Stranger on the Shore (10 page)

Jordan ignored a nagging twinge of guilt. After all, he only intended to tell the truth. If she proved to be psychic, she should have no objection to that. That she seemed to avoid publicity was certainly an anomaly when compared to his previous investigations. It could be a point in her favor. But, if she turned out to be another fake, well, she deserved no sympathy.

He cast another quick glance in her direction. She'd already thrown him one curve this morning. After that interlude on the bluff he'd expected her to show up wearing her guarded reserve like a shield. Instead, she'd bounced out of the car, eyes shining, like a child anticipating a special treat.

"The missing boy, Jake said he was safe and sound." Jordan disciplined the tone of his voice to reflect casual interest. He didn't want her suspecting he'd guessed the reason she'd been summoned.

"He was visiting the barn cat's new family and fell asleep in the hay," Sarah said, welcoming the respite granted by his neutral comment. "He had no idea of the commotion he was causing."

"That sounds—" Jordan hesitated. A boy visiting a new batch of kittens sounded logical to him. Why hadn't the mother thought to look there before pushing the panic button? He wasn't going to ask. The boy's mother was Sarah's friend. Criticizing her probably wouldn't earn him any brownie points.

"You're right, it was a logical place to look," Sarah said, just as if he had spoken aloud. Did she realize what she was doing?

"I think Millie panicked because Jerry disappeared right after two strangers stopped by the farm house. The last time she saw him, he was talking to them."

No, apparently she wasn't aware she was reading his mind. It could be simple coincidence, but twice? "Well, I'm glad he wasn't hurt," Jordan said. "But surely strangers aren't all that threatening—especially in the summertime, with the tourists and all."

"That's true. Eureka Springs draws a lot of tourists this time of the year," she continued. "So does Beaver Lake. But Shelton Valley is a bit off the beaten path."

Jordan forced himself to return his attention to the road. One look into the blue pools of her eyes and he found himself fighting for control of his senses. His hands tightened on the steering wheel.
Keep it light,
he told himself.
Keep her talking.

"You know, Sarah, one thing puzzles me. How did you become the owner of Monte Ne?" His voice was cautious as he probed the parameters of what she might consider either a fair question or an invasion into her private affairs.

He waited a moment. Then when he failed to detect any signs of resistance, he continued. "Even before you were born, all that remained of the old resort was its name on the country plot. Yet your name was on practically every Monte Ne deed I inspected."

Sarah welcomed the question, glad to be on familiar ground. She'd seen the barely concealed spark of personal interest in his eyes and known she wasn't able to deal with it. Keep him interested in Monte Ne, she told herself. After all, that was the reason he was here.

It was an inheritance, and it isn't strange, not if you understand hill folks," she explained, yielding to the skill of his gentle questioning. "I ended up owning Monte Ne because my great-grandfather Wilson didn't cotton to outsiders."

Jordan's voice also echoed the results of the lightened atmosphere. "Somehow I get the idea that 'cotton to' doesn't exactly say it all." The tiny laugh lines around his eyes creased as he grinned. "Are you going to tell me the story?"

Sarah smiled back.

Her heart-stopping smile pulled the breath from his body.

"I knew you were perceptive," she told him. "Of course, I'm going to tell you. I'm just trying to decide which story to give you, the official account or the unexpurgated version?"

"Ah," Jordan said, still grinning. "I'm willing to bet your respect for the true and complete version of history will win."

Sarah felt her eyes widen in surprise. After such a short acquaintance, could he really read her that completely? "How did you know?"

"Let's just say I hope you never play poker," he said in a lighthearted voice that suddenly reflected his mood. When she failed to respond immediately to his comment, he lifted one hand from the steering wheel, reached across the seat and touched her hand with a quick, light stroke of his fingers.

"So, what did Great-grandfather Wilson have to do with Monte Ne?"

"Nothing," Sarah said, striving to deny the effect his touch had on her heartbeat. "Absolutely nothing. At least not at first. You see, he was one of those hill men who accepted change slowly. He didn't like strangers, and certainly not the idea of outsiders owning a part of his Ozarks. Over the years most of the locals were won over to the idea of Monte Ne. They enjoyed the entertainments it offered, and I guess they added local color to its activities. But the family says Great-grandfather never participated, not even in the annual fiddling contest. And he was supposed to have been one of the best fiddlers in these mountains."

Sarah laughed slightly to herself, then added, "he also believed a man should take advantage of his opportunities. So he finally resigned himself to getting some good out of it."

"What did he do?" Jordan asked. The teacher facet of Sarah's personality was the easiest for him to deal with. He could enjoy her presence and still keep his mind on the business—mostly. When she was playing her role as eager instructor, he wasn't as tempted to wander down the other paths he so desperately wanted to explore.

"He cleared every field he owned and planted corn."

"Corn?"

"Corn," Sarah repeated.

"But what did corn have to do with Monte Ne?"

"Oh, come now, Jordan. You may not be a historian, but you should be able to figure that out. What can you do with corn?"

Jordan looked puzzled. "I guess you can cook it to eat or store it as food for livestock or as seed. You can dry it and grind it for cornmeal, too."

Sarah grinned. "You forgot one."

Feed, food, seed, meal. Jordan frowned as he mentally listed the options, trying to concentrate. Once again he found himself floundering in his efforts to retain control of his thoughts as she turned the full power of those mysterious eyes on him.

"Food, feed, seed, meal," he repeated and shook his head. "I can't think of another thing," he admitted finally, recognizing that the surrender signified more than an inability to discover a fifth use for corn.

"You can also distill it."

"Distill it? You mean like moonshine?"

