determined to find drug dealers up in our mountains. You see it everywhere, even when it isn’t there,” she said.

  “And maybe you don’t see it at all. You see everyone, everything around you in the best possible light—”

  “Oh yes! Because seeing them as poachers making a living doing the very thing I abhor is the best possible light!”

  “Well, not seeing that Boyd guy has something pretty damn abhorrent in mind for you makes me question your perspective. So yeah, I’d say so.”

  Grace twisted in her seat to face him. “Look, I haven’t had the benefit of seeing what you have, when it comes to drugs and what people do in that world. But I’ve seen black bear carcasses left to rot in the woods and pricele
ss ginseng beds stripped of even the youngest plants by thieves who have no understanding of what they mean to our future! I’ve seen things that could cure cancer, reverse Alzheimer’s, eliminate malaria, lost forever because we’re slowly killing the very planet that gives us all life. It’s like this filthy b-blackness corrupting everything. I have d-dreams about it.”

  Nick’s fingers were on her skin, wiping tears away—his thumbs stroking her cheekbones. He had both hands cupped around her face, gazing at her with those gray eyes of his.

  Grace froze. She hadn’t realized he had stopped the car. She certainly hadn’t realized she was crying.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  He leaned toward her.

  With every fiber of her being, she wanted to stay still. To let him kiss her. To kiss him back. To let him—

  “I can’t.” She pushed away, turning to grab the door handle and look out at where they were—gauging how far it was to walk from here.

  “Grace.”

  “No. Just no. Okay? You understand no, right?” She had to stop this before it caused more harm than it already had. “You aren’t like Boyd Taggart, are you?” She knew it didn’t sound convincing because her voice was shaking as she said it.

  Nick flinched and he pulled back to look at her. Then without a word, he slid back into his seat and put the car in gear.

  Apparently the only answer she was going to get was his foot pressing the gas pedal hard enough to make the tires squeal and the SUV fishtail for a moment.

  Damn it all to hell. He hadn’t let his hormones lead him around this badly since high school. And here he was, making an absolute ass out of himself.

  Slick Nick, on the rampage in Western North Carolina. Details at ten.

  He glanced sideways at her. She’d gone pale and those nearly invisible freckles of hers were showing up again. The anger was a front—an attempt to get him to back off for all the wrong reasons. She wasn’t angry. She was afraid.

  But she wasn’t afraid of him. And it hadn’t been just the alcohol last night, or some casual tease. She was attracted to him. His gut told him that much. And his gut wasn’t wrong about this, or about the case.

  Because the answer to the Smoky Mountain Magic case was on this mountain. And his gut told him the Taggarts were at the heart of it.

  But he needed to keep his hands off Grace Woodruff until this was over and done. Until he could tell her the truth. He glanced at her again. She was staring out the window now. He made a point of slowing down on the winding road.

  The barrier she had thrown up would be hard enough to get through, finding out that he had lied to her and pretended to be someone else might make it impenetrable. He would have to be completely free. No case, no responsibilities. Free to camp out on her front porch or in her meadow or at her gate until she would talk to him again. Until she would talk to Nick McKenzie.

  The mental picture he had of himself in a little tent camped out in Grace’s meadow almost made him smile, until he remembered what they had been doing out on that meadow last night.

  Whatever had made her back away from him was hiding under that blank in his memory. And it wasn’t anything he had done.

  Grace in his arms—wrapped around him.

  “Are you sure this is what you want?”

  Grace moving over him in response, her hands on his chest as he closed his hands around hers.

  Then swirling blackness shot through with brilliant shafts of light, obliterated, until nothing was left but light—gold and shimmering behind his eyelids.

  “Nick!”

  He slammed on the brakes.

  “Where are you going?” Her voice was tight.

  “What?”

  “You just went past the gate.”

  He looked back. Sure enough, the gate was behind him. “Sorry. I was— I was thinking.” He reversed the car, pulled into the entrance and entered the gate code. She probably thought he was really upset.

  “Sorry,” he repeated, pulling through the gate.

  “No. I shouldn’t have said what I did. You’re nothing like Boyd. That was uncalled for. I’m sorry.”

  “We seem to spend a lot of time apologizing to each other,” he said. “Or telling each other not to apologize.”

  He drove across the meadow, looking out toward where the cemetery lay in the shadow of the trees.

  “Yes, we do, don’t we?” She sounded relieved.

  Nothing left but light—gold and shimmering behind his eyelids.

  “Nick? Are you all right?”

  “Oh. Sure, yeah. Like I said. Thinking.”

  “Well, we have company. Don’t run her over.”

  Jamie was ahead of them on the road, pedaling furiously, her overstuffed backpack wobbling and that rosy face looking back now and again to see if they were gaining.

