Free The Mountain Midwife by Laurie Alice Eakes Page B

jerk of shoulder. What those movements conveyed by way of emotional or any other kind of reaction he couldn’t be sure without having seen her full-on. But a full-on look was probably not a good idea at the moment, in his weakened state of being physically and emotionally drained.
    Quite simply, Ashley McDermott was just too beautiful to look at face-to-face without the buffer of sleep and intellectual strength.
    He had always considered brown eyes uninteresting and dull, too much like the dirt he sometimes saw too much of in his work. But Ashley Tolliver’s eyes were more than brown. They shimmered with sparks of golden light despite the hint of redness in the whites suggesting she was as fatigued as he was. Likewise, her face sagged with weariness, yet the bruise-like circles beneath her extraordinary eyes emphasized the height and clear shape of her cheekbones, and her complexion could not be more pure and smooth had she been created of porcelain and cloth like a doll’s visage. Her loose jeans and heavy jacket disguised a feminine shape. He could only see that she was a little above average height for a female and on the slender side. With a face like hers, who cared what her form was. And that braid of hair shining in the sunlight would make any normal man want to tug the band from the end and pull the tightly bound strands free to see if they truly did ripple with half a dozen hues from honey to maple to gold.
    She took a step toward him, halted, then shook her head. “I don’t know what to tell you, Mr. McDermott, except—” Facing him fully, she worried her lower lip for a moment, then her shoulders rose and fell as though she heaved a deep sigh. “I may as well suggest that you not go hunting through the mountains on your own.”
    “I go to some pretty remote and dangerous places in the world. I know how to defend myself.”
    “Not that.” She laughed aloud, a ripple of liquid sunshine to warm the day. “We aren’t a bunch of trigger-happy rednecks waiting to shoot anyone who comes near. Not that I don’t think some of those kind exist, but mostly folks around here are friendly. I am more concerned about you getting lost or that fancy car of yours getting beat up on the roads. Most of them aren’t paved and some of the hills get pretty steep and you won’t always find guardrails where you think you should.”
    “Nothing can be worse than some of the places I’ve been in South America or Africa, or even Europe.”
    “Suit yourself, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.” She started up the drive again, then paused long enough to toss over her shoulder, “I’ll do some hunting if I have time.”
    “That’s all I can ask.”
    But not all he could do. As she had said herself, this was Brooks Ridge. Surely someone would know where to find Sheila Brooks. She had lived in those hills for fifty years or so. She had to shop, work, go to church, do something in one of the small towns dotting the gaps between mountains. Surely the roads between towns were paved and marked well enough for him to begin his search there.
    He waved to Miss Tolliver out his window, but he didn’t think she could have noticed on her way up to the house he saw only from the end of the driveway because of the leafless trees. In spring and summer, the house would be hidden from the road—hidden and isolated.
    Was she there alone? She hadn’t seemed frightened when he pulled up. Surely, if a woman was safe alone in these hills, warnings from his parents and business partner were unfounded. Miss Tolliver claimed people didn’t run a body off with a shotgun if they accidentally got on their property. Still, he would proceed with caution. Before going anywhere into the depths of the hills and hollows, he would research at the nearest library and then return to his motel and get some sleep.
    He backed onto the road and headed for town. On the console beside him, his cell phone rang. He ignored it. Several messages pinged into place.