After the Storm

“Then why’d you give it up?”

She saw the darkness leap from his eyes, saw the way the smile drained right off his face and turned into a frown. “I got tired,” he replied, the words low and gravelly. “And disillusioned, I guess.”

“I can certainly understand both those feelings.”

He kept his head down, then turned so fast she almost had to step backward. “So…back to your job. Sounds as if you practically run the general store.”

“I try,” she admitted. She wanted to know more about him, but decided she wouldn’t press him for information. He might get suspicious and turn the tables on her. So she told him only superficial things. “I do like to stay busy, and the store is so ancient. No computers, no digital anything. Just the steady cling of the hand-cranked cash register. It’s very peaceful and soothing, spending my days there. And Mr. and Mrs. Curtis have already told me I can bring the baby to work with me for as long as I need. They live off the back of the store, so I can put Callum in a crib right near the door to their apartment.”

“That would be convenient,” he said, nodding. “Do they like children?”

“Oh, yes.” She smiled softly. “They raised three of their own and now have lots of grandchildren coming to visit. One more won’t matter a bit to them. And Mrs. Curtis can help me with him. She loves babies.”

“They sound like a wonderful couple.”

“They are. But I love all of the people here. They’re all like that, helpful and caring.” And protective. But she didn’t mention that particular quality to him. “I feel like I have a whole new family.”

“What made you come here?”

She didn’t want to answer that, because she couldn’t answer that. But she could tell him one of the main reasons she’d decided to live on the mountain. “This cabin has been in my mother’s family for generations.”

He gave her a surprised look, but didn’t press her. “And now it’s yours?”

“It’s all I have left,” she said, suddenly tired herself, her body drained, but her mind even more so. “I think I need to get back to bed.”

He turned her around, then urged her back toward the bedroom. “It must be hard, going through this without your husband.”

“Harder than I ever imagined,” she said. And that was the truth. “But I’m going to make it,” she added, her conviction ringing hollow in her ears. She hoped she was going to make it.

“Will you be okay here alone while I go for the doctor?”

“Yes. I’m just going to sleep.” She let him help her down onto the feather mattress. “Could you pull the baby’s bed close, so I can see him?”

“Sure.” Jared did her bidding, bringing the rickety bassinet to the side of the bed, by the nightstand. “Can you get to him from there if you need to?”

She nodded. “I’ll be able to sit up and reach in for him.”

“Well, just be careful. Now which way is the doctor?”

Jared found his truck right where he’d left it. The cold air made him breathe puffs of fog, but the sight of his bogged-down SUV made him say hot words. “No wonder I couldn’t get it out last night,” he hollered to the wind.

The big truck’s two front tires had slipped into a muddy rut just off the badly paved lane that served as a road. The darkness and the bushy thickets along the road had covered the mud hole last night, which in turn had caused him to shift farther into the gaping hole and get all four wheels stuck. From the looks of it, it would take a winch and a tow truck to get the vehicle out.

And the radio weatherman had said this storm’s aftermath would be very bad. Power outages might last for another day and night at least. All over half of the state, the roads were closed, trees were down, schools would be closed on Monday for a three-day weekend due to water and wind damage and lack of electricity. Everything was closed, which meant Jared was stuck on this mountain.

Well, he’d wanted to get away. And he’d told the travel agent to find him the most remote, most isolated spot she could find in the fringes of the Blue Ridge Mountains, the one spot he remembered from his youth. He was at least three hours from Atlanta, almost to the Tennessee border.

When Jared decided to get away from it all, he certainly did it right. But being back here soothed his frazzled mind. He’d had happy times on this mountain with his grandfather. Times he’d long since forgotten due to work and everyday distractions.

He turned and started walking up the slippery slope of a road that wound toward the little village on top of the mountain. He didn’t want to leave Alisha alone for too long, so Jared tried to hurry. Even though he hadn’t been mountain climbing in years, he was in pretty good shape physically from working out at a downtown Atlanta health club three times a week. But that didn’t seem to matter in this early-morning cold. In spite of the wool sock-hat Alisha had given him and the collar of his heavy leather coat pulled up around his face, Jared felt as if he were frozen solid. His cheeks burned and his lungs hurt. But he kept on walking, right past the road that probably led to his own cabin, right past the rickety, run-down trailer that Alisha had told him belonged to the Wilkeses.

