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Her grandmother’s hand came over on top of her own. ‘Everything happens in its own good time,’ she said. ‘Don’t cry.’ Another crash of thunder seemed to punctuate her statement, but Katie found cold comfort in it all.

She fumbled again with gear stick and clutch, and backed slowly out of the parking place. Ever so slowly, watching the house all the time, eyes filled with desperation, heart with despondency. ‘Oh God,’ she moaned, ‘I’m going to be an old maid!’

‘Nonsense,’ her grandmother snapped. ‘Show a little pride. And don’t drive too fast!’

Katie smashed the gear stick forward, ignoring the grinding of metal, and raised her left foot. The old car jerked forward, then began a steady crawl in first gear down the mountain. As she went around the curve where Cove Road joined the main highway, the house disappeared from sight.

Warily she tried to shift into another range, but her cast was too cumbersome. ‘To hell with it,’ she snarled at the world, and continued down the mountain at low speed. Her grandmother shifted and squirmed to find a comfortable spot in the seat, and said nothing. The rain came down harder. Huge globules of water splashed over the windscreen and rendered the wipers useless. Even the world is crying, she told herself. Whoever would think that I’d finish my trip in such a mess as this?

She hunched forward in her seat, pressing her breasts hard against the metal ring of the steering wheel, peering forward with maximum concentration. But another lightning flash dead ahead of her frightened her more than she could believe possible. An old hickory tree, stripped by the blast, teetered in the air, wavered, and fell backwards into the brush behind it. Thunder rolled. And a strange sound was filling the car. Her grandmother was humming a tune, some old-fashioned ditty.

It was the last straw. Her eyes blinded by tears, raw sobs tearing at her throat, she tried to steer the wobbling car to the side of the road, only to find herself on the soft shoulder. She slammed on the brakes, and everything after that was like a slow-motion movie. The car, which had been barely making eight miles an hour, slid on the soft wet dirt, and stopped with the right front wheel out over the drainage ditch beside the road. The vehicle rocked back and forth gently, aided by gusts of wind. And then, like an old dowager measuring a seat on a bus, it slid over the edge and into the ditch.

‘And that,’ her grandmother said in a very disgusted tone, ‘ought to just about do it!’

Katie sat behind the wheel, stunned. Neither of them was hurt in the least. The descent had been too slow for that. The car was in good condition. The motor purred behind her, the windscreen wipers clicked busily along, and the rain was shut out. The only small problem was that the car was nose-down in a foot of running water, with its tail sticking up at such an angle that the back wheels were off the ground. They’ll put up a tablet for me, she told herself hysterically, ‘Katherine Russel, Moron’. Right here at this bend in the road, no doubt. I have to get help. I
have
to! Grandma can’t stay out for long in this sort of weather!

She shut off the motor, patted the seat of the old car affectionately, and pushed open the door on her side. ‘I’ll walk on down the mountain,’ she yelled over the noise of the rain. ‘There is bound to be someone to help. The car is perfectly safe, so you just stay inside here.’

‘Of course, love. You can’t really fight fate. Off you go!’

For just a split second that strange sound in her grandmother’s voice nagged at Katie’s sub-conscious, but she shook it off. She pushed herself out into the rain, feeling as if she should shake her fist at the wild sky. Her crutches came out from behind the front seat. She slammed the door behind her, waved an encouragement to her grandmother, and started down the empty highway.

The shoulder of the road made hard going. The crutches jammed themselves down into the mud two or three inches each time she moved them, and came out with a slow plop as suction locked on to the hard rubber pads at their ends. It took her some time to manoeuvre over on to the tarmac. She stopped to catch her breath. Her clothes were soaked. The little knit sweater clung to her like a second skin, and her wet hair seemed to weigh a ton.

She swung herself around, wiped a little of the cascade out of her eyes, and hobbled down the mountain. What a damnable joke, she told herself. Me! I’m not fit to be let out without a keeper. And look at my new cast. She held it out slightly in front of her. Water was running down her leg and into the cast like a freshet. Lord, the doctor will scream when he sees this, she giggled hysterically.

She plucked up her courage and struggled on, trying to get some rhythm into her movements. ‘Katie Russel, dummy, dummy,’ she started to chant, and the movement became easier. She was already out of sight of the Volkswagen, and so entirely wrapped up in the movement of her feet, the advancement of the crutches and the hypnotic sound of the chant, that she hardly heard when the big Mercedes whispered up behind her, passed, and slowed to a dead stop directly in her path.

