Winter Magic: 4 (The Hawks Mountain Series) (17 page)

Having heard the entire story, Jonathan felt terrible for thinking so badly of her. Aunt Sarah had hit the nail squarely on the head. Andi’d had good reason to lie. Still
 . . .
“I wish you’d come to me and told me. I’m not such an ogre that I wouldn’t have understood.”

“In hind sight, I wish I had, too.” She shrugged. “I wish I had never let Miranda talk me into it.” Then she looked at him and smiled. “But if I hadn’t, I never would have met you.”

Jonathan was afraid to breathe, afraid he’d heard her wrong. “And does that matter?”

She nodded. “Yes, very much.” Sincerity shown from her eyes like a beacon.

A surge of happiness so strong swept through Jonathan that he had to take a moment to recover.

When he didn’t reply, Andi’s heart sank. Even though he appeared to have forgiven her for her lie, it didn’t look as though he cared as much for her as she did for him. She stood and walked to the fireplace and stared down at the ashes that were as dead as she felt on the inside.

Then he was behind her, close enough that the heat from his body surrounded her. “Allow me.” He fastened the necklace around her neck. Then he turned her to face him and cupped her cheeks in his warm palms. “I should have known you weren’t the same woman who came to my office the first time. She was exactly like all the women I’ve met in my life who have turned me off. Then you came, and I knew you were different. I knew that you were someone I could care for.”

She stared up at him in wonder. “You weren’t attracted to Miranda?”

“Not in the least, but you, my love, you took up residence in my mind and heart. I love that you’re number one with your students, but from now on, you’re going to be number one with only me.” Then he touched his lips lightly to hers. “I love you. Marry me, Andi Cameron.”

Standing on tiptoes, she kissed him with all the emotions crowding her heart. “I’ve loved you since that day I teetered into your arms in the driveway.”

“And I caught you.” He smiled at her. “I’ll always be there to catch you, love, if you want me to.”

“Only for the rest of my life.”

Then he kissed her the way a man who adores his woman kisses her. Andi’d had her adventure, and now she had her prince.

GRANNY JO HAWKS applied the last bit of paint to the plain white cross stationed at the head of Earl Hawks’ grave. Though this ritual normally only took place on her husband Earl’s birthday, the cross had been looking poorly of late, and since this was a special day, she’d decided to break her customary routine. In truth, it wasn’t totally because of the need for paint that she found herself here with the man she’d loved beyond all else for most of her life. Yes, the significance of the day had played a large roll. But perhaps it was mainly because the loneliness of life without her soul mate sometimes became too much to bear. Maybe she just needed to be near Earl.

A soft, warm breeze blew off Hawks Mountain, caressing her sweat soaked face. Sunlight danced over Earl’s grave with each movement of the oak that had spread its loving arms above him for all the years he’d rested here. Perfume from the blooming white peace rose next to the cross mixed with the acrid smell of paint. But she smelled only the lovely white roses, Earl’s favorite. A familiar pain wrapped around her heart, and a sob clogged her throat.

“Happy anniversary, my love,” she whispered to the grassy mound of earth as she softly caressed it with a loving hand.

The loneliness she seldom gave herself permission to acknowledge came swooping down upon her with all the force and chill of a winter blizzard.

Every minute of every day Josephine Walker Hawks missed the man she’d married fifty-one years ago, but none so much as this day, the day they’d stood against all the odds and joined together as man and wife. She laid the paint brush aside, and, with a heavy sigh, leaned back against the big oak tree that sheltered Earl’s final resting place, closed her eyes, and allowed the memories she’d made with Earl to wash over her like a life-giving spring rain.

As clearly as if it had been yesterday, the day she’d first laid eyes on Earl Hawks played through her mind . . .

EXCITEMENT PUMPED through Josephine Walker’s body so hard and fast, she had to fight to contain it. She kept telling herself it was just the farmer’s market, but that wasn’t what had given rise to the excitement sending ripples of delight down her spine, or the way her blood thrummed through her veins. It was the freedom.

This was forbidden territory, a place only the
common
people and the servants of the wealthy came. Certainly not a Walker. By disobeying her parents and coming here, Josephine had taken the first steps toward the unbridled freedom she’d craved for far too long. In a couple of weeks, she would be eighteen and would make her debut into the Charleston, West Virginia society she loathed. On that night, the ties that would bind her to a way of life she hated would tighten forever. But for today, she was free.

How her parents and their friends would frown on what she was doing. After all, the Walkers were at the top of the old city’s A-list, and rubbing elbows with the masses was just
not something a nice girl did.