She’d also told him that the Wilkes family took care of the five different cabins the village rented out to tourists. He’d need to see Mr. and Mrs. Wilkes, she’d said, if he had trouble getting into his own cabin. If that ever happened, he reasoned now, thinking he couldn’t leave Alisha helpless and with a baby to take care of. Surely the doctor could suggest someone to sit with her, someone better equipped to deal with all of it.

Someone who wasn’t highly attracted to her and mystified by her, Jared thought as he huffed another short breath.

Thinking back over their earlier conversation, Jared remembered how evasive she’d been in answering his questions. She obviously valued her privacy. And she obviously loved living here in the quiet of the mountain, safely away from the outside world.

But why? his logical brain had to ask. Why was she here? Alisha was an intelligent, beautiful woman. A woman who had chosen to live alone in a remote cabin, without transportation or a phone.

Was she so destitute that she couldn’t afford those things? Or was it something else?

Thinking maybe he’d get some answers from the doctor, Jared finally reached the summit and the center of the small town. He’d like to help Alisha. He’d like to get to know Alisha.

And he’d really like to know what she was hiding.

Chapter Four

J ared pounded on the wide, creaking, glass-and-wood doors of the Dover Mountain Mini-Mart and Grocery, then pushed, surprised to find the store open this early on a Sunday morning. The indoor heat hit him with a dry, hot rush as he left the cold behind. The door was unlocked, but the place was dark and deserted. “Hello,” he called, glancing down the crowded aisles. “Anybody here?”

“In the back,” came a voice that sounded as aged and cracked as some of the old pickle barrels sitting around the place looked. “What can I do for you, fellow?”

Jared followed the sound of the voice to a rocking chair beside a puffing wood-burning buckstove. This whole store creaked and swayed and puffed, he decided, wondering how it had stood up through last night’s storm.

“Mr. Curtis?” he asked as he took off the sock-hat and ran a hand through his hair, his gaze on the old man who sat smoking a pipe while he steadily rocked back and forth.

“That’d be me,” the old man said, his grin revealing a gap-toothed smile. “Warren J. That’s what they call me. And who are you, stranger?”

Jared liked the directness of the other man’s question. “I’m Jared Murdock. I came in last night. Rented the second cabin on the left—”

“Number 202,” Mr. Curtis said, nodding. “Heard we had some city fellow coming to stay for a while. Don’t get many people from the city, mostly hunters or fishermen during the different seasons. Get a few rafters who like to ride the river in the summertime—too cold for that today, though. Goin’ to do some fishing and hiking, camping maybe?”

“I haven’t decided,” Jared replied, trying to get past the niceties. “Mr. Curtis, I got stuck in the storm and I went to the wrong cabin last night and…well, I helped Alisha Emerson deliver her baby.”

“What now?” Mr. Curtis shot up out of the rocking chair so fast, Jared had to catch the man to keep him from falling into the roaring heat from the furnace. “Let me get Letty.” He whirled in a mist of pipe smoke and overalls, his brogans carrying him to the back of the store with a clamoring clarity. “Letty, Letty Martha, come on out here, you hear?”

Jared heard a shrill voice responding. “Coming. Coming. Do we actually have a customer this morning? Well, I did tell you we’d need to open up just in case people needed things.” She stopped talking for a full second. “I was just about to go for a walk to survey the damage—before I change for church. We might not have electricity, but this is Easter Sunday. We’ll hold the service out underneath the trees if we have to.”

Jared waited, listening to the voice calling out from the back. Did the woman ever take a breath?

Warren J. stomped a brogan against the plank floor, causing the whole store to shake. “Not just a customer, honey. A man who says Alisha had her baby last night.”

That brought a rustling movement from the back. Letty Martha appeared in the doorway, wearing a bright pink nylon windsuit over a thick white turtleneck sweater. Even thicker white-and-purple bunny-rabbit-decorated socks folded like a ruffle against her battered athletic shoes. Pushing at the tufts of gray hair surrounding her jovial face, she gave her husband a direct head-to-toe look. “Did you say Alisha had her baby?”

“That’s what I said,” Warren J. replied, clearly agitated as he turned back to Jared. “And this here man, what did you say your name was now, son?”

“Jared Murdock,” Jared said, mustering a reassuring smile toward Letty Martha.

“This Jared says he helped deliver the baby,” Warren J. said, his watery eyes suspicious and full of utter disbelief.