Mountain Mystic (17 page)

Joshua calmly picked up the ball at his feet and said, “Go long.”

It took the kids only a second to comprehend that the man wasn’t angry and to scramble out into the pasture. Joshua let them get some distance and then he drilled a pass to the one on the far left. In that split second the boys’ expressions changed from uncertainty to adoration. Obviously, here was an adult worthy of respect.

To Victoria’s surprise, a few minutes later they had Joshua involved in a lively touch football game as she alternately refereed and talked to people that Rachel introduced. Watching Joshua handle the boys so naturally brought back some old longings she thought were banished for good. The sight of Joshua tussling on the ground with kids and the atmosphere of the family reunion made her remember that she wanted more in her life than her parents had had in theirs.

She’d always hoped for the picket-fence ideal. She had wanted to watch her own loving husband and children mix it up on the lawn. She’d wanted to live in a house that echoed with life and laughter. When she divorced Richard, she’d given up on that dream and managed to forget or ignore those longings. Until
she’d moved to Tennessee. Now Joshua was making her want those things again.

Finally exhausted, Joshua begged off from the game, which had grown to about ten people, and joined Victoria on the sidelines. His shirt was unbuttoned, revealing the T-shirt beneath, and his hair was a bit damp from the exertion. As he dropped to sit on the ground beside her, he said, “You didn’t tell me I should have been working out for this.”

Victoria curled her fingers to keep from reaching out and laying a hand on his chest to feel the heat she knew was there. “Who knew you would want to toss a pigskin around? Besides, I wouldn’t worry about your shape.”

“Really?” Joshua teased, fishing for a compliment.

“No, I think it was your strategy that lost the game, not your conditioning.” Victoria widened her eyes and cultivated a serious but innocent expression. “I have a few suggestions that might help next time.”

Joshua gave her an offended huff. “Next time,
you
get in the game and then maybe I’ll listen.”

“Next time, maybe I will. I’m pretty good at catching passes.”

“Not so you’d notice,” Joshua said dryly. “You’re much better at deflecting them.”

Victoria ignored him and changed the subject. “Have you noticed the way children respond to you?”

“Not particularly.”

“Well, they do. In fact, you seem more comfortable with the kids than the adults,” she said quietly. “Are they easier for you?”

Joshua didn’t pretend to misunderstand her. Since the meeting with his grandmother, he’d given up trying to hide anything from Victoria. “With well-adjusted kids like these … yeah, it’s easier. They don’t want anything from me except some attention. Their emotions are clean, no murky depths to suck me under and make me worry about things I have no power to change. The biggest issue they’re dealing with is whether or not to confess to breaking the front door glass.”

“Did one of them actually do that?” she asked.

“Curly.”

“Wait a minute. You don’t read minds!”

“Of course not. Curly let something slip and then made a show of asking me in confidence what my opinion was, considering I’m way-cool for an adult-type person.”

“Oh, please!” Victoria tried to give him a hard nudge with her elbow in an attempt to deflate his ego, but he scooted away before she connected. “What did you tell him?”

Joshua stood up and looked at the group of children, who were now busily making human pyramids, and said, “Way-cool types always recommend honesty as the best policy. Let’s get something to eat.”

Taking his hand, she let him pull her to her feet, but she hung back when he started toward the grills. She took the plunge she’d been thinking about for so long. “Would it hurt your way-cool image if we skipped the picnic and went back to my place for dinner?
I feel like cooking all of a sudden. Something a little more substantial than hot dogs and chips.”

“Love, you can heat up anything you want. All you have to do is tell me when.”

Victoria swallowed. “You’ll probably want a shower.”

He nodded. “Probably.”

“So why don’t I drop you at your house and you can come by after that?”

“Why don’t we say good-bye to our hosts?” he asked, and wasted no time flagging down Rachel and Rob.

Joshua huddled deeper into his jacket to ward off the dropping temperatures of the early November night. Warmth was only a few feet away, but he sat in his car for a moment before going up to Victoria’s door. They’d been in and out of each other’s company for weeks. He knew her well enough to realize that this was more than an impromptu dinner invitation. This was an invitation into Victoria’s life.

