Mountain Mystic (13 page)

Derrick had done his job well. The advance copy of
Ancient Tales—Echoes from the Past
had just arrived in the mail, along with the latest revised, shortened publicity tour proposal which Derrick wanted him to approve. Even on the mountain, life caught up with him. Joshua knew he was going to have to tell Victoria. God, he hated to do that. Sometimes he wished he’d never written the books. Tossing
History
onto the coffee table, Joshua leaned his head back and tried to figure out how to tell her.

Nothing came to mind. Explaining Indiana Jones was going to be a breeze compared to explaining why he’d misled her about his grandmother. Now that he knew her better, he had a feeling that Victoria would have a much easier time dealing with the concept of psychometry and of touching history than with why he thought his grandmother needed protecting from outsiders.

When the noise of a car intruded on his thoughts, he recognized the peculiar creak of the driver’s door as it was opened. Victoria had arrived. Joshua wondered how long she’d stay after he told her. Then he
wondered how she’d feel about him once the shock and anger wore off.

Most people treated him as if he were not quite sane, or as if he were running a scam. But the people who believed were the worst, because they wanted a piece of his soul; they wanted him to create magic from the past.

Victoria approached the door, reminding herself that she wanted an explanation, not a confrontation. Most of her original anger had dissipated. At least she hoped it had. She’d given herself a million reasons why Joshua might want to protect his grandmother’s privacy. A serious illness was at the top of her list of acceptable explanations. At the same time, she cautioned herself against making excuses for Joshua as she had for Richard. A lie was still a lie.

He opened the door before she had a chance to knock. “Boy or girl?”

Their eyes locked immediately, and Victoria knew he’d been waiting for her. Even in the cool autumn night his feet were bare and his gold-colored shirt was untucked and haphazardly buttoned. Strangely, he looked worn out, as if he’d been in a struggle with his conscience and lost. Victoria hoped he’d been feeling guilty about lying to her.

A second or two passed before Victoria curtly answered, “Boy.”

Too late, she heard the sharp edge in her voice. She hadn’t come here to make pleasant conversation,
but neither had she come here to start a fight. Not first thing anyway. Carefully, she adjusted her tone. “May I come in?”

“Sure.” Joshua’s eyebrows rose as he stepped out of the way. Her body language cued him to keep his distance, but he wasn’t certain which of her emotions were generating the signals—nervousness, fear, anger, uncertainty. He pushed mentally, but he couldn’t get a peep from her feelings, not a clue. Absurdly, he was once again as much in the dark as someone without his abilities, and he couldn’t believe he had to ask the next question. “Is something wrong?”

“You could say that.” Victoria strolled past him, purposely controlling her compulsion to blurt out the reason she was there. She wanted him seated squarely across from her and looking directly into her eyes before she asked him why he lied.

“In that case, have a seat,” Joshua instructed as he followed her to the living room.

His confession would have to wait until he found out what was bothering her. And so would his need to take up where they left off last night. She was wearing a loose, flowing skirt and one of those oversize sweaters that threatened to slip off her shoulders. Her hair was still a little damp, and he could smell the coconut in her shampoo.

Victoria sat down on the enormous couch and waited to see where Joshua would sit. He chose the other end of the couch, not too close, but not far enough away either. Being near Joshua, even while she
was unhappy with him, was unsettling. Especially after last night, after touching his bare skin, after—

“About last night—” Joshua began.

“That’s not it,” she interrupted, and shook her head firmly. Last night was not a subject she wanted to discuss. Not yet. Not first. Depending on his explanation, maybe never.

“Good.” He relaxed and laid his hand along the back of the couch. He didn’t want her to regret last night. “I would have called you today, but the hospital said you were there all night. I didn’t want to wake you.”

“Thanks. It was a long night, and I was really tired this morning.” She didn’t say anything else, reminding herself not to be fooled by the concern she saw in his expression.

Her mistake with Richard had been wanting to believe he cared about her despite all the evidence to the contrary. She’d learned the hard way that because she wanted to believe something didn’t make it true. She needed to understand why Joshua lied about his grandmother before she let her hormones or her heart get any more involved with the man.

