Free The Mountain Midwife by Laurie Alice Eakes

did, he possessed prettier eyes. Hers were merely brown like her father’s. Though Momma’s and her brothers’ eyes were pretty, being a bright sky blue, they didn’t compare with these bloodshot but still startling gemstone-blue eyes.
    She must have been staring, for he gave her a quizzical glance, then slid his glasses back onto a bony nose in annoyingly exact proportion to the rest of his face, not small and a little too high-bridged like hers.
    “But you’re too young.” Frowning, he shoved his fingers through his slightly curly dark hair.
    With that gesture, Ashley recognized him. Now the name clicked home, along with the voice. Not so long ago, she had been drooling—figuratively speaking—over his pictures on TV.
    “What are you doing on Brooks Ridge?” The question popped out before she thought better of being so blunt.
    He lifted his shoulders and rolled them back as though dislodging a burden. “I’m looking for a woman who was a midwife here thirty-two years ago.”
    “My grandmother. She’s been gone for six years.”
    “I was afraid of that.” His broad shoulders drooped. “My . . . father said I should call ahead, but it was the middle of the night . . .” He trailed off and cast a glance of loathing at his vehicle, a Mercedes she noticed now that it was up close. “I suppose you wouldn’t know anything about her patients?”
    “I suppose I would. She kept meticulous records.”
    She knew about the records of every midwife in her family for the past two hundred years. All the women’s journals and patient logs were clear and detailed except during and right after the War Between the States, when paper was expensive and scarce.
    “But they are confidential without permission from the patient herself.”
    “That’s the difficulty. I’m trying to find the patient herself and hoped I could do so through the midwife.” He hooked his thumbs into the pockets of his bomber jacket and gazed at a point beyond Ashley’s shoulder. “I just drove nearly six hours to get down here.”
    “It’s that vital?” Ashley stared at him. “I mean, for you to drive all night after all you’ve been through?” He looked impossibly more weary than she felt with his red-rimmed eyes and shoulders that appeared strong enough to bear tremendous burdens, but had just been laden with the last straw. “Is this personal or business? I mean, you can get a warrant.”
    He could be a federal agent of some sort, though his dress of leather jacket and jeans was a bit casual. But wait. Hadn’t the news reported that he did something else more cerebral or, no, physical?
    That picture of him with his shirt plastered to a rather fine body flashed through her mind, and the sun suddenly felt like mid-summer heat on her face. That titillating glimpse of a buff male body had done exactly what the news station wanted—titillated her. Shame on her. Now she couldn’t look at him without thinking of that picture. The poor man had been objectified when he was only trying to keep a little girl from running into a busy street—a little girl in another country. That meant he must have traveled for hours and faced the media circus before he drove six hours from Washington, DC, in search of her grandmother, and Ashley was keeping him standing at the foot of the drive in still-frosty temperatures.
    “I wish I could invite you to the house for coffee.” A twinge of guilt pinched her, as she didn’t wish for any such thing. She wanted sleep, not someone else’s problems, for at least four hours. “Mr. McDermott, I recognize who you are and realize you must be worn out.” She went for practical suggestions, as though he were one of her patients. “Don’t you think you oughta get some sleep and find another way to hunt up . . . whoever it is you want to find?”
    “That would be the logical thing to do.” He smiled.
    Ashley’s stomach spiraled into a loopty-loop like an out-of-control roller coaster. That smile softened the