  Nick slowed down and grinned as Jamie sprinted over the hill into the parking area and raised her arms in victory. Then she had to lean forward and grab the bars before the backpack’s weight pulled her off the bike.

  Nick pulled into the parking lot and Jamie was at the door, opening it for Grace before he could even shut off the engine.

  “I brought my overnight stuff. Did you know the snow was coming in early? We got let out of school and Mom left early too. So, here I am. I need to go get the last part of my project done afore it snows though,” she said in one breath.

  “Good to see you too, Jamie,” Grace said.

  “Yes, and good to see you today, Dr. Grace,” Jamie said.

  Nick smiled. The conversation was so fast it had gone in reverse.

  “But I don’t think I want you out there by yourself today,” Grace added. “The weather could come up too fast and you might get caught out in it.”

  “Aw, I’ve been in storms before, and the wind stopped already! Snow ain’t no big deal. I got my GPS. Besides, this is it. Once I get this one, I can put together my project book while I’m here.” Jamie looked troubled. “If I don’t get it now, the snow’ll ruin everything!”

  “But I don’t want you to go out alone and I can’t go with you. It will—”

  “I’ll go,” Nick offered. It would give him a chance to ask Jamie some more questions about that notebook. And a way to get out of Grace’s vicinity for a while, since he couldn’t think straight around her. “Unless you need some help—”

  “No, I’ll be fine. But don’t stay out there too long. When the weather changes up here, it changes fast.”

  Nick nodded. “Sure. Just do me one favor. Don’t go up to look at that cell tower until I can go with you and bring along the sat phone. Okay?”

  He was pretty sure she was about to protest that she would be fine, but something stopped her. Instead, she smiled warmly. “Okay.”

  Nick walked back to open the hatch and retrieve their packs. “Let me change and get my gear.”

  “I’ll be ready in just a sec!” Jamie yelled, running inside.

  Grace shouted after the vapor trail that Jamie left behind, “You are going to wait until I put together a lunch for you, Jamie Lynn!”

  Nick handed Grace her pack and started for his cabin.

  “Nick?”

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  She smiled at his exaggerated politeness. “If I could be wrong about Boyd, I could be wrong about the rest. I apologize—”

  He held up his hand. “Too much apologizing going on already. Let’s just hope we’re both wrong and Old Annie won a contest or something.”

  “Yes, let’s hope,” she said. “But if you think we should report this or have someone investigate—”

  I’m doing my best, ma’am. “They’d probably come up empty-handed just like before. If they are involved in drug dealing, they’re hiding it really well. And I think you’d pretty much have to catch poachers in the act.”

  “Well, it’s too bad Old Annie doesn’t feel the same way about poaching as she does about doing drugs. But the Taggarts have always used the line between legal and illegal as a jum
p rope.” Grace pulled something out of her pack and handed it to Nick. A folding shovel.

  “Sorry, but you may have to pitch in and help with the kudzu if you don’t want this trip to last too long.” She smiled a trifle too smugly.

  He stared at the shovel for a moment without seeing it. Something about what she had just said about Old Annie—

  “Yeah. No problem.” He stuffed it in his pack. “Saving the world one kudzu at a time.”

  Her lovely laugh followed him up the steps to his cabin.

  “So, how often do you do this?” Nick asked.

  Jamie climbed ahead of him. “What?”

  When they had started out, Nick had braced himself for the uphill climb because they were going straight up the ridge instead of the longer, less steep walk around. But his stamina amazed him. His muscles were feeling the strain, being out of practice as they were, and he would probably regret it tomorrow, but otherwise he felt great. He had spent most of their trek enjoying how it felt to do this kind of thing again.

  “Actually go hunt for something Grace has found and marked for you?”

  Jamie had a bright blue stocking cap pulled over her hair and down over her ears. She looked back at him as if she were indulging a toddling grandparent. “For my school project? Once a week. Mostly weekends. But when I ain’t— I am not doing the project, we only do it every once in a while.”

  Nick stifled a smile when she corrected herself. “So about how often do you set up a cache for Grace to find?”

  “Oh, gosh. About once a month or so. I mean, she don’t have time.”

  “But you have a lot more puzzles than that in your notebook.”

  Jamie spun around at that. “Hey, you didn’t let Dr. Grace see ’em did ya?”

  Nick shook his head. “Nope. Just like I promised, but why would that have been a problem?”

  “Well, I ain’t used but about four of ’em on her.”

  “That’s a lot of caches to do in the future.”

  “Yep. We’ll probably use ’em at Christmas for presents and stuff. So did you like ’em? My puzzles?”

  “Absolutely. I was surprised that you took the time to work out a different kind of cipher for each one.”