She nodded. "Around here we call it white lightning. Anyway, Great-grandfather had a ready market for his product right on his doorstep, so to speak. By the time of the crash, he had saved quite a little nest egg. As Monte Ne land came on the market, he bought it. He must have thought it was poetic justice that the very outsiders he objected to gave a native the means to reclaim the land."

"That's the official account?"

"No, that's the true story. The official account says he found a cache of Confederate gold buried in one of the caves on his north section." She stopped, puzzled, when Jordan burst out laughing. "What's so funny?"

"It just seems strange to me that a story that shows such an entrepreneurial spirit would be hidden in favor of one that depended on luck."

Not if you remember that Carrie Nation lived right down the road." Her grin flashed with the brilliance of the sun breaking over a high ridge at dawn.

"You mean
the
Carrie Nation? The teetotaler? The one who chopped up liquor barrels with her hatchet?"

"The one and only," Sarah assured him. "In fact, Hatchet Hall, her last home, is quite a tourist attraction in Eureka Springs."

"Well, I'll be damned."

"I don't know about that." Sarah laughed. "But Great-grandfather would have been, at least in some circles, if his business had become known."

As Jordan's appreciative laugh joined hers, Sarah allowed the warm tremors of his voice to wrap around her. It was going to be all right. Her anxiety had been for nothing. Jordan Matthias was exactly as advertised—a man who was looking for information about Monte Ne. For those few moments, when he'd looked straight into her eyes, she had imagined something different. But that was all it was, imagination. Like the make-believe feelings she experienced when he'd kissed her on the bluff. Summer madness. A simple case of summer madness.

"I take it your family's been here for a long time."

"Every family in Mountain Springs has been here for a long time. The younger people are sometimes forced to leave because of the local economy, but the people who stay have been here forever. If there was room for newcomers, more of the younger generation would be able to remain."

"The young man who came after you the other day—is he a local farmer?"

"T.J.? He's helping on the family farm and trying to start his own quarter-horse spread. Why?"

"No particular reason," Jordan said, surprised at himself for wanting to know and at Sarah for not guessing why. "I just wondered if he was one of the younger generation who planned to stay."

"I don't think T.J. could survive away from here, not if he had to leave for good. For him, this is home."

As it is for you,
Jordan thought silently.
You leave to teach, but always come back. You would never be at home any other place, either, would you, Sarah Wilson?
For some reason, the thought was depressing.

"What about you, Jordan? Where is home for you?"

Jordan shrugged his shoulders. "I don't have one. Haven't really had one since we left the farm after my dad died. My mother died a couple of years later. I was in the army for a while. Home was always the next assignment. When I left the military I kept right on roaming, wherever the next story took me. I have a small apartment in St. Louis, a place to hang my hat between assignments. But you couldn't call it home. Sometimes I don't see it for a year at a time."

Sarah tried to understand. "And it doesn't bother you? Not having a place where you belong?"

"Never has," he told her. "I've always felt I belonged in the place I happened to be at the moment."

That explained a lot, Sarah though. And it certainly tallied. Aunt Cinda had said he had no roots. Sarah didn't know whether she felt sorrier for him or for herself.

"Is this the road where we turn?"

His question forced her attention back to her surroundings.

"This is it. Just follow the road until we run into the lake."

Minutes later Jordan parked at the side of the road. The summer sun high overhead reflected brightly off the placid lake nestled at the bottom of the valley. Dried, cracked mud flats extended down the hillside from the lake's usual high-water mark to the present water level.

Sarah choked back a small gasp of surprise. "They said Beaver was down, but I didn't realize it was this low."

"But why? I mean, why is it so low this time of the year? It's only June."

"Beaver's a hydro-power lake," she told him. "Electric power generation demands determine how much water is released through the dam. Spring rains were a little low this year, but, it's unusual for them to lower water levels this much."

Without waiting for Jordan's assistance, Sarah jumped from the high seat to the ground. The scene before her was eerie in its silence. It was a silence broken only by the buzzing drone of the few flying insects energetic enough to cavort in the hot summer air and the occasional call of a bird from the wooded thickets on the ridge above them.

"Look," she told him, emphasizing the command by pointing down the shoreline. "Even the amphitheater is exposed. We couldn't see it from the bluff."

But Jordan's attention was caught by the sight of a large concrete structure standing high on the bank overlooking the lake. The straight lines of its undressed concrete walls were relieved by three tiers of precisely spaced openings, bare of even the wooden casements necessary to support the missing windows.

"Is that the same tower we saw from the top of the bluff? The one you said was once part of Oklahoma Row?"

Sarah stumbled as she raised her eyes in the direction of the tower. As her step faltered, Jordan moved to catch her, his fingers wrapping securely around her elbow.

With the physical contact, Sarah could feel the heat of his hand on her bare skin and the surge of energy flowing between them. Her eyes shifted from the tower to his face. She saw the concern reflected in his eyes.

"I'm fine. A misstep. Really, I'm okay." She moved restlessly under his touch, pulling her eyes away from his, shifting her gaze back down the shore toward the tower. She was unable to control the tremor that rippled through her body.

Jordan slowly released his hold on her arm. He frowned, as if puzzled by her absorption in the ruins of the old tower.

"It's impressive. Even more so than from the top of the bluff. It is the same tower I saw from the top of the bluff, isn't it?"

"Yes. It's the same one—the south tower of Oklahoma Row," Sarah told him.

"Is it possible to see it up close? To actually go inside? I saw old photos of the hotel in the museum, but they didn't look real. Standing there, being physically present in the same place, might give me a better perspective."