“Well … are you going to tell me what’s wrong?” he asked, seeing the internal struggle reflected in her eyes. “Or do you want me to play twenty questions?”

“I’m having second thoughts,” she told him bluntly.

Joshua’s brows drew together. “You said this wasn’t about last night.”

“It isn’t,” she assured him. “Not directly anyway. It’s about whether or not we trust each other.”

“Last night we did.”

“And last night I didn’t know you were lying. Why didn’t you tell me, Joshua?” She had the satisfaction of seeing him wince. At least he didn’t deny it.

In a split second Joshua’s emotions took an unplanned roller-coaster ride. When they settled, he calmly asked, “Who told you?”

Victoria stared at him. “That’s all you can say? ‘Who told you?’ It doesn’t matter. Let’s just cut to the chase, and you tell me why you tried to keep the truth from me.”

An odd half-laugh escaped him. “I thought that part would be obvious.”

“Well, not to me! I am not a Gypsy fortune-teller or a mind reader.” She tucked her hair behind one ear and flipped it behind her shoulders. “So why don’t you explain it to me in very tiny, simple words so I can understand why the man I almost made love to didn’t trust me with his past.”

“I was going to tell you tonight,” he began heavily, knowing that it was a wrong beginning as soon as the words left his mouth.

“Oh, please!” Victoria’s hand slapped down on the back of the couch. “And the check is in the mail. How about a little honesty? I thought we were friends, Joshua. We were almost more than friends.”

“We are more than friends,” he said with a sharpness that dared her to dispute him. “You know it, and I know it. I didn’t mean to let it happen. Vicky, but
you’re the first woman I’ve cared about in a very long time. You’ll have to excuse me if I haven’t done everything quite right. I’m a little out of practice.”

“Then let me give you a hint. You don’t lie to people you care about. You trust them. Even with the bad stuff.”

“Hell, Victoria, I didn’t lie to you. At least not the way you think. I lied to myself.” He got up and paced the room, trying to put his reasons into a coherent explanation. “I thought you knew the first time you came here—
there
—to the old cabin. But then you didn’t know anything about me, didn’t have any expectations. That’s when I lied to myself. I told myself it would be all right to pretend. For a while anyway. I thought, wouldn’t it be nice to have a normal conversation again? Wouldn’t it be nice to start from scratch?”

“A normal conversation?” echoed Victoria.

“Doesn’t sound like much, does it?” Joshua paused behind an armchair and rested his forearms against it, cupping one hand around the other. “I came back to the mountains for the same reason that the original highlanders came here. I wanted some space, and I wanted some solitude. I wasn’t looking for friendship, and sure as hell not anything more, but there you were. Bright and shiny and completely uninterested in my past.”

The gold ring on his little finger glinted for a second, and a memory flashed through Victoria’s mind again, closer this time, buzzing right at the edge of
being useful. And then she saw the book on the coffee table.

The memory, the
feeling
of having seen him before, came back in a rash. The bottom fell out of her stomach as she actually felt the color drain from her face. A chill stole up her spine as she looked at the glossy book jacket and caught hold of the memory that had eluded her. The one that had bothered her from the first day she’d seen him. The one that had flirted with her consciousness for so long.

She looked up at Joshua and then down at the photograph on the book, almost in awe. A man’s big, powerful hand cupped an ancient ceremonial cup. On the little finger of the man’s hand was a gold ring of entwined vines. A familiar ring. Joshua’s ring. Joshua’s hand.

“Oh, my God,” she said quietly. “You really are Joshua Logan.”

Cuttingly, he said, “Is it just now hitting you? Is that why you’re so calm? Because you realize that I’m famous enough to impress your parents?”

Victoria ignored him, her mouth still open as she absorbed the bombshell that had landed on her.

Watching her, Joshua registered the stunned expression on her face, the tension of her body, and realized she hadn’t known. He’d been gearing up to explain about Indiana Jones, and she hadn’t even known. She was here only because someone must have told her about Granny Logan.

Damn!
He hadn’t bothered to put the book away, and now she knew what he’d wanted to explain himself.
Uneasily, he waited for the explosion of righteous anger that never came.

