Read Mountain Song for Free Online

time...” Andy paused, arrested by
the sudden mental image of Claudia skimming her pants over her long legs. An
image from the past, tight ski pants in a rich shade of berry, an endless
expanse of smooth skin from her ankle to the tantalizing edge of her lace
panties...
    Where the hell had
that come from?
    “Yeah. Well, seeing as
you’re not interested in her, mind if I take a shot?”
    Andy whipped his head
up so fast it sent a thunder crack of pain through his pounding temples. But
Rick was just grinning at him, the twin dimples giving him away.
    “Aw, keep your shirt
on, man, I was just giving you a hard time. I know better than to tread into
your territory.”
    “I don’t know what you’re
talking about,” Andy mumbled, standing up and shoving his chair under the desk
a little harder than necessary. “And I don’t much give a damn what you do.”
    But that wasn’t
entirely true, he realized as he snapped off the light and followed his friend
back into the hospital’s busy corridor..
    When it came to
Claudia, he was beginning to realize, he still minded.
    Quite a bit more than
he should.
     
     
    “Ow!”
    Claudia reached for
her shin, touching the skin gingerly. At least nothing seemed to be bleeding or
broken, as far as she could tell. With considerably more caution she edged to
the right, hands stretched out in the dark, fumbling to avoid whatever she’d
cracked her leg against.
    The phone kept
ringing, its strident note old-fashioned, impossibly loud in the pitch
darkness. Bea refused to carry a cell phone; Claudia wouldn’t be surprised if
she had hung on to that old black rotary-dial number. Where the heck had she
kept it? Claudia squeezed her eyes shut—kind of ridiculous in the total
darkness—and tried to visualize the room as she’d left it four years
before.
    That little oak table.
The one with the stained glass cabinet panel, over by the window...
    “Ow!”
    ...right behind that
massive mission-style wooden chair. The one that she had just managed to bark
her other shin on. Bea’s rooms were so crammed with treasures accumulated over
the decades, it was hard enough to navigate with the benefit of being able to
see where one was going.
    Falling to her hands
and knees, Claudia closed the gap between her and the source of the endless
ringing by groping and crawling between the objects in her path. When the
ringing seemed to be coming from right above her, she fumbled along the legs of
the old table until she found the phone.
    “Hello?”
    “What took you so
long?”
    Claudia froze, then
slowly inched her hand across the rug, until she found the leg of a familiar
brocade chair. She managed to lever herself into it without any further injury.
    She really should just
hang up. The day had been too long already. It hardly seemed fair that she
should have to contend with Andy again now.
    “Claudia? You still
there?”
    “Yes, I’m here. Sitting
in the dark. Do you have any idea why none of the lights in this place seem to
be working?”
    There was a pause, on
his end this time. A long one. Claudia was sure she could hear Andy breathing.
    “No idea. Tell you
what though, let me come take a look in the morning. I have a key.”
    “You...have a key?”
    “Yeah. I like to, you
know, look in on her once in a while.”
    “You and she seem to
have gotten pretty chummy.” Claudia regretted the proprietary note in her
voice. “Look, what can I do for you, anyway?”
    “I don’t suppose she
told you, ah, much more after I left.”
    “Much more about what?
What exactly is it you two are holding out on me?”
    “Look, Claudia, I’m no
happier to have to discuss this with you than you are to hear it from me, I’m
sure—”
    “I didn’t mean it that
way. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it any way at all, it’s just been about the
longest day of my life—”
    “Why don’t you wait
for me there in the morning,” Andy said, cutting her off. “I’ll come over
before work. We can talk