Read Online Mountain Song by Ruby Laska - Free Book Online Page B

her grandmother was going to return
to her home, no matter what Andy said. Claudia would see to that.
    But now her arms felt
leaden, her face tired. Between the hard physical work of the early part of the
day, her confrontation with Andy (she didn’t even want to think of what
preceded it) and the hours she’d spent with Bea at the hospital, she felt
exhausted. Overwhelmed. Beaten.
    A knock splintered the
silence, and then she heard the door swing open.
    “Claudia?”
    Andy. She sank back into
the straight-back kitchen chair. He would insist on coming in, no matter what
she said, so there was no point in trying to talk him out of it.
    She’d dreaded seeing
him at the hospital. Bea, for her part, kept mum on the subject, not mentioning
Andy at all. But then Bea hadn’t had a lot to say today about anything.
    When the hours passed
without his appearance, Claudia began to hope that she might not have to deal
with Andy again today.
    No such luck.
    “Hello, Claudia.”
    Andy’s large frame
filled the kitchen doorway, and he hesitated. Claudia’s hands went to her hair,
smoothing, twisting, before she became aware of the gesture and forced her
hands back on the table, crossed awkwardly like some defendant in a courtroom.
    He had been right
earlier: there was still something powerful between them. Looking up at Andy,
Claudia felt overpowered, disadvantaged. She tried to distance herself, look at
him critically, anxious to isolate exactly what it was that drew her with such
irrational attraction. If she could understand it, she could overcome it.
    And so she searched. A
day’s growth of beard only sculpted the planes of his face further, giving him
a sort of devil-may-care appeal that contradicted the exhaustion apparent in
the deep circles under his eyes. Even his hospital scrubs couldn’t dilute his
unconscious sensuality. Andy Woods moved like a tiger, quietly, deliberately,
with a coiled power simmering below the surface. As he leaned on the door jamb
just a few feet away from her, Claudia felt his draw on her as powerfully as
that first time she spotted him through a cloud of powder as she swooshed into
a tight stop at the base of the lift line.
    “Sit down,” Claudia
said warily, motioning to the chair across the table from her. “I’m afraid I
don’t have much to offer in the hospitality department. Shall I heat up another
Lean Cuisine?”
    That earned her a
short, mirthless laugh. “Thanks. That’s even right off my usual menu, but I
think I’ll pass.”
    He slid into the chair
across from her. The tile-topped table was small, and his knees nearly touched
hers. Idly he removed his plastic hospital ID card and flipped it back and
forth over his fingers. Claudia watched, grateful for the diversion.
    “You’ve been working
hard,” Andy finally said, after an uncomfortable silence stretched between
them. “I barely recognize the place. I can’t imagine where you’ve hidden all
the junk. And it smells a hell of a lot better in here, too.”
    “Lysol, Windex,
Pledge, Comet,” Claudia ticked off on her fingers. “With a liberal dose of
potpourri. I couldn’t find the good stuff, like Bea makes from her flower
garden, so I had to settle for that fake pine stuff.” She wrinkled her nose,
but in truth it was such a huge improvement over the musty smell she’d driven
out that she felt a little surge of accomplishment. And pleasure that he’d
taken note.
    “And you got the
windows open. Nice breeze.”
    “Yeah. They’re saying
it won’t get below sixty tonight, and so I thought...”
    Claudia let her voice
trail away. Even silence was better than exchanging banal pleasantries with
Andy. Twelve hours ago she’d writhed in his arms. Eleven hours ago they’d faced
off over a chasm of history and hurt.
    And now they were
chatting at the table like a pair of housewives.
    “Well.” Andy reached
for the briefcase he’d placed on the floor, drawing out a thick sheaf of
papers, which he dropped on the table