‘My God, Katie,’ he roared as he snatched her up in his arms. The crutches fell to the ground, and one of them slipped into the ditch.

‘I need them,’ she screamed at him, beating on his shoulders with her clenched fists. ‘I have to get help for Grandma.’

‘Your grandmother is in the back seat of my car,’ he roared back at her. She ducked, as if expecting a physical assault. ‘Girl, you’d better duck,’ he yelled. ‘You’re not fit to be out without a keeper. I swear I don’t know which one of us is the most stupid. Me, for wasting all these weeks, or you, running at the first chance you got! And you
are
going to marry me, you little witch!’

‘I am not,’ she screamed back at him. ‘What did you call me?’

‘Witch,’ he reiterated. ‘Witch. A totally brainless witch!’

‘Don’t you dare say that,’ she roared back at him. ‘You’re not all that bright either. If you were, we wouldn’t be out here in the rain catching pneumonia!’

‘Ahhhhhhhhrrrrrrh!’ The noise sounded as if he were strangling. ‘Rain or no rain,’ he yelled in fury, ‘this is going to be settled right now. And if you think I’m going to have it all out in front of that—that grandmother of yours, you’re crazy!’

‘You don’t like my grandmother?’ She brushed her sopping hair aside and looked up into his troubled eyes.

‘That’s got nothing to do with it,’ he snarled.
‘She
doesn’t like me! Why is that, Katherine?’

‘I don’t know,’ she snapped back at him. ‘Grandma likes most people. Most nice people, that is.’

‘Don’t be so smart,’ he returned. ‘I’m as nice as anyone can be. Anybody will tell you that. My God, look at you. You’re soaked to the skin. What an idiotic thing that was, to drive your car into the ditch.’

His disdain was enough to trigger off one last burst of defiance. ‘Yes, and I did it all on purpose,’ she shouted at him. ‘And I’m not going to marry you. You hear!’

‘Everybody between here and Tilson’s Mill can hear,’ he retorted. But his tone had shifted. There was a question behind his every word. He took a deep breath, and continued at a normal conversational level. ‘Now, let’s get this settled. I couldn’t tell you how I felt until I had Eloise settled. I had promises to keep. Now all that’s behind me—and so is my idiotic notion about marriage. I’ve chased you long enough. If I didn’t love you so much I would have put poison in your soup. You are a beautiful, headstrong girl, and I’m going to take care of you.’

She ducked her head away from him. ‘You might be right,’ she muttered. If I didn’t love you so much? Her mind whirled, broke loose from reason, and left her speechless. The rain had penetrated all her clothes now.

She could feel its cold fingers running down over her breasts and stomach.

‘Well, that’s a start,’ he snapped. ‘Now listen. I talked to your mother on the telephone last night. She thinks we should get married. My Aunt Grace wants you to marry me. She thinks it would be my salvation. And
I
want you to marry me. Who the devil is Teddy Whatchamacallit?’

‘Teddy?’ She was just coming back down to earth. ‘Teddy Malson. We were engaged once, a long time ago. He was worse than you are!’

‘What! Another arrogant, dominating male?’

‘No,’ she sighed. ‘A wishy-washy man who couldn’t make up his mind to anything. Grandmother didn’t like him, either. Why can’t we get in out of the rain? I’m getting—’ A shiver ran up and down her spine, replacing all the words.

‘Damnit! What kind of a fool am I?’ He swept her clear of her feet and carried her the short distance to the car. It took but a moment for him to come round, start the engine, and turn on the blessed heater.

‘Grandmother?’ She twisted round to peer into the back seat. ‘Are you all right?’

The old lady was sitting primly in the middle of the wide seat, a folded newspaper in her hands. ‘I’m fine, Katherine,’ she said softly. ‘Pretty silly of you to stand out there in the rain, wasn’t it? Have a lot to talk about, did you?’

Katie relaxed in the warmth, and then her mind came suddenly awake. He had said, out there in the rain— what, exactly? She turned to look at him. He was staring straight ahead, brooding over the steering wheel.

‘What you said out there—’ she stammered. ‘You said—’

‘I said that I love you, and I want to marry you. Has that finally sunk in?’

