The Witch of Roan Mountain Read online

  The first drop of rain hit her just as she tucked the papers into her notebook.

  She started walking from the back of the cemetery toward the iron gate, the rain intensifying with each step. By the time she reached the fence, she knew she was in trouble. The rain came down in cold sheets. Maeve was soaked to the bone.

  The road going back to civilization was going to be a bitch. Maybe she’d wait out the rain, see if it slacked off before she tried the drive.

  She tucked her notebook under her shirt, trying to protect it, but her shirt was getting soaked. Her hair clung the side of her face in clumps and she was pretty sure she’d never be able to salvage her Keen shoes.

  She’d made a rookie mistake and parked her car so that it pointed up the mountain instead of down. It was beneath the cemetery and mud was washing against her tires already. The small wash between Maeve and the Volvo was quickly becoming a river. She had no idea how she was even going to cross it, much less free her car from the mud so she could get back to the main road.

  Maeve kept praying the rain would let up, but instead, it intensified.

  After thirty minutes, she could take no more. Soaked to the bone, she pulled her cellphone from the pocket of her skirt and turned it on. It hadn’t worked in days because there was never any signal up here, but it was worth a try.

  It wasn’t like she had another option.

  After it powered up, she held it up in the air and tried to find the best signal. She took several steps backward, checking the bars in the top right hand corner of her screen.

  She nearly jumped up and down when she got one measly bar. Maeve dialed 911 and crossed her fingers, hoping the call would go through before it dropped.

  “Avery County 911. What’s your emergency?”

  Maeve breathed a sigh of relief and talked fast. “I’m stuck at the cemetery at the top of Sugar Mountain Road.” It was hard to hear the woman’s voice over the steady rhythm of the rain. “Can you send someone?”

  “What’s your name, ma’am?”

  “Maeve McMahan.”

  She could’ve sworn the woman giggled before saying, “We’ll dispatch...” The connection went dead.

  Maeve crossed her fingers that someone would get to her soon. She was hoping it wasn’t Campbell. She’d seen enough of him for a while.

  *****

  Campbell tore up the mountain. After slamming his Ford Explorer into four-wheel drive, he drove as fast as he could toward the graveyard at the top. He steered around the ruts and washouts, navigating the road like the SUV was an extension of his body. He slid back and forth in the slick mud, cursed and pressed the gas down harder.

  He’d finished his shift and was on his way to the hospital to check on Granny when dispatch called him. The only other deputy on duty was all the way across the county and the dispatcher had coded this as a priority call. He’d hopped into his private vehicle which was much better than his Charger for these conditions.

  Maeve. In trouble again. Imagine that.

  That girl had only been home a few days, and she’d brought nothing but chaos. Her granny had a broken leg, she’d seen a ghost and now she was stuck at the top of Sugar Mountain in a gullywasher.

  The weather changed fast up here. He’d seen days when it was seventy degrees at noon and snowing buckets by sundown. Maeve knew better than to venture out to a remote location alone with bad weather on the way. She was a native, for God’s sake, not a silly tourist.

  There never was any talking sense to that girl.

  He was off duty and rushing to her rescue. Again.

  The rain was coming down so hard, it rushed over the windshield like a solid wall of water.

  Damn Maeve. Hadn’t she ever heard of checking the weather?

  By the time her got to the end of the road, he was furious. He left the Explorer running and hopped out, slamming the door as hard as he could. “Maeve,” he hollered. “Where are you?”

  Her car, a Volvo coupe that didn’t belong anywhere higher than Asheville, wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Mud was halfway up the tires and still sloshing down the steep hill.

  “Over here! I’m stuck!” She was standing beneath the branches of a Poplar tree.

  But he saw her. All of her. The white T-shirt she was wearing didn’t hide anything. Her dark skin was visible under her shirt and her nipples were hard. No bra. Holy smokes. Her low-slung skirt clung to her hips and showed a stripe of flat stomach. She’d always been beautiful, but he’d never seen her like this. It was something he’d fantasized since the first time he’d seen her. Making love to Maeve in a rainstorm. It was in the top five, for sure. Maybe the top two.