Josephine walked slowly between the stalls filled with crafts, baked goods, fruit and vegetables brought to market by farmers and crafts people every Saturday from the surrounding rural communities. How she loved the feel of the market, the smells, the people, and the hum of voices as buyers chose their produce for the week. For someone who relished people, this freedom to enjoy humanity was something she’d never been allowed to experience in the world of Charleston’s elite.

The heady aroma of cantaloupe drifted to her, one of the things Josephine loved for breakfast. Her gaze searched the stalls until she found the one piled high with the fruit. She had to buy one. Making her way toward it, she realized she had no idea how she’d smuggle it into the house without giving away where she’d been. But she stopped in front of the stack of round, beige globes anyway and inhaled the musky scent.

“Can I help you?”

Josephine turned toward the voice. When she found herself looking into the clear blue eyes of one of the handsomest young men she’d ever encountered, her breath caught in her throat. A lock of ebony black hair had slipped over one of his eyebrows and gave him a rakish look that she found very charming.

“Uh
 . . .
I was just admiring the melons.”

Brilliant, Josephine!

He grinned. Josephine’s heart stopped dead in her chest. “They’re not meant for admiring. They’re meant for eating.” His voice had a country ring to it that oozed over Josephine like hot honey on a warm biscuit. Using a toothpick, he speared a chunk of cut melon from a paper plate and offered it to her. “Try it. I promise you’ll love it.” He smiled again.

Her stomach went bottomless. She had to grip the edge of the stall to keep her knees from giving way.

She opened her mouth and used her lips to slip the piece of melon from the toothpick. The ripe, succulent fruit melted in her mouth. Its sweet, pungent flavor played over her taste buds much the same way the smile of the man holding the empty toothpick and staring at her mouth played over her nerve endings.

“I’m gonna be going for lunch in a few minutes. If you’d like to join me, we can take along one of these for dessert.” He patted one of the plump melons.

Josephine glanced around, as if expecting one of her parents to jump out and forbid her. Then he smiled again and everything else vanished from her mind. “Can you do that? Just take one of the melons, I mean.”

“Well, since I’m the boss and these melons are mine, I can do anything I want with them, including stealing one to feed a beautiful girl for lunch.” He motioned for a young man at the back of the stall. “Henry, watch over things until I get back.” Then he stepped from behind the stall, chose a melon, and then took Jo’s arm and guided her through the din of the market.

“Wait!” She stopped dead. “I don’t even know your name.”

Though she knew she should have removed her arm from his grasp, she found she liked the feel of his calloused skin against her flesh. In fact, there was nothing so far that she didn’t like about this brash young man.

“Earl. Earl Hawks. And yours is
 . . .
?”

“Josephine—” She cut herself short. Fearing if she told him her last name was Walker, he’d recognize it as that of one of the most prominent families of Charleston and shy away from her because of their different social standing, she left it at Josephine. For now, they were on an even footing, and she had an impossible desire to keep it that way for as long as she could.

He studied her for a moment, then smiled, a warm twinkle lighting his sky blue eyes that sent shivers of pleasure racing up her spine. “Josephine sounds too formal. From now on, you’ll be my Jo.”

My Jo!

Her heart skipped a beat. No one had ever called her that. It had always been the very formal Josephine. That he did, made the one word special, and she knew from that moment on, she would be Jo. Not for a minute did she have to wonder what was happening to her. She’d never thought about falling in love at first sight, but she’d never thought she’d sneak away to the farmer’s market either.

In any case, here she was
 . . .
at the farmer’s market and definitely in love.

Earl led Jo through the market, stopping occasionally to buy other items for their impromptu lunch. He finally halted at a spot far from the busy market and under some shady oaks by the Kanawha River. At a picnic bench overlooking the lazy waters, he spread out the fresh baked bread and pepperoni that he’d bought at stalls along their way.

Fascinated, Jo watched closely as he carefully laid out the paper plates and plastic silverware he’d talked a friend out of at one of the stands. He took a jack knife from his pants pocket, sliced the bread into thick slabs, and then added the pepperoni to it. Then he cut into the melon, removed the seeds, sliced it into wedges, peeled each edge, and cut it into chunks.

“There you go.” He grinned. “A meal fit for a queen.”

Following Earl’s lead, Jo picked up her sandwich and bit into it.
Ambrosia.
Well, maybe not quite that good, but given the company, the beautiful day, and the pure delight of being out from under the watchful eye of her mother, it sure tasted like it.

They proceeded to eat in silence, but cast smiles in each other’s direction. Once their sandwiches were consumed, Earl slid the plate of melon chunks between them. He picked one up and held it out to her.

