Angel of Smoky Hollow. Barbara McMahon

would be like to kiss her, to see her eyes blaze with awareness and desire. Was she cool as her coloring, or could she flare into passion with the right man?

      Stupid thought, as if he could ever be the right man. Alice had been from Smoky Hollow and had moved away as soon as she was able. No city slicker would hang around beyond the summer. And he wasn’t interested in moving to New York.

      “Have to make do with me,” he said.

      His grandfather shrugged. “Works for me.”

      After eating a hearty breakfast, he helped his grandfather with chores. The man wasn’t slowing down much, but he was in his seventies. Maybe Kirk should suggest he get some help, hire a man to work alongside him.

      Farming wasn’t for Kirk. He didn’t mind helping out from time to time, but he and Pops had settled a long time ago that Kirk wasn’t going to take on the family farm. He liked building and carving. Lately the building side had slowed, giving him more time for the carving. Still, Pops was his only living relative, except for his mother who had long ago vanished from his life.

      “Might go over to Bryceville later this week, check in on Webb Francis,” Pops said later when Kirk was getting ready to leave to meet Angelica.

      “He’d like that. Tell him I’m introducing his friend around.”

      Pops looked at Kirk. “Bring her by here one day.”

      Kirk shook his head. “You come to town. You haven’t been in weeks. Do you good.”

      “I’m busy.”

      Kirk laughed. “Take it easy, Pops. I’ll come by in a day or two.”

      He drove the short distance to home and left the bike while he walked to his next-door neighbor’s home.

      Knocking on the front door, he was surprised to see Angelica open it instantly, almost as if she’d been standing behind it waiting for him. A check of his watch showed it wasn’t quite ten, so he wasn’t late. She stepped onto the porch, closing the door behind her. He caught a whiff of some light floral scent, blending with that of grass and the roses running riot in Webb Francis’s yard.

      Her hair was sleek and glowing in the sunlight. Tied back he couldn’t get a good estimate of if it was wavy or not. But that honey color was delicious. Her eyes were staring at him as he caught her gaze.

      “What?”

      “Are we going? Or are we just standing here for the rest of the morning.”

      He started to agree with standing and staring at her. She was pretty as a spring morning. And totally off limits if her attitude was anything to go by.

      “We’re going. Got everything you need?”

      She lifted her tote a few inches, then turned and stepped off the porch.

      Walking beside her he registered the state of the lawn. He’d have to get over and cut the grass before they had to get a harvester in.

      She said something. He looked at her. “Say again?”

      “What?”

      “What you said, can you repeat it?”

      “I asked how long it’s going to take to get to wherever we are going and why aren’t we driving?”

      “I thought New Yorkers walked everywhere,” he said, ignoring the first part of the comment.

      “I usually take cabs.”

      “Lazy,” he teased.

      She flared up, then caught the gleam in his eye and relaxed a fraction, giving a rueful smile. “Maybe a bit. But I don’t want to be walking down a busy street with my violin. It could get damaged.”

      “You don’t take it everywhere.”

      She nodded. “Pretty much.”

      “So are you famous or something?”

      She shook her head. “Why would you think that?”

      “Webb Francis seemed impressed—said he could learn something from you and he’s the best fiddle player around.”

      “Violin,” she murmured.

      “Say again?”

      She stopped and faced him straight on. “Violin,” she said loud and clear.

      “I’m deaf in one ear, have a hearing loss in the other,” he said.

      Her eyes widened. “I didn’t know. Sorry.” She was almost yelling.

      He leaned closer, taking in that light floral scent, and the heat of her. “I can hear normal tones for the most part if I’m facing the person talking. Don’t yell.”

      Her eyes gazed into his and he felt a tightening in his gut. The blue was flawless, like the deep summer blue of the skies over Kentucky. She didn’t look away and he felt as if she was drawing him in closer, until he could almost brush his lips across hers, taste the sweetness he knew he’d find, discover if passion lurked beneath the cool exterior.

      She blinked and stepped back.

      “Where are we going?” she asked.

      “First to the library. Mary Margaret McBride has video tapes of other music festivals and CDs. Get to know her and you can watch and listen to them to see who you want to talk to. Then if I can find them, I’ll introduce you to Dottie and Paul, two of the members in the group Webb Francis plays with. We’ll run into Gina one of these days. She’s coordinating the festival—doing it all now that Webb Francis is out of commission.”

      The day was growing warm, but Angelica didn’t notice as much as she had the previous day. Kirk’s stride was longer than hers so she had to walk briskly to keep up. She hadn’t really thought he was deaf—or partly deaf—when she’d shown her annoyance by stopping in the street. How had it happened? Had he been born deaf? Maybe that explained the intense way he focused on people when they spoke—to better understand what they were saying. Did he read lips?

      She searched her mind for what little she knew about deafness. Sometimes people could hear certain ranges of sound. With his remaining hearing, did he have full range or limited? She didn’t feel she knew him well enough to ask, but she was curious. She couldn’t imagine not hearing. Listening to music, hearing the birds chirping, talking with friends—how much she’d miss if she were deaf.

      “Do you work?” she asked as they turned a corner. Ten feet ahead was the start of a sidewalk. They had arrived in the town proper.

      “Sure.”

      “You haven’t for the last three days.”

      “Neither have you,” he replied.

      “Are you on vacation, too?”

      “Is this your vacation?”

      She bit her lip and studied the buildings and storefronts as they walked by. “Sort of.” She was not going to explain. She wasn’t sure she could. The drudgery of constant practice and rehearsals, the limited social outlets, the pressure from her parents to achieve more and more had finally reached the point where she wasn’t sure about anything any more. Music had once enchanted her. Now it was a chore. Her escape was an attempt to find the joy in music again. Try something else. Find herself. She could not envision herself playing the violin to the exclusion of everything else for the next fifty years. Should she try another instrument? Think about another career? She was too tired to do any of that.

      The town consisted of two main streets, intersected by cross streets for five blocks. The predominant vehicles parked at the curb were dusty pickup trucks. Except for a couple of men talking in front of the bank, and a woman farther down the block gazing into one of the windows, the place seemed deserted. She really had arrived at another world.

      “Where are all the people?” she asked.

      “Mostly at work,