He’d already invited her into his. She’d met his grandmother. She knew all his secrets. Now she was symbolically returning the favor. Joshua knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was going to make love to Victoria that night. More than anything, he wanted her to drop the walls. For the first time in his life he actually wanted a complete emotional and physical bond. He wanted to be as much a part of Victoria as she was of him.

Surrendering to the inevitable, he faced the fact that he’d gone way past lust without ever realizing it. He’d fallen in love with his new best friend and his tenant. And unless he was mistaken, Victoria had fallen in love with him.

Neither one of them had been looking for love. Neither one of them had really believed in love. Even if he had, he couldn’t have chosen a worse candidate than Victoria. She was a medical professional from a background that rewarded fame and glory. Because of her training, she should have been skeptical of his abilities; because of her parents, she should have been trying to figure out how to use him or use his connections. Instead, she accepted him without question and hadn’t once asked for a “little” favor of any kind.

Well, she had asked for an introduction to his grandmother, but she could have gotten that without him. And what she was taking from Gran was something that his grandmother desperately wanted to give—some of her wisdom, her life’s work. Gran was a big believer in tradition, in passing life’s wisdom from generation to generation.

Gran felt she’d failed with him because he’d never wanted any part of the sight until he held that first stone cup. Now he wanted to distance himself from his ability again, and she was back to being disappointed. Only this time her disappointment was laced with an urgency that hadn’t been there before.

The porch light flicked on and interrupted Joshua’s thoughts. Victoria knew he was there and was politely telling him to get inside. Climbing out of the
car, he admitted to himself that the reserve and tact she displayed on the surface intrigued him as much as the passion he knew was simmering beneath the surface.

Victoria opened the door as soon as he knocked. She had one hand on the doorknob and held a ladle in the other. A dish towel was thrown over her shoulder, and she wore the tropical reef T-shirt she’d had on the first day he met her, except she didn’t have a bra on. He could see the ripe swell of her breasts as the cotton molded around them.

“Spaghetti had better be one of your favorite foods,” she said without preamble. “This recipe will feed a family of twenty.”

“I can do some damage with a fork and a spoon.”

She grinned. “Good, because I don’t chop up my spaghetti. It’s twirl or starve around my house.”

Victoria reached for Joshua’s plate. They finished dinner half an hour before, bat they hadn’t managed to get away from the table. “I guess I’d better get these dishes washed.”

“I can help,” Joshua volunteered, and pushed his chair back. “It’s one of my few domestic skills.”

“Sit!” ordered Victoria. “I don’t know how they do this in your family, but in mine the guest never washes dishes. Of course, neither does the host, but that’s beside the point.”

Joshua studied her as she turned her back and began to fill a sink with water. “Do you miss it?”

“Miss what?” asked Victoria as she slanted a glance over her shoulder.

“The life-style.”

Victoria scraped the plates as she considered the question. It wasn’t the life-style she missed so much as her parents’ approval. Carefully, Victoria slipped the dishes into the soapy water, and returned to the table to collect the salad bowls and glasses. “I miss being the perfect daughter.”

He guessed, “You did something you
shouldn’t
have done.”

“Yeah.”

“You
should
have gone home and not to Tennessee.”

“Right.” Victoria walked the few steps back to the sink and put the rest of the dishes in to soak. “My parents love me, but they aren’t quite sure how to treat me now that I’ve broken the mold. In their book, being happy doesn’t count in the perfect-daughter sweepstakes because they have never understood how I could have been unhappy in the first place. Being good at what I do doesn’t count toward being the perfect daughter either, because what I am doesn’t fit their definition of success.”

“Money, fame, and glory,” Joshua murmured under his breath, but she heard him.

“Right,” Victoria said, and tried to lighten the mood. “And none of those three are connected with the world’s second oldest profession.”

Joshua joined her by the sink, putting the salt and
pepper shakers on top of the bread box at the far end of the counter. “Second oldest profession?”

“Sure, Midwifery is sort of a spinoff from the world’s oldest profession. We came along about nine months later.”

