Hawks Mountain - Mobi (9 page)

Running away every time she saw him didn’t make much sense. If she didn’t talk to him, she’d never learn any more about him. And, though she’d tried to convince herself otherwise, she did want to get to know Nick. And it was becoming more than just the nurturer in her, or idle curiosity. She wanted to know everything about him, everything that made Nicholas Hart tick: his deepest fears, his loftiest dreams, his most ardent
desires .
 . . and what it would have felt like to have his lips meet hers.

Though the last thought gave her pause to reconsider, before she could chicken out, she strode toward him. “Good morning, Nick.”

Tearing his gaze from his book, he jerked his head toward her. Tension marked his features, but vanished when he saw her. Though not what she’d have called an enthusiastic welcome, at least it didn’t appear as if he would run her off.

“Good morning.” He’d raised his voice to be heard over the pounding of the falls.

For a brief moment, she thought she saw pleasure flicker across his face, but it was gone so quickly she chalked it up to her imagination. However, that one fleeting sign that he might just be a tiny bit happy that she was there was all the encouragement she needed to step up beside the boulder.

“May I join you?”

Nick looked down at the rock, then back at her. His brows furrowed. Was he trying to manufacture an excuse as to why she couldn’t sit beside him? Obviously failing to find one, he moved a bit to the side.

“It’s a free rock.” Then he opened his book and began reading again.

Becky slipped up next to him, keeping a respectable distance between them, and crossed her feet at the ankles. While she took in the beauty of the falls, she searched for something to fill the silence that had fallen around them. “It’s so beautiful here.”

Nick drew his attention from his book and looked around them as though to affirm what she’d said. “Yes, it is.” Then he smiled and returned to his reading.

Obviously, drawing him into a conversation wasn’t going to be easy, but if Becky Hawks had one claim to fame, it was her stubborn streak. When she set her mind to something, nothing could stop her.
Least of all a stoic man with his nose buried in a book.

“How was the bread?”

He raised his head again. “Delicious. Please tell your grandmother thank you for me.”
Back to the book.

She nodded. “Granny will be pleased to hear that.”

More silence.

Again she fumbled for a way to get Nick to talk to
her .
 . . about anything. “How ever did you find this place? It’s not like it’s on the beaten path.”

Resignedly, he sighed and closed the book after turning down the corner of the page to mark his place. Then he laid it aside, finally accepting her intervention into his solitude.

“Actually, I found it by accident. When I was a kid, my grandfather and I came to
Carson
shortly after my parents died in a plane crash. I used to wander through these woods every day trying to find a way to come to terms with losing the two people who had been the center of my world.”

Though she should have expressed her condolences at his loss and perhaps commenting on the fact that the loss of both parents was something they had in common, Becky remained silent, not wanting to interrupt. Nick had uttered this many words since she’d met him, and she wasn’t about to give him an excuse to clam up again.

“On one of my many treks into the woods back then, I heard the sound of the water cascading into the pool below and followed it. After that, this became my favorite spot to come to when I needed to think. Once I moved here permanently, I found it again and continued that tradition.”

Which is why he’d found himself here every day for the past three days trying to unravel his inexplicable reaction to this woman. When she’d shown up here suddenly, the words on the book’s pages no longer made sense, but he’d continued to appear to be reading, hoping she’d take the hint and leave. But Becky didn’t seem to take hints, and not because she wasn’t smart enough to recognize one. He was coming to realize Becky Hawks was what his grandfather had called
mountain stubborn
.

Out of the corner of his eye Nick watched Becky lift the mass of coppery hair off her neck. His fingers flexed, itching to bury themselves in the shiny mass of her hair, to touch her creamy neck. Curling his hands into a fist, he buried them under his book.

Why was she here? Had she just stumbled upon him or had she planned it? Had she perhaps sought him out because what had almost happened at the cabin had affected her as deeply as it had him? If that was her reason, he understood better than she knew. Not one night had passed since that he hadn’t dreamed about kissing her, and dreaming of Becky, though disturbing in its own way, proved to be infinitely better than having those
Iraq
nightmares.

But the big question was
,
why had he shown her any kind of encouragement to stay, to talk to him, to intrude on his private space in any way?

The answer came swiftly to mind. She didn’t pry. She had asked what branch of the military he’d been in and what he’d done there, but he’d hardly call that more than passing the time of day with someone she’d just met. And, after all, he’d asked her the same thing. Though, like all the others, she’d probably wondered why he was on
Hawks
Mountain
, she’d taken him at face value and didn’t try to delve into his personal life. Then again, the way he’d hustled her out of the cabin had hardly given her the opportunity to ask more.

Becky had turned away and was staring at the falls, her head tilted back so the morning sun washed her face in a golden light.
My God, but she’s beautiful.
So beautiful, she stole his breath away. Just then a butterfly floated past her and lit on a wild daisy growing by the water’s edge.

“Granny says butterflies are tiny spirits that God sends down here to check on us.” She laughed wholeheartedly.