“When I harvested these this morning, I never thought they’d lead me to you.” He slipped it into her open mouth, and then ran the tip of his finger over her lower lip to remove the drop of juice left behind.

For a long time, he stared at her, then stood, came around to her side of the picnic table and sat on the bench beside her. The heat from his thigh pressing against hers sent weird shivers up her body.

Earl leaned toward her. His voice lowered to a whisper. “One day, Jo, I plan to make you my wife. But for now, I just want to kiss you.”

“AND YOU DID, didn’t you?” Granny Jo grinned up at the canopy of leaves above her. “Lord, but I’ll remember that sweet kiss until my dying day. If I hadn’t already decided I was in love with you, Earl Hawks, that kiss would have closed the deal for me.”

Then the smile disappeared and sadness cloaked her heart. “But those happy moments weren’t gonna last, were they, Earl? At least not if my family had anything to do with it.”

She closed her eyes and allowed herself to be once more transported back to a time when she thought her happiness was to be short-lived.

THAT DAY AT the riverside had been the first of many clandestine meetings between Jo and Earl. Every Saturday, she’d sneaked away to meet him and spend hours with him walking, talking, kissing, and dreaming of a future she knew in her heart was as impossible as snow in July. Still, she dreamed on.

One Saturday, Earl led her to his car and told her he had something he wanted her to see. As they headed north out of town, she questioned him.

He smiled that smile that turned her knees to rubber and shook his head. “You’ll see.”

So, content to just be with him, she waited impatiently, possibilities of what this surprise could be running rampant through her mind.

Sometime later, he pulled the car to the side of the road, turned to her and took her hand. “See that,” he said, pointing to a green mountain towering ahead of them. She nodded. Given its size, it would have been hard for her not to see it. “That’s Hawks Mountain, my mountain.”

Awed, Jo stared at the huge peak before her. “Yours? All of it?”

“Yep, every last bush, flower and tree.” The pride in his voice was almost palatable. “One day, I’m going to bring you there as my wife, Jo.”

Oh, Earl, if only that were a possibility.

Pain blurred her happiness, slashing a wound across her vulnerable heart.
Jo knew her parents would never agree to her marrying a “mountain man.” They were already asking questions about where she disappeared to every Saturday, questions she was finding harder and harder to answer. She knew this relationship could never reach a happy ending, but she hated the idea of never seeing Earl again. The very idea brought such agony to her heart that she thought she’d die.

But it wasn’t fair to let him go on dreaming either. She had to tell him. Tears welled up in her eyes and then ran down her cheeks.

“Jo, what is it? Why are you crying, darlin’?” Earl pulled her into his arms and held her so tight she could barely breathe. But she didn’t care. She was close to him, and that’s all that mattered, because soon, she’d never be in his arms again.

Finally, when she’d cried herself out, she pushed herself away from him. He opened the glove box and extracted a wad of napkins he’d shoved in there after one of their trips to a fast food place.

She blew her nose, and then looked at him. “I can never live on your mountain, Earl.”

He sat back and stared at her in open-mouthed wonder. “Why? I thought you loved me. I thought—”

“I do. God knows I do.”

“Then why?”

“It’s my family. I never told you my last name. It’s Walker.”

He looked at her with a blank expression.

“The Walker Construction Company.”

The blank expression disappeared instantly, and his eyes grew large and round. “Those Walkers?”

She nodded. “I’m so sorry I never told you before, but I was afraid you wouldn’t want anything to do with me.”

He smiled and pulled her to him. “Now, why would that make any difference? A heart wants what a heart wants. Surely your family can understand that.”

Jo didn’t answer him, but in her core she knew that love didn’t enter the equation, especially when it involved her and a man from the hills. Her parents would never agree to such a union. Yes, it was the 1960s, but their values still resided in the past when a girl married a man her family chose for her because he was a
proper match
. Love had nothing to do with it.

“We need to keep our relationship secret for a little while longer until I can figure out what to do.” She sat up and looked him in the eyes. “Please?”

Earl kissed her. “I already know what I want to do, but I’m willing to wait, if that’s what you want.”

GRANNY JO HEAVED a deep sigh. “Little did we know that my parents already knew where I’d been going and who I’d been meeting every Saturday. They’d sent my brother Brandon to spy on me.” She shifted her bottom to get more comfortable. “They were waiting for me that night when I got home, and Lord, but they were mad. I’m sure they thought they could browbeat me into thinking their way, but the one thing they didn’t count on was a stubborn streak I’d inherited from my grandmother.” She laughed.