Mountain Mystic by Debra Dixon Page A

you’re going to have to do me a favor.”
    “I’d love to do you … a favor.”
    Victoria let out a gasp at his innuendo.
    “Something wrong?” Joshua asked innocently.
    Smart enough to avoid trouble, Victoria didn’t explain her reaction. Ever since Joshua asked her to the dance, thinking of him as just a friend had become hopeless unless the emotions allowed between friends were revised to include lust. She grabbed her purse from the shelf by the door and locked up the cabin.
    “Look, I’ll sacrifice my dignity and ride on your motorcycle if you help me track down a granny-midwife that might still be alive. One of my patients couldn’t remember the name, but said there was a mountain midwife actually practicing up until about fifteen years ago. I’ve been meaning to ask Dr. Grenwald, but he and Helen took that vacation to Minnesota to see their newest great-grandbaby.”
    Apprehension tightened Joshua’s shoulders as he watched her slip the key in her purse.
A granny was practicing until fifteen years ago when I left the mountains, and she didn’t have a way to visit her patients anymore.
The last thing he wanted to do was help Victoria find his ninety-two-year-old grandmother, who kept
Touching History
prominently displayed on her coffee table. It was a miracle that he’d been able to keep his alter ego from Victoria this long.
    He was going to the dance in Mention only because he didn’t have much contact with anyone there. What little family he had left in the mountains lived around the Logan’s Hollow point of the triangle. He doubted he would be recognized at a crowded gatheringof people who weren’t expecting
the
Joshua Logan to drop in on their festivities.
    He’d be safe tonight, but once Victoria met his grandmother, the charade would be over. He’d spent a great deal of time in the past few years feeling like a bug under glass. He didn’t want to go back to that. Not yet anyway. He hated the thought that once Victoria put two and two together, she would begin to look at him in that dissecting way that medical people had, trying to figure out if he was a fake or simply crazy. He didn’t want his grandmother subjected to that kind of scrutiny either.
    As he casually descended the steps and threw a leg over the gleaming black motorcycle, he made a decision. If Victoria was going to find his grandmother, she’d have to do it on her own, without help from him. He maneuvered the bike into position beside the bottom step and held out his hand to steady Victoria as he asked, “Why do you want to waste time talking to someone who hasn’t delivered a baby in fifteen years?”
    Victoria widened her eyes at his negative attitude. “Waste of time? How can you say that? You grew up here. The Appalachians are the oldest mountains on this continent. Some of the oldest healing in America is centered right here. You betcha I want to track this woman down if she’s alive.” While she talked, Victoria put her hand in his, held the edge of her dress, and eased onto the motorcycle behind him. “Think of what she can teach me about folk medicine. She’d actually have used herbal medicine instead of repeatingwhat someone told her. Think of how many babies the woman delivered, how many problems she’s faced, how much she knows that can’t be learned from books.”
    Joshua handed her a helmet, silently cursing the enthusiasm he heard in her voice. She wasn’t going to be easily discouraged, but he tried anyway. “Fifteen years is a long time, and she was already an old woman when she retired.”
    “You know her?” Victoria exclaimed, stopping in the middle of putting on the headgear.
    Joshua winced, glad she couldn’t see his face. “No. I figure she had to be old if she retired.”
    “Oh,” she said, her enthusiasm dampened but not gone. “Well … I still want to try.”
    Turning the key, Joshua let the noise of the engine drown out his need to give her an answer. “Hold on.”
    Victoria