  “Can you stop staring at me and help?” she shouted.

  Right. He wasn’t here to ogle her. He was here to rescue her.

  There was a huge torrent of water rushing between them. It was too wide for her to jump and too fast to attempt to wade through. Shit. He’d have to meet her halfway or throw her a rope.

  “Did you even watch the weather this morning?” Campbell yelled over the roar.

  “I thought I could beat it,” was her answer.

  Campbell shook his head. He took a few steps toward her. Water rushed around his feet, coming all the way above the hem of his pants. He had a nylon rope in the car but he wanted to try it by hand first. “I’m going to see if I can stretch far enough for you to grab my hand.”

  Maeve nodded and stepped closer to the rushing water. Campbell anchored his feet and bent at the waist. Stretching across the water, he reached for her hand.

  With a grunt, she grabbed it. The feel of her hand rushed through him like the heat of a shot of moonshine. He’d forgotten what it felt like to touch her bare skin.

  “On three, you jump and I’m going to pull you toward me.” She nodded. “One, two, three!”

  Campbell used the muscles in his legs to pull her toward him. One moment she was across the water and the next she was in his arms. Her body was pressed against his. The heat of her. The feel of her.

  Her lips were inches from hers. She smelled like apple blossoms and fresh earth. The only thing separating them was the rain. Her eyes, blue as cold fire, met his. When she took her bottom lip between her teeth, Campbell couldn’t resist the pull of her.

  The resolve he’d spent years building washed away, and there was nothing but Maeve, the storm, and him alone on the top of a mountain with only the rhythmic sound of the rain hitting the leaves on the trees. It was as if not a second had passed.

  He pressed his lips to hers. They were soft, both hot and cold. She tasted like fresh rain and Campbell took the kiss deeper. Maeve went with him. She ran her tongue along his bottom lip and he shivered with the sensation. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her to him. God, she felt wonderful. She fit against him perfectly. Like she was made for him.

  He knew where this was going and he was powerless to stop it.

  “Come here,” he growled, pushing her backward until she was against the hood of the Explorer. He wrapped his fingers in her hair and kissed her again, shoving his tongue inside her mouth, desperate to taste every inch of her. The hunger, the old one that had been so familiar to him for so long, was still there. He wanted to consume her, melt into her.

  Never breaking the kiss, she moved onto the hood of the SUV and opened her legs. She wrapped her hands around his waist and pulled him into her. He stepped into the V of her and she locked her legs around his waist. His lips never left his and he hoped they never would.

  Campbell tore at her T-shirt while she ripped at the buttons of his uniform. By the time they were skin to skin, he was on fire. Every cell in his body craved her taste, her smell, the press of her body against his.

  Large rain drops splattered on his shoulder, causing him to shiver while the rest of his body smoldered.

  “Maeve,” he whispered on her lips.

  “Yes,” she said. “Yes.”

  “You sure?”

  In answer, she unbuckled his
belt and unbuttoned his pants. The pants, along with his boxers, were around his ankles in a flash. He pushed the skirt up past her thighs and tugged at her panties. She wiggled, shimmied out of them. He ran his palms around the curve of her ass, loving the feel of her soft skin.

  “Campbell,” she said, as he ran one finger along the inside of her labia. “I can’t wait.”

  He pushed into her, felt the hot, tightness of her.

  God, she felt good. Better than good perfect.

  She dug her nails into his ass, pulling him deeper into her. She was wet with want for him and he thrust into her as smoothly as he could manage. Maeve bit his lip, hard, and he tasted the iron of blood. “This isn’t sweet,” she whispered. “This is fucking, Campbell.”

  He plunged into her, as deep as he could go. He showed no mercy, driving into her harder and harder, erasing years of frustration, heartbreak.