For the second time, she ran her eyes over him, over his hands, and stopped at the ring. “The first day I saw you, I rememberered the ring. I couldn’t place it, but I remembered it. I remembered your hands, or thought I did. I should have known. I have the book somewhere. In a box.”

“If you have the book, why didn’t you connect the name?”

“Good Lord, why should I? There’s not a picture of you on the book jacket, just your hand. Besides, I wasn’t expecting to find you
here
, on the top of a mountain.”

“That makes us even. I wasn’t expecting to find you either.”

“That first day, you held out your hands and asked me what I brought. I didn’t understand, but your hands fascinated me. I never connected the two. The memory and you. I can’t believe no one mentioned who you were. Wally never said anything.”

“Why should he? It’s none of his concern. Besides, I’ve been back for months. I’m old news.”

Victoria reached for the heavy book and cradled it on her knees. Gently, she traced the shape of his hand and the chalice on the glossy book jacket. She hadn’t thought about these stories in years. “It was incredible, you know. This book. It seemed so real.”

“It was real.” Joshua’s tone was hard, disappointed in her.

Victoria’s head jerked up, contrition written on
her face. “I didn’t mean it that way. I meant that I could feel the people’s emotions, that you made history real. For me. My family has antiques hundreds of years old, but they’re not real to me. There’s no sense of continuity. No emotion. No story. No family of man. You know?”

He knew all too well, so he simply nodded, stunned that Victoria would understand what he felt when he held those objects in his hands. As if reading his thoughts, Victoria shifted her eyes to the shelves of the bookcase, surveying the museum pieces there.

“I guess that’s why I wanted to be a midwife. I wanted to whittle a place of my own in a tiny, obscure corner of history. I wanted to be a part of the link from one generation to the next.” A self-deprecating smile formed on Victoria’s lips as she put the book back on the coffee table. “Don’t say anything. I’ve already been told that it’s a stupid ambition.”

“According to whom?”

“Richard.”

“I thought you stopped believing in the gospel according to Richard when you divorced him.”

Victoria gave him a faint smile. “A declaration of independence didn’t free the colonies. It took a war.”

“Has he been that hard to forget?”

“Not him. How he made me feel sometimes—dammit, Joshua!” Victoria took a deep breath, composed herself, and hauled the conversation back on track. “This isn’t about me. It’s about you. About why you kept this from me. About why you lied about your
grandmother. At the very least, I think you owe me some answers. And quite possibly an apology.”

“I can apologize, but I’m not sure I can explain. Other than to say that I have a hard time trusting people and their motives.” He let go of a sigh and pushed away from the chair as she stood up to face him.

“People? Don’t you mean outsiders?” she corrected him, paraphrasing from the mountain bible. “You have a hard time trusting outsiders and their motives. Betray you once, and they might betray you again. Or as we flatlanders say, ‘Once bitten, twice shy.’ Have I got that right?”

“Pretty close,” he allowed with a tilt of his head.

“And you thought I might have some sort of hidden agenda, so you didn’t tell me.”

“I didn’t know you then.”

“You know me now. You knew me last night. One might even say … intimately.”

Closing his eyes for a moment, Joshua knew she’d neatly boxed him into a corner. He had to admire her technique—a pinch of guilt, a smidgen of indignation, a hint of humor, and a large dollop of deadly calm. Again he was reminded that Victoria was unique.

She casually folded her arms across her midriff, pushing up the sweater material until the edge fell off her shoulder completely, but she didn’t bother to drag it back up. Instead, she waited patiently, searching his face with those solemn gray eyes, being completely and totally
Victoria.

She hadn’t once looked at him as if he needed
psychiatric care. She hadn’t shoved anything into his hands and asked him to perform. She hadn’t gone starry-eyed with plans for impressing her acquaintances with his notoriety. But then, neither had his friends at first.

When Joshua didn’t take the hint, Victoria helpfully suggested, “Why don’t you start from the beginning, and I’ll tell you when to stop.”

He smiled at her suggestion and said, “The beginning was a long time ago.”

“I love long stories, and I have plenty of time. As your
friend
, surely I’m entitled to the truth, Joshua.”