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She felt the swift assessment of the tawny pair of eyes. The sensation was followed by an instant awareness of the georgette blouse sticking damply to her skin and her travel-wrinkled skirt clinging to her sticky legs. She had perspired away all her makeup and her hair looked like a rag mop, the style blown apart by the wind and plastered to her forehead and temples by perspiration. She caught a fleeting glimpse of humor in his look, then it was gone. But it was like a red flag to an already angry bull.

  “I wasn’t hurt but it’s certainly no thanks to him!” Joanna turned again on the driver of the buckboard. “You could have got somebody killed! You could have got me killed! You must be crazy to pull out on the road like that! Those mules are a menace! They shouldn’t be allowed on public roads!”

  “Now, hold on thare.” The driver turned a baleful eye on her. “Don’t you go blamin’ my mules. They only did what they was told. It was me at the reins and it was my fault for pullin’ out. I jest didn’t figure anybody’d be comin”

  Joanna wasn’t mollified by his confession of guilt. “You should have looked! That’s common sense! If I had been going any faster, I couldn’t have avoided hitting you! You’re just lucky I was going slow on this road—which doesn’t even deserve to be called a road!” she added on an angry breath of contempt and was further irritated by the way the man kept soothing the mules. “In case you hadn’t noticed, it happens to be my car that’s damaged, not your damned mules!”

  “And I’m right sorry about that, too,” the man assured her curtly. “I’ll pay to fix whatever damage’s been done.”

  She looked at the man with the baggy overalls, faded shirt, and straggly dark hair. He didn’t appear to have enough to keep body and soul together. Her uncle had mentioned that this area was the heart of the Ozarks and she’d heard about the poor people of these hills, barely able to scratch a living out of a soil that grew only rocks. However, at this point, her concern wasn’t for his plight, but her own.

  Uppermost in her mind was the fact that she was driving a rented car. If he didn’t pay, she was liable, and he didn’t appear to have two dollars to rub together.

  “With what?” Without thinking, Joanna scoffed at the driver’s offer to pay. “Some scrawny chickens?”

  His head jerked as if she had slapped him. Joanna bit at the inside of her lips as she realized her thoughtless remark had hurt his pride. He shifted to face her more squarely and stood very tall and erect, his expression shuttered and cold.

  “I’ll pay in hard cash if it takes every cent I got,” he retorted stiffly. “Ain’t no one ever said yet that Jessie Bates don’t pay his debts.”

  He made her feel like a complete ass, which didn’t improve her disposition. “Just keep your money and forget it!” she muttered in angry self-disgust.

  As Joanna turned to stalk back to her car, she was confronted by the second man, the younger one. His vital, rough-hewn features were cut on hostile lines, cold and forbidding.

  “I can understand that you are upset because of the accident, Miss.” His steady voice was low and cutting. “But you could show better manners than to insult a person by saying he doesn’t have the money to pay, then refusing to accept his offer.”

  She was stung by his criticism and leapt to her own defense. “I’m upset and I’m hot and I’m tired. I’ve been driving on your wretched roads for more than two hours with a bunch of snails in front of me, no air-conditioning in the car, and in heat only the devil could tolerate. Without any warning, some jerk drives a team of mules out in front of me and my car winds up in a ditch. It isn’t even my car! It’s rented! I guess you could say I’m upset. Being lectured on manners is just about the last thing I’m in the mood for. I’m sorry I ever came here and I can hardly wait to leave!”

  His mouth was tight and thin. “We’ll be glad to help you on your way.” There was a bite of sarcasm in his voice. He turned his hard glance to the driver. “Put some rocks behind those wheels and unhitch the team so we can pull her car out of the ditch.”

  Her attention was split between the actions of the two men, the driver as he placed chunks of rock behind the wheels so the buckboard couldn’t roll backwards down the hill, then moved to unhitch the mule team from the wagon, and the tall, slightly arrogant stranger as he walked over to examine the rear of her car. When the driver began backing the harnessed mules up to her car, it suddenly became clear to Joanna what they were going to do.