  Maeve arched her back and lay down on the hood of the SUV. The rain fell on her breasts, her stomach. He matched their rhythm, pounding into her with a ferocity that surprised him.

  Some kind of wildness raced through him, wanting to please her and punish her all at the same time.

  She moved against him, meeting each one of his thrusts, pushing back against him. Her hands squeezed his ass so hard it hurt. “Campbell,” she moaned. She shivered with her climax, goosebumps popping out all over her skin.

  He let go, grabbed her thighs, and fucked her until he found his release.

  It was earth-shattering. Fierce. Like the world ceased to exist.

  When he finished, he leaned his weight into the grill of the Explorer.

  “What the fuck was that?” he asked.

  *****

  Maeve pushed his Campbell’s weight off her and slid back onto her feet. Her shoes had fallen off at some point, and her feet sank into the soft mud.

  “You okay?” she asked. She hadn’t seen it coming. One minute she’d been on the wrong side of a raging torrent of water, and the next, she’d been pressed up against him looking up into his green eyes. The intensity hadn’t changed at all in ten years. One taste of him and she was lost.

  He’d pulled up his uniform pants and was buckling his belt. “Yep.”

  “You don’t want to talk about what just happened?” She wasn’t sure she wanted to talk about it herself, wasn’t sure she had the words to explain what just happened.

  “Nope,” he said, buttoning his shirt. He kept his back to her while he dressed. “Get in the car. We’ll come back and get your car later.”

  Maeve, after taking one look at her mud-soaked panties, tossed them off the side of the mountain. “Those are a lost cause.”

  “You got another pair?”

  “Not with me.”

  Campbell grunted. “Get in the car, Maeve. We need to get down to the main road before the washout gets worse.”

  Her notebook was a sodden mess, all her notes ruined. “Damn it!”

  “Put in in this,” Campbell said, handing her an empty evidence bag. “If it’s mostly written in pencil, you might be able to dry it out and still read your notes.”

  She shoved into the bag and he opened the passenger side of the Explorer. When Campbell got behind the wheel, he tossed her a blanket. “Here. You need to get warm.”

  “I’m pretty warm,” she said.

  Campbell shoved the SUV into reverse and made a tight turn. “I said I didn’t want to talk about it.”

  “Okay, okay. No need to be so uptight, Campbell. It’s not like we’ve never done it before.”

  “Enough, Maeve.”

  The road was close to a total washout. She was glad Campbell was driving. He navigated the ruts in the road so well, she barely felt the bumps. Maeve kept her silence until they reached the main road. “Thanks for coming to get me. I was scared.”

  “What the hell were you doing up here? Didn’t you know the weather was moving in?”

  “I knew it was coming, but I thought I had time.”

  “Why were you up here in the first place?”

  Maeve knew Campbell would be even more pissed when she told him she was still chasing a ghost. “Delphine is buried up there.”

  “Shit, Maeve.” He pulled the truck over onto the shoulder of the road. “I’ve already told you not to say her name out loud.”

  “If you don’t believe in ghosts, why does it matter?”

  He winced. “Just don’t mention her name, okay?”

  She shrugged and nodded. “Okay. You’re the one who asked. I was up there looking for some answers.”

  “Find any?”

  “Not sure. I may have to start from square one if my notebook isn’t salvageable.”

  “You should leave that old story alone,” he said through clenched teeth.

  “Why does it bother you so much? You don’t think she’s real, you don’t even believe in ghosts. Why do you care?”

  He gritted his teeth. “It just gives me the creeps. Always has.” It was more than just a story, to him, it was personal.

  Campbell pulled back onto the road and headed toward the cabin. “I was on the way to check on Granny when I got the call.”

  “I checked on her this morning. She’s healing. She’ll be home in another day or two.”

  “She’s going to need your help around the house.”

  “My God, Campbell. Do you ever shut off?”

  “I’m just reminding you that Granny isn’t as young as she used to be. She needs you to stay with her until she’s okay on her own. I don’t want you doing one of your mad dashes.” He pulled the Explorer into the yard of the cabin and put it in park. “You’re famous for those.”

