Beyond the Cherokee Trail. Lisa Carter
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or otherwise.
Maybe not handsome exactly, she amended her mental perusal. But interesting, with his raven black hair skimmed out of his broad face into a band at the back of his head. Unlike the usual corporate guys of her acquaintance. Unlike The Jerk and his cloned horde of frat brothers, who took clean cut—if not respectable—to a new level.
Then again, being so different from The Jerk and his ilk could only be a point in Crowe’s favor.
Ross handed a cup to Marvela. “Just catchin’ up. The time got away from us.”
Marvela giggled.
Giggled?
She raised her eyebrows at her grandmother, which Marvela—being Marvela—ignored.
Marvela gripped the coffee pot. “Do you still take your coffee black, Ross?” The “r” elongated in the air, Miss Ophelia-style.
Linden’s gaze sharpened on her grandmother. She probed the look exchanged between Gram and Walker Crowe’s uncle as Marvela passed the old gent his cup.
Marvela thrust the china plate stacked with her famous Cinnamon Delights at Linden. “Pass the cookies around, Linden. And what about you, Walker, darlin’?”
Linden nudged Walker with the plate. Guests first, but her mouth watered, anticipating the cinnamon chips melting against her tongue.
It was the cookie she craved, wasn’t it?
“Uh . . .” Walker tore his eyes from her face—again—and took the plate from her hand.
What was with him? Did she have snakes coiling around her head? After the heavy lifting in the attic today, she didn’t look her best, but really?
And he wasn’t exactly a big talker. Although after the smooth-talking, full of you-know-what kind of eloquence from The Jerk, silence could be golden.
“Cr-Cream,” Mr. Big Communicator stuttered.
His eyes, the blackest she’d ever seen in real life, fell to the plate in his hand. He shoved a whole cinnamon-studded cookie into his mouth. A wide, full-lipped mouth.
“Sugar, hon?”
Linden shot Marvela a suspicious glance. What was this Hostess-with-the-Mostest routine? The B & B didn’t open for another six weeks. Why the Martha Stewart practice session?
“No shuggg . . .” Walker said around a mouthful of cookie. His big hand wrapped around the delicate porcelain plate.
Long, strong brown fingers. She made a conscious effort to peel her eyes off Walker Crowe. And failed.
Because despite the red flannel shirt and cell phone affixed to the pocket of his blue jeans—all of which he filled out so well—there was something wild and untamed about him. Exciting and scary, all at the same instant. And it was so not fair a man possessed those cheekbones.
What was wrong with her today?
Marvela reached for the cream pitcher. “Linden likes a little coffee with her cream. I keep pouring till she tells me to stop.”
Linden shook herself from her contemplation of the Cherokee enigma beside her. “Till it’s the color of beech trees in winter.”
He choked.
Linden grabbed his plate as he hunched. She pounded him on the back with her other hand. And, after his snarky remarks moments earlier, none too gently.
Sputtering, he clamped a hand over his mouth to prevent cookie crumbs from splattering her grandmother’s refurbished parlor. His face, a naturally dusky color, turned an unhealthy shade of red. His eyes watered.
Ross set aside his cup and started to his feet.
For pity’s sake.
“Here,” Linden handed Walker a napkin. “Arms up,” she commanded. “Over your head. Did your mama never teach you what to do when you’re choking?”
She hauled him to his feet. “Don’t make me do the Heimlich on you.”
Confusion, humiliation, and distress crisscrossed his stoic features, but she used the voice her dad utilized with first-year med students. And the six-foot plus Cherokee obeyed, coughing and towering over her. He shoved his long arms toward the ceiling like a teller in a bank holdup. His broad shoulders tapered to a narrow waist above his jeans.
Her mind wandered for a second, illogically wondering what it’d be like to wrap her arms around his sturdy frame—and from her up close and personal vantage point—well-defined middle.
Marvela thrust a glass of water in Walker’s hand. “My son, Linden’s dad, teaches at the hospital in Chapel Hill.” She squeezed Linden’s shoulder. “Guess you absorbed something over the years, huh?”
Wrinkling her forehead, Linden sniffed the air. “Gram? What’s that smell—are you frying chicken?”
Marvela clamped a hand over her mouth. “Ross.”
Again with the r-r-r-r’s?
Ross sprinted out of the parlor with Marvela hot on his heels.
“It’s my contribution to the Indian dinner being held at the church tonight,” Marvela called over her shoulder.
Walker gulped down three-quarters of the water.
Between the rattling of pans in the kitchen and Walker’s noisy attempts to regain his composure, Linden wrung her hands. “Do you need my help, Gram?”
“No,” bellowed Marvela from the kitchen. “Ross and I have it under control. Just in time . . .”
“What’s an . . .” Linden lowered the decibel of her voice and faced Walker dabbing at his eyes with the mauve-colored napkin. “What’s an Indian dinner?”
He set the glass on the table with a ping. “Lesson number one.” He scowled.
Good to know the belligerence as well as his dignity had been restored.
“An Indian dinner sells plates of food to the public to raise money for hospital bills, pay for local team uniforms, or to support the volunteer Cartridge Cove Fire Department. This one’s put on by the church your grandmother, my mother, Irene Crowe, and I attend.”
She quirked an eyebrow. “You attend church?”
A comment that earned her another scowl.
“You don’t?”
Two could play this porcupine game.
“Not if I can help it.”
He set his jaw. “Like I said, if you want to understand the Cherokee you’ve got to understand their heart. And a large part of their Snowbird heart revolves around community and church. It might just behoove you, Miz Birchfield,” he drawled. “To join your grandmother tonight for a worthy cause and get to know some of the people you’re supposed to be serving.”
She pushed back her shoulders. “Well, maybe I will, but not because you think you can boss me around. You’re not the boss of me, Walker Crowe. Nobody is.”
He threw the napkin on the table as Marvela and Ross rejoined them. “Which, I suspect, lies at the heart of your personal problems.”
Walker wheeled past his uncle. “I should’ve already picked up Emmaline by now.”
So he’d assigned a field trip for her—a church field trip from the sounds of it—while Snowbird’s gift to womankind gallivanted all over the county with a date? She hadn’t realized it was possible for someone’s blood to boil as hers did now. She’d have to remember to ask her dad about it later.
Ross stared between the two of them. “So soon?”
Marvela laid a restraining arm on Ross’s shoulder. “Can’t we—?”
Linden sidestepped