The musical sound sent a bubble of pleasure through Nick that left him shivering in the warm sunlight. The sound of her laughter had startled him, and the feelings generated by it were almost painful. It was the first time she’d laughed, really laughed, and he wanted to hear it again.

“You should laugh more often.”

She smiled, and then turned away, a becoming pink tinting her cheeks. “I’m just being silly. This place has a way of doing that to me.”

“What about you?’ When she turned to him with a questioning expression, he elaborated.
“This place.
How did you find it?”

“Oh, I’ve know about it since I was about five. I found it much like you did. Heard the noise and went exploring to see what it was. When I went home, I couldn’t wait to tell Granny about this beautiful place I’d discovered. At first she scolded me for running off so far by myself, and then she just smiled. She knew right away what I was talking about.” Becky glanced around as if she was afraid of being overheard and then lowered her voice. “It seems she and my grandfather swam naked here on their wedding night. After that, he called it
Honeymoon
Falls
.”

Nick leaned back and stared at her open-mouthed.
“Skinny-dipping?
Your grandmother?
That God-fearing, pure-minded, soft-spoken lady?”

“Yup.
One and the same.
Hard to believe isn’t it?”

This time he laughed out loud. “It sure is.”

For a moment, he was taken aback by the sound of his own laughter, by how relaxed he’d become and how good that laughter felt. It had been so long since he’d felt happy enough to actually laugh out loud, that he’d forgotten how much it could lightened his spirit.

Neither of them said anything else, but Nick began to wonder if this beautiful, homespun girl had what it would take to warm the cold places in his soul and chase away the shadows of a hellhole in the desert.

“Nick?”

He turned to look at her. His breath ceased. The sun had climbed higher in the sky and now bathed her entire body in golden light. She looked for all the
world like an angel come
to earth. He had to force a word from his tight throat.

“Yes?”

She glanced at him and then quickly away. Sucking her bottom lip between her teeth, she looked at him again. Obviously, she was having second thoughts about whatever it was she’d wanted to say.

“What is it?”

“Do you know what a
dinner on the ground
is?”

Of all the things he’d expected her to say, this certainly wasn’t one of them. “No, I don’t believe I do.”

Evidently having taken the first step in whatever this was leading up to and feeling more confident, Becky straightened her shoulders. “Well, it’s a kind of covered-dish, church social, except you eat it on a blanket like a picnic.”

The word
social
set off alarms in his head. Social meant people.

“There’s
gonna
be one at the church this Saturday to raise money for a new organ. Granny’s making her brown beans and ham and a batch of cornbread.”

She stopped talking and stared at him as if waiting for his reaction. This must be the church shindig Sam Watkins had asked him to donate to. Nick didn’t know what she expected him to say, but he was getting a really bad feeling about where this was going.

“Would you want to go?”

“No!” The one word shot from him like a ball leaving a cannon barrel. “
I .
 . . I can’t.” Before she could say anything else, he gathered his book and slipped off the rock. “See ya.” Then he headed for the woods at a brisk walk.

He could feel Becky’s open-mouthed stare burning into his back. His response to her invitation had been rude and nothing short of uncalled for, but fear had driven the word from his lips. It didn’t make sense, but every time he got in a group of people, all he could see were bodies of fallen soldiers crying out for his help and a little boy beyond help.

That night,
the nightmare came again.

The church auction had concluded and shadows lengthened as the afternoon waned. From where she sat on the quilt Granny had spread over the grass beside the side door to the church, Becky could see the road leading down from
Hawks
Mountain
. Periodically, she’d glance in that direction looking for Nick. In her heart, she knew he wouldn’t come, but she couldn’t allow that small flicker of hope that he might change his mind to die.

“He’s probably not going to come, child. I told you, he doesn’t socialize.”

Granny lifted her casserole of brown beans and ham from a big basket. She set it on the blanket next to a platter piled with squares of golden cornbread. In the center of the platter sat a tub of sweet, amber honey.
Beside that stood a thermal jug of icy cold sweet tea.
The idea of a covered-dish supper was to bring enough to feed your family, but Granny always brought enough to feed half the town, and usually did. No one could resist her ham and beans served with the added treat of her golden cornbread slathered in honey.

The heavenly smell that drifted up from the food almost drew Becky’s attention from the road.
Almost.
Despite the temping aroma of Granny’s food and the din of the voices of the town’s people scattered on their own blankets all over the church lawn, Becky could not be distracted from her vigil. She was well aware of Nick’s reputation for staying to himself.
Still .
 . .

He has to come! He has to!

“Jake, you
git
your nose outta there,” Granny scolded. She gave her canine companion a playful swat and pushed his shaggy body off the quilt where he’d been trying to inspect the food. “There’ll be some for you later.” She watched him hobble off to join Davy Collins, the mayor’s son. “Doc Mackenzie and Nick sure did a fine job fixing up old Jake.”