He chuckled. “I never thought of it that way.”

She turned and reached for the spaghetti pot, intending to pour out the water she’d left in it to soak, but as soon as her palms touched the sides of the kettle-type pan, she knew she’d made a mistake. Hot metal seared her skin, and she instantly snatched her hands away with a loud, anguished curse. Closing her eyes, she willed the fire in her palms to go away, but even before examining them, she knew that was impossible. Thank God she hadn’t actually picked it up.

When she opened her eyes, Joshua was right beside her, pulling her to the double sink. He twisted the cold water tap and grabbed both arms by the wrists, shoving them beneath the soothing stream of cold water.

“Keep them there,” he ordered.

“Don’t worry,” Victoria assured him in a strained voice. “Check the stove. I must not have turned off that electric eye all the way.”

He reached over and jiggled one of the four stove knobs. “You’re right. You didn’t. It’s barely on, but enough to heat that pot of water.”

Victoria bit her lip as she finally pulled her hands out of the water and looked at them for a second before the throbbing crescendoed again. “Looks like more of a light scorch than a blistering burn.” She
immediately returned them to the comfort of the cold and asked, “Why do burns have to hurt so much?”

“Maybe Mother Nature doesn’t like having to make the same point twice,” Joshua told her as he leaned over her shoulder. “Let me see.”

“I already told you. It’s a scorch, and it’s going to hurt for a bit. Check the living room windowsill. I’ve got an aloe vera plant.”

“Let me see your hands,” Joshua repeated, and this time the command in his voice was unmistakable.

“The aloe vera—” Victoria began, and then stopped. Slowly she brought one hand out of the water stream and turned to Joshua. He cradled the back of her hand in his palm, his thumb rubbing softly against the outside line of hers.

“You’re going to have to trust me.” It was a statement, not a plea. “You wanted to know about this. Now, shut up about the plant and let me take the fire away. Think of something good.”

Mesmerized by the quiet confidence in his manner, Victoria managed only a slight nod. The throbbing in her hand had begun again. If he didn’t make the hurt go away soon, she’d have to put it back under the water. Victoria closed her eyes and tried to think of something besides the hurting in her hand. Something that felt good.

Joshua took his free hand and gently covered Victoria’s palm, cocooning her hand inside his. He concentrated on feeling the pain and let his fingers softly massage the tender pulse point of her wrist. For him, when he made the connection, finding her pain was
like suddenly falling through the floor. He had to scramble to catch himself.

She was right, it was just a scorch, but an acute one. Slowly he accepted the pain and began to wash it away with gentle strokes that hovered above her skin but never touched her. With each sweep he slid deeper into sync with Victoria.

When he reached for her second hand he noticed that she didn’t even open her eyes. He repeated the process of touching and accepting her hurt, only this time when he made the last stroke, the pain was replaced with pleasure—a bolt of sensual pleasure so strong that Joshua actually felt himself harden in response.

Victoria’s feelings were all of him, a jumble of impressions from the night they’d almost made love and of new scenes that held him in thrall. Gone was the shyness, and in its place was confidence and desire. He could sense darkness illuminated by the glow of candlelight. He could feel the satisfaction she got from knowing he was excited by the sight of her as she stripped slowly in front of him.

Forcing himself to pull away, Joshua knew he’d seen erotic fantasies that he was never meant to see. This was what Victoria was afraid of revealing—how much she wanted him and how deeply she felt the physical attraction between them. There was no mistaking the intensity of her emotions. He could think of only one reason that would have prevented her from acting on her impulses. She had been afraid of
pursuing a relationship because she wasn’t sure she could handle disappointment again.

Since he hadn’t made any secret of his desire for her, Joshua realized that she wasn’t afraid he’d reject her physically. She was afraid he’d reject her emotionally. Considering her first marriage, Joshua knew how scary that rejection would be to Victoria. She’d learned to keep herself safe.

How ironic that the one woman from whom he wanted emotion had learned how to turn it off and on. Didn’t she know he wouldn’t turn away from her? Didn’t she trust him yet?