  “You aren’t planning to use those mules to pull my car out of the ditch, are you?” she protested vigorously. “It’s because of them that it’s in the ditch!”

  “It seems only right that they get it out, then, don’t it?” the driver reasoned with defiant logic.

  Joanna breathed in a deep, angry breath, and vented her disapproval on the other man, bending close to the ground to attach a chain to the frame of her car. “I told you that car is rented. Enough has happened to me already because of those mules! Get something sane and sensible—like a truck, for heaven’s sake! I’ve had it with these four-legged beasts!”

  He paused to throw her a hard glance over his shoulder. “That makes two of us, Miss, because I’ve taken about all the sass I’m going to take from a woman,” he snapped. “You have two choices: either shut up and stay out of the way so we can pull your car out of the ditch, or keep talking and we’ll leave you here to get it out by yourself. Now, which is it to be?”

  She wished she knew whether it was a short walk to her uncle’s cabin or not. She’d love to tell them she didn’t need their help. But she suspected it was another three or four miles—not easy, flat miles—but three or four rough and winding mountain miles. Joanna pressed her lips tightly together in a mute reply to his question, indicating with her silence the choice she made.

  There wasn’t any change in his expression as he turned to complete his task, not uttering a word. When the mules were hooked up to the car, he slid behind the steering wheel to assist by guiding the car. Joanna stayed well out of the way, flinching when the mules threw their weight against the car and she heard the first crunch of the tires.

  The slow, steady pull of the mules began to drag the car out of the ditch without inflicting any damage on the muffler, tailpipe, or undercarriage. The combination of hundred degree temperatures, high humidity, and the air’s stillness made her conscious again of the oppressive heat. She felt the uncomfortable trickle of perspiration down her neck and into the valley formed by her breasts. A cool shower sounded like heaven at the moment.

  “Whoa up thare!”

  Her car was sitting squarely on the road once more. Joanna walked toward it as the man stepped out of the driver’s side. He was examining the front of the car when she reached it. The man in the baggy overalls was behind the car, unhooking his mules.

  “Some scratches from the cedar branches on the left fender and the dent in the bumper seem to be the extent of the damages,” the man announced to her.

  Joanna inspected the fenders, hood, and grill for herself and arrived at the same conclusion. Not even a headlamp had been broken.

  “It’s a small miracle,” she retorted and felt the hard pressure of his gaze on her. She lifted her gaze coolly to his face. “I suppose I should thank you for getting my car out of the ditch.”

  “I suppose you should,” he agreed, and the uncompromising set of his features set her teeth on edge.

  “Thank you.” The phrase was neither sincere, warm, nor grateful.

  There wasn’t any satisfaction in the way his mouth tightened at her rudeness. She felt boorish and he was the one who was the country bumpkin.

  He took a step to the side, out of her way. “You’d better start the motor to make sure it runs.”

  A little irritated that she hadn’t thought of that, she swept past him to climb behind the wheel. The motor kicked over on the first try and ran smoothly.

  “It works,” Joanna stated the obvious as the insufferable cowboy walked to the driver’s door she’d left standing open. He pushed it shut for he
r, as though silently sending Joanna on her way. “Excuse me.” Out of sheer stubbornness, she summoned him back. “My uncle has rented a cabin down this road somewhere—Reece Morgan. Would you tell me how much farther it is?”

  His eyes narrowed into burnished slits. “No.”

  Her temper flared at his blatant refusal. She shifted the car into gear and he stepped out of the way just as she pushed her foot down on the accelerator. A glance in the rear view mirror saw him encapsulated in the dust cloud swept up by her car.

  Very little of the dust actually reached Linc, but he narrowed his eyes against it to watch the car disappear around the next curve. He’d expected Reece’s niece to be something better than that ill-tempered spitfire. Reece was so mannerly and courteous, but the same certainly couldn’t be said for his niece. Linc was glad he hadn’t gotten around to accepting that dinner invitation. This was one he was definitely going to turn down.

  He turned to the buckboard and saw Jessie eyeing him with a knowing look. “I’wasn’t polite not to tell her how far it was to the cabin.”

