Read Mountain Mystic for Free Online

bothered him all right. “Why do you want to rent this place?” he asked. “Bodewell might not be up to par according to Connecticut standards, but the houses there have got to be better than my cabin.”
    “Bodewell isn’t right smack in the middle of the Triangle.”
    “I know that.”
    “Think about it. As the crow flies, getting back and forth around the Triangle is easy. Except none of the roads is exactly a straight shot to anywhere. If I live in Bodewell, it’ll take me at least an hour to get to my other clinics. I can live here and get anywhere in a half hour. Living here would be best.”
    “For whom?”
    “For everyone.”
    “For everyone but me,” Joshua corrected her. “I don’t want neighbors, and I don’t want to be a landlord.”
    “You won’t hear so much as a peep out of me. All you’d have to do is fix the roof. Surely, you were planning to do that anyway.” She crossed her arms, daring him to dispute her logic. “You wouldn’t just leave it like that and ruin the cabin.”
    No, he wouldn’t, but that didn’t make him like the idea of having a neighbor any better. Especially Victoria. He felt drawn to her. Living in this cabin, she’d be much too close, too accessible when he felt the need to talk. The whole idea of coming back to East Tennessee was to soak up solitude, not make new friends. Proximity usually led to companionship.
    Sex he could handle. He wasn’t so certain about friendship. He was tired of being disappointed in people, tired of being used by those he trusted.
    “Victoria, you aren’t going to like living here. It’s too quiet for most people.”
    “I’m not most people,” she reminded him.
    “So you keep telling me.” Lie rubbed the back of his neck. “You know there are cougars in this part of the country.”
    “Oh, please! I’ve already read all the travel brochures. There hasn’t been a cougar even photographed in East Tennessee for something like fifty years. I doubt very seriously that I’m going to have to fight off big cats. Unless I buy one myself.”
    They stood for a few moments, sizing each otherup, weighing the possibilities. Finally, Joshua said, “You’ll have to take the couch, armchairs, and the bed. I’m not moving them.”
    “Great, Then I won’t have to buy furniture.”
    “You don’t have any?” Joshua asked incredulously.
    “No. I sold everything but the Range Rover before I came here,” she told him, trying not to think of all the personal possessions she’d had to get rid of because she couldn’t afford to move them or store them. She hadn’t wanted to send them to Connecticut either. Her mother didn’t like “junk.”
    Catching the wistful tone of her admission, Joshua asked, “Nothing like burning your bridges, is there?”
    “It’s an experience.” Then she laughed. “Not to mention intensely motivating.”
    “I’ll bet.” Joshua took her elbow and led her toward the front of the cabin. “You’d better look inside again before you make up your mind.”
    “Oh, my mind is made up. Don’t you worry about that.”
    Joshua stepped up on the porch and held the door open as she entered the cabin. “You may change your mind when I tell you how much the rent is.”
    “Ha! I knew this was coming. Grenwald warned me that you’d try to take advantage of me.”
    Looking at her back, Joshua raised an eyebrow and decided that old Doc Grenwald hadn’t been far off the mark. He did want to take advantage of Victoria, but it had nothing to do with rent.

    About halfway to the old—to Victoria’s cabin, Joshua decided walking had been a bad idea. It gave him too much time to think about her. He should have ridden the motorcycle; if he drove fast enough, he wasn’t able to think about anything but the road.
    Thinking about Victoria shouldn’t have been a problem. She’d been true to her word about being a model tenant. She hadn’t dropped by for a cup of sugar. She hadn’t asked him to change so much as a