‘You don’t have to be so surly about it,’ she told him soberly. ‘You don’t leave any room for what
I
want. You—would you run that whole conversation by me again?’

‘I love you,’ he said. ‘AH the sensible people around you know what’s good for you. All you have to do is what you’re told!’ He leaned over her, a large brooding shadow, water dripping down from his thatch of hair and falling off his nose. She shivered as he pulled a blanket from the back seat and wrapped it around her.

‘You love me?’ she queried weakly.

‘Of course I do,’ he muttered, pulling her into his arms. ‘Why do you suppose I kept making all those ridiculous excuses to kiss you? Damn, this is like making love to a mermaid. There isn’t a dry spot on you anywhere. Where was I? Yes. All you have to do is to relax and do what I tell you. We’ll go down to Johnson City and we’ll catch one of those big flying birds, and we’ll go to Marion’s wedding. And yours. Now, all you need to do is to keep practising “I will” over and over again. That’s not too hard, even for a photographer, is it?’ And there it was again. Strong words, and behind it the little quaver of a man who hoped it could all be true if only he kept saying it often enough.

She heard the words, and the undertones, and smiled secretly. ‘But we can’t crash Marion’s wedding like that,’ she said. ‘I don’t—Marion will be mad at me—Mama won’t—I don’t have—’

‘Don’t fluster, love,’ he said softly. ‘I have already asked your mother and your sister. They both approve.’

A hand came over the seat to rest on her shoulder. A thin blue-veined hand, full of love. ‘I’ve just remembered who he reminds me of,’ her grandmother said from the back of the car. ‘A thoroughly detestable arrogant man. Your Grandfather Russel!’

‘I—Grandpa? But you married him, love?’

‘Yes I did, didn’t I? And we spent half a century together. I can’t really remember which was better—the arguments we had, or the times we spent making up after them! Bad times and good, it was all so wonderful. But Lord he was an arrogant opinionated man!’

‘Then—you think I should—’

‘Do what your heart tells you,’ her grandmother said softly.

She could almost see him deflate as a huge sigh ran out of him. His hand moved towards the automatic drive, and then stopped. ‘What’s wrong now?’

'I'm crying, that’s what. Can’t a girl cry if she wants to? What kind of a place is this to propose to somebody? Whatever happened to roses and love me forever?’

‘I think I’ve already loved you for half of forever.’ His voice was a soft caress, a breath of warmth for the heart. ‘And I’ll get you a rose when we go through Erwin. Right after I buy you a handkerchief. Or maybe a towel. Say, you are a mess, aren’t you?’

‘Well thank you. Your friends speak well of you too!’

‘Now that’s enough of that,’ he said quietly. ‘Just because I’m sweet-talking you doesn’t mean that you can wear the pants in our family. Just come along quietly and do what I tell you. And after we get married your grandmother is not going to come within a hundred miles of you without my express invitation. ’ There was a warm chuckle from the rear seat, and the rattle of a newspaper as Grandmother Russel buried her head in the pages.

His arms came over and tightened around her, leaving spots of warmth where they caressed the wet silk of her blouse. She lifted her face up to him, and watched as the world was blotted out. His lips touched hers, shutting out sky and air and sound, turning on all her alarms, sparking all her bodily responses. When he reluctantly broke contact she was shaken, breathless, but not totally submissive.

‘Did you like that?’ he enquired casually. Or at least it sounded casual, as always. But now, measured by a heart full of love, she could hear all the doubts behind it.

‘Yes,’ she answered quietly. ‘I liked that very much.’

‘Then you
are
going to marry me!’ There was the undertone of triumph behind the words. She tucked her face into his broad chest, squirming against him for the comfort that she knew was there. It really isn’t surrender, she told her own proud heart. It’s just a sort of—well—amalgamation.

‘I’m going to do what I’m told,’ she whispered into his second shirt button. His whole body seemed to relax in another massive sigh of relief.

‘Can we really go now?’ Grandmother Russel asked from the back seat. ‘I’ve a plane to catch, and this newspaper is a week old.’

A
year
rolled by, and half again. Spring rested lightly on the Great Smokey’s emblazoned flanks. The scarlet of the flame azaleas had fled down the wind, and the blue, white and red of the mountain laurel and the rhododendron drew the tourists in their thousands to see the mountains sparkle.