  “I give as I get,” Linc reasoned, but indifferently.

  “Morgan’s niece, huh?” Jessie stayed with the subject of the girl.

  “That’s what she said.” Linc changed it. “This time I’ll drive ahead of you with the truck so you don’t run any more cars off the road.”

  “Don’t slow me down,” Jessie advised as he hooked the last trace. “Else these mules will run right up your backside.”

  Linc didn’t bother to respond to that boast, turning to walk to his truck.

  It turned out to be closer to five miles. Joanna was just beginning to think the cowboy hadn’t told her how far she had to go because she was on the wrong road. She was about ready to make up her mind to turn around when she saw the cabin.

  “If this isn’t Reece’s cabin, it will be the last straw,” she muttered to herself and turned the car into the short driveway. There was some consolation that the cabin looked civilized.

  Before she was fully out of the car, a cabin door opened and her uncle appeared. “Joanna!” He greeted her with a broad smile of welcome. “I was beginning to worry about you. Didn’t you say your plane was scheduled to arrive before two this afternoon?” As he came down the steps, he glanced at his watch. “It is nearly five. Was it delayed?”

  “No,” she swiftly corrected herself. “It was a few minutes late.” He looked so cool and unruffled that she couldn’t help wondering how he managed it in this heat.

  “Then what took you so long to get here?” he frowned, then asked, “Did you have trouble finding the place?”

  “Trouble is an understatement,” she replied with an edge of remembered anger in her voice. “I do hope that cabin has indoor plumbing . . . and air-conditioning!” she added on a hopeful note.

  “You are hot and tired after the trip,” he realized. “Come inside and have a cool drink, then you can tell me all about your trouble.” He curved his arm affectionately around her shoulders as he guided her to the cabin door. “And we do have indoor plumbing, but no air-conditioning. However, there is a cool breeze coming in from the lake.”

  “Do you mean they do have breezes in the Ozarks?” she murmured sardonically. “I was beginning to wonder.”

  The interior of the cabin seemed dark and cool after the brilliance of the afternoon that not even the shade of the trees had alleviated. She exhaled a relieved sigh, suddenly too tired and travel-worn to take in the furnishings of the rooms her uncle guided her through.

  He led her straight through the cabin to a screen door that opened onto a wide porch. Joanna collapsed into a cane-backed rocker while her uncle poured a glass of iced tea from a perspiring pitcher.

  She took a long swallow from the glass he gave her and leaned her head against the chair back. “I swear if this hadn’t been your cabin, Reece”—Joanna paused to shake her head—“I would have turned around and gone back to California.” She sat up. “I left the suitcases in the car.”

  “We can get them later,” he assured her.

  Joanna settled back into the chair. “I just don’t understand what you see in this godforsaken place,” she sighed, remembering all she had gone through to get here.

  “Godforsaken?” He frowned narrowly at her choice of adjectives. “It is far from ’godforsaken,’ Joanna. Just look at the beauty around you,” he demanded.

  It was rare for those dark eyes to look at her with disapproval. It wasn’t a comfortable feeling. His scolding tone forced her to look beyond the porch. The rocky clearing sloped down to the shimmering waters of a lake, the source of the breeze cooling her skin.

  On the opposite shore, there was another ridge of mountains, cloaked in a myriad of green shades and contrasted by a milk-blue sky. A flash of scarlet in the trees near the cabin caught her eye. She turned to see a black-beaked cardinal flitting among the tree limbs. A squirrel chattered angrily at the bird’s intrusion.

  “Godforsaken was perhaps the wrong word,” Joanna conceded, because there was the rustic beauty of nature around her, relatively untouched by civilization and untamed. “But you have to admit it’s far from anywhere—and next to impossible to reach.”

  “That is a part of its charm,” he smiled and settled into the matching rocking chair next to hers. “Its isolation. Its distance from large metropolitan centers. Getting here isn’t easy but once you are here—” He lifted his shoulders to indicate how little the hardships mattered.

