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“Oh, for the love of—”
“The cards don’t lie,” Selene said softly.
“Those cards come from the devil, Selene, and you oughtn’t be messing with them,” Vidalia put in.
Maya rolled her eyes. “I’m going now. You all have given me a headache.”
Each and every one of them eyed her speculatively as Maya grabbed her coat off the peg near the door, put it on, hoisted her purse and sent them a final wave. She knew what they were thinking…and she didn’t particularly care.
“Be careful, sweetheart,” she heard her mother say just before she stepped out into the rain. “Don’t do anything you’ll be sorry for later on.”
Those words echoed in Maya’s mind and sent a little shiver down her spine. She shook it off, ignored it, pretended not to hear her mother’s words over and over again in her head as she tugged her collar up around her, ducked against the rain and ran across the wet parking lot to the battered pickup that waited with its wipers flapping madly and its headlights shining through the rain onto the road sign that said Leaving Big Falls. Come Back Soon!
CHAPTERTHREE
He got out of the truck to run around to her side, open her door and help her get in. It was no small distance from the pavement to the pickup floor, after all. And she wasn’t long legged.
Funny, he hadn’t noticed that before. He usually liked leggy women, taller and thinner than this one. More coiffed. More “done.” Or maybe he only thought that was what he liked because he hadn’t met Maya Brand.
He stood there watching her the way a scientist would watch an unknown species. She settled into the seat, flipped back the hood of her dark blue raincoat, thrust her fingers into her hair and shook it. He had no idea what that little ritual was, but he liked the result.
Then he realized she was staring at him.
“You’re getting all wet again, standing there in the rain, Caleb.”
He was, he realized. His shoulders were damp, and a steady drip was running from the brim of his battered hat. He closed her door and ran around to the driver’s side to get in. Then he put the truck in gear and prepared to pull out of the parking lot, into the wet, shining, deserted road. “Which way are we headed?”
“South,” she said.
He frowned at her, and she smiled. Damn, what a smile she had. “That way,” she told him, pointing a finger toward his side of the vehicle.
He turned the wheel, and they were off.
He hated being this noble. But she had been drinking a little bit tonight. And then there was her reaction to the remark that jerk had made about her sexuality. Caleb had been all prepared to take Maya Brand somewhere private and explore that question for himself. But he couldn’t do that to her now. So he’d just stick around in this town for a day longer, see her again when she was clearheaded and he could be sure she was with him because she wanted to be.
She told him where to turn off the main road, and he found himself driving over what was little more than a muddy path, barely wide enough for one vehicle. He worried where he would go if another one came along.
“Are you sure this is the right way?” he asked her.
“Uh-huh. I sure am. Just keep going.”
He flicked the wipers down a notch as the rain seemed to ease off, and he kept going.
“See that turnoff there?”
“You mean that deer trail?” he asked, sounding skeptical.
She laughed. It was a deep and throaty sound that made him squirm with awareness. “Trust me,” she said.
She had, he mused, an honest face. So he turned. But he didn’t find a boarding house when he drove in through the tall red pines lining the path. What opened out before him was startling enough to make him hit the brake pedal. Then he put the truck in Park, shut it off and just looked.
He’d driven right up to the face of a waterfall so big that about all he could see through the windshield was a wall of froth. He didn’t say anything, and after a moment, he realized he was holding his breath.
“No one should come to Big Falls without seeing…well, the big falls,” Maya said. As she spoke she was opening her door, sliding out of the pickup truck.
Caleb followed suit, stepping out of the truck onto a flat, stony bit of ground that seemed solid enough. Tipping his head back, he looked up to where the falls began, high above. A few yards ahead of him, the ground ended, and when he looked down over the drop he saw a river unwinding below. That river was all that stood between him and the massive waterfall.
“This is incredible,” he told her.