  Maeve had heard enough. “Fuck you, Campbell. I did nothing wrong by leaving Avery County to go to college and then to law school. Just because I didn’t want to stay here and spend my life working at Bertie’s or working for peanuts at the bed and breakfast I’m a bad person? That’s bullshit and you know it.”

  “You should have come home. You belong here.”

  As they drove, she looked out the window and looked at the crinkled folds of the mountains. Maybe he was right. Maybe she did belong here.

  When he parked the car and looked into her eyes, she saw the old wounds. He was making it about Granny when it was really about him. Maeve didn’t have the heart to drive the dagger any deeper. She placed her small hand on top of his larger one. “I’m home now.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I don’t like the graveyard. Everybody claims they see me there, that I try to jump into their car. That’s foolish. Why would I want to get into a car when I can go anywhere I want?

  Besides, I don’t like cars. They’re new, shiny, unpredictable. If I was to jump into anything it would be a horse buggy but I haven’t seen one of those in so long I’m not sure they even exist anymore.

  I was in the cemetery when Maeve came. It nearly made me sick. It does every time I see that stone.

  Witch.

  I was a lot of things, but I was never a witch.

  But carving that on my headstone made them all feel better, I reckon. What they didn’t know was that by falsely accusing me, they made me so mad I couldn’t rest.

  Can’t rest.

  Won’t ever be able to rest until my name is cleared.

  I did lay with Jenks. I loved Jenks. I know he was another woman’s husband and that what we did was wrong.

  I didn’t lay with anyone but him after Hoke died.

  But I didn’t kill him.

  Bessie thought she got the last word but I’m not resting until I make sure she didn’t.

  I might have tried to talk to Maeve but I don’t feel comfortable there. That place makes me feel the same way I used to when Hoke had beaten me and I’d look into the sliver of mirror I kept beside the sink. It was a hollow, empty feeling, like cold air was rushing through my insides.

  Not only did the place make my skin crawl, but I felt electricity in the air and it was more than the storm. I knew Campbell was coming. I gave a
ll my energy to the air so that she could call for him.

  She needed help and I knew that feeling. The fear that rises up in your throat and tastes like iron.

  Maeve doesn’t know the things I know.

  She doesn’t know that you can’t ever outrun your heart.

  *****

  Maeve spread the notebook out on the hearth and lit a fire. The rain was still lashing against the outside of the cabin and beating on the tin roof.

  After a quick supper of tomato soup from one of Granny’s quart jars, Maeve sat on the hearth with her second cup of hot chamomile tea, Granny’s prescription for relaxation. For the first time it wasn’t working. Her shoulders were stiff and every muscle in her body felt tight and ready to spring.

  It wasn’t just Delphine. It was Campbell, too.

  He was much easier to ignore from Atlanta.

  Her body still tingled at the memory of him. The way he filled her. The taste of him. The sex had been amazing. Beyond amazing. It was as if every emotion they’d ever felt for each other had been distilled into one steaming hot encounter.

  She wasn’t staying in Avery County forever and Campbell was a forever kind of guy. If she’d met him in college or in Atlanta, she’d have married him, but he was here in Avery County and he wasn’t going anywhere.

  Ten years later and the problem was still the same.

  Determined to get her mind off Campbell, she ran her index finger along one of the pages of the notebook. The dry heat of the fire had taken most of the moisture off the pages. While some of the notes were blurred, she could still read them. She read through each line slowly, trying to piece together the information she’d found into one narrative.

  Campbell and Delphine were vying for attention, the two of them bouncing back and forth in her brain like ping pong balls. The more she tried to concentrate on what she was reading, the more she felt drawn to think about Campbell and this afternoon. In the rain.

  After an hour, the tea finally started to work its magic and Maeve felt her eyelids become heavy. She left the notebook on the hearth and crashed on the sofa.