  “You can say that but I’ll bet you didn’t drive twenty miles behind a fuel truck, then get stuck behind some farmer poking along to market, miss the turn to this road—which by any sane person’s standards doesn’t deserve to called a road.” She paused to cast a wary glance at her uncle. “I suppose that road is the only way out of this place.”

  “It is,” he admitted. “The spring rains eroded it badly. It is worse this year than it has ever been.” Then Reece Morgan picked up on what she had said. “You got lost.”

  “As far as I’m concerned, I wasn’t really lost. I just missed the turn. Of course, the man at the gas station who gave me directions felt that was a moot point,” Joanna inserted dryly. “Then when I did find the road, I almost ran into a pair of mules pulling a wagon. I ended up going into the ditch.”

  “You weren’t hurt, were you?” He studied her more closely, leaning forward with concern.

  “No. I didn’t get a scratch or a bruise. Luckily.” She was able to smile about it now as she took another drink of cold tea, her sense of humor slowly returning. “I thought I was seeing things when the mules and wagon suddenly pulled onto the road ahead of me,” she laughed briefly. “I want you to know that’s quite a shock for this California girl.”

  “I can imagine.” He chuckled with her. “It must have been Jessie Bates. He’s a marvelous character that lives in an old cabin up the road.”

  “Character is right, if it’s the same man.”

  “He was thin with overalls a size too big and hair that had probably never seen a comb,” her uncle described the man who had been driving the mules.

  “That’s him,” she nodded.

  “You should hear some of the stories he tells about these hills,” he said. “He is a natural storyteller. His tales are colored with regional phrases. He plays the fiddle, too, and the dulcimer, banjo. An extremely talented man. I’m convinced he dresses and acts the way he does to draw attention to himself—the way an actor would. But you’ll find that out for yourself.”

  “I doubt it,” Joanna grimaced. “After I landed in the ditch, I got a little upset and lost my temper. He took offense at some things I said.”

  “What did you say?” He eyed her, well aware that she occasionally lost control of her tongue.

  “After he admitted that he was at fault, he offered to pay for any damages to the car. To look at him, a person would think he didn’t have a dime to his name. I said as much.” She was still irritated with herself for talking without thinking about what she w
as saying. “I hurt his pride. So, I very much doubt that hell be interested in seeing me again.” Joanna shrugged, trying to pretend it didn’t matter, but she wasn’t normally unkind to people—not deliberately. “Of course, I won’t be here that long so there isn’t much chance of running into him again.” She winced. “That was a bad pun.”

  “I was hoping to persuade you to spend the rest of my month here,” Reece stated. “I have some work that, unfortunately, can’t wait until I get back. I thought it would be good practice for you to stay and help me with it.”

  “I don’t know.” Joanna hesitated. “Mother is expecting me back the day after tomorrow.”

  “You are twenty-one. You don’t need her permission.” He dismissed that excuse. “Besides, I want to correct your impression of these Ozark Mountains and the people.” Inside the cabin, a telephone rang. “Excuse me.” He rose from his chair and entered the cabin to answer it.

  Joanna took another drink from her iced tea and leaned back in her chair to close her eyes and dream about the shower she was going to take just as soon as she got some energy.

  He answered the phone on the fourth ring. “Reece Morgan speaking,” he identified himself.

  “Reece, this is Linc,” came the reply.

  “Linc, I’m glad you called. My niece just arrived a few minutes ago. Will you be able to come to dinner tonight?” Linc Wilder had become a good friend, someone Reece took special interest in, as he did in his niece.

  He was looking forward to Linc and Joanna meeting. Naturally, since he had affection for both of them, he expected them to like each other. Beyond that, he didn’t plan. If anything developed, it would happen on its own. But it was a wish he subconsciously made.

  There was a pause that seemed heavy. It drew the jet-dark brows together as Reece tried to guess at the reason. Linc wasn’t usually a taciturn man.

  “Sorry, I won’t be able to make it this time.” Linc’s voice sounded casual, natural. Reece briefly shook his head, deciding he had imagined it. “I’ll have to take a raincheck.”

  “You are always welcome here, Linc. If you’re not busy, stop by tomorrow night—if not for dinner, then later in the evening,” Reece invited.