Mountain Mystic Read Online Free PDF

toasty warm in that house, mind you, but you’ll be warm enough.”
    Click.
As the doctor talked, the puzzle pieces slipped into place. Joshua was moving into that big showplace over the ridge, and he wouldn’t need the cabin. Victoria looked down at the map in front of her. “Doc, could you show me exactly where the cabin is?”
    After studying the squiggly lines for a moment, Grenwald poked a finger down on a spot. “Here. Orclose enough anyway. When Joshua has the phone line brought into the new place, you could have service run over to the old cabin for next to nothing. Or you could use a mobile phone like he’s been doing. The cabin’s already got electricity.”
    In disbelief, Victoria swept her eyes from Bodewell down to Mention, across to Logan’s Hollow, and back up to Bodewell. Joshua’s cabin was right smack in the middle of the Triangle. She’d be able to get just about anywhere she needed to go in thirty minutes or so.
    “Doc, how much do you think I ought to offer in rent?”
    Twilight was beginning to color the sky by the time Victoria stopped her truck in front of Joshua’s unlit cabin. Why couldn’t the man be home at dinnertime like the rest of the world? She wanted to wrap up this deal before anyone else beat her to it.
    The location was perfect. If Grenwald said the house was sound, then she was ready to sign a lease on the dotted line. As one of the few doctors in the area, he knew everything about the Triangle. He didn’t always tell, but he knew.
    Victoria banged a hand on the steering wheel. Just because Joshua wasn’t there didn’t mean she couldn’t look around outside. No sense letting daylight go to waste, she thought as she opened the door of her truck. The yard was more weeds than grass, but she wouldn’t have to worry about any of that until spring,when she put in the herb garden, assuming there was a suitable patch of ground.
    As she passed the porch, she noticed the rocking chairs were gone, probably pulled inside for the winter. When she got around to the back, she saw a small addition jutting out and suspected it was the bathroom. Surprised, she realized the tarpaulin-covered object tucked beneath the roof overhang was actually a motorcycle.
    Good grief, she thought. Who in their right mind would ride a motorcycle on these twisty roads? Surely not Joshua. He didn’t look crazy, but she hadn’t seen any sign of a car at either house.
    Turning away from the cycle, she was overwhelmed by the sight of rhododendrons rising twenty feet into the air. Beyond the small backyard was an honest-to-God forest. Tulip trees towered more than four stories tall. She realized that trees just as big had probably been cut down with a two-man handsaw to clear out a space for the old cabin behind her.
    She looked at the forest with something close to wonder. Soon the crisp nights would work their magic and set the deep green forest ablaze. She couldn’t begin to imagine having a ringside seat for the show. Breathing in the clean air, she tested it for that brisk quality she associated with the arrival of fall. Not yet, she thought, but close. Real close.
    “Impressed?”
    Victoria screamed and jumped from where she’d been standing. Once she realized that it was Joshua who had spoken, she stilled her instinct to flee andsucked oxygen into her lungs in great gulps. Waving off his attempt to put a supporting arm around her, she rasped, “Good God! Don’t you know better than to sneak up on people?”
    “I hardly ever sneak up on people I’ve invited. They’re expecting me and I’m expecting them. You see, that’s how an invitation works. I invite you, and then we agree on a time.”
    So much for making an organized and professional impression
, Victoria thought. Even in the dusk she could tell that he was quite happy with himself. She also noticed the well-worn jeans that were thin and molded to all the right places. The white T-shirt revealed muscle definition that the chamois shirt