The Judge and the Gypsy Read Online Free

didn’t rattle easily, and he wasn’t going to make it simple for her to defeat his innate logic. She’d forced him to take her along, and he’d agreed. Now it would be a cat-and-mouse game until one of them became the victor. Fine, she’d accept the challenge. She would win.
    “Perhaps you’re right, mystery lady. Perhaps it isn’t the destination but the journey that’s important.”
    Everything about this woman challenged him. She was a puzzle to be solved, and he was more than game. For the first time in months he felt fully alive, body, mind, and soul. “Do you consider yourself a philosopher?”
    “No,” she said, “I don’t think so. Though I believe that we each have a function in life. I suppose you could call me a voyager.”
    “A voyager? A traveler, an adventurer—in search of?”
    “Knowledge, I suppose. Truth. And what are you?”
    “
Knowledge? Truth?
Rasch felt a tingle of unease. She’d given back the answer he might have spoken. “If I had to put a name on my life’s mission, I’d have to say that I’m a crusader.”
    She turned her dark eyes on him, fusing her gaze with his to the point that he lifted his foot from the gas for fear of running off the road. “So we both travel the same path.”
    “Perhaps. A crusader and a voyager, each with a quest.”
    “Ah, then you are searching too.” Her voice was almost a whisper, though it was clear and passionate. “What are you seeking?”
    “What all crusaders seek, I suppose—wisdom, justice. I try to make things better, to right certain wrongs.”
    “And are you always right, Judge Webber?”
    “How do you know my name?”
    She broke the connection by raising her gaze to the sheaf of papers stuck behind the visor.
    He followed her movement and read the name on the envelope that threatened to slide from its niche.
The Honorable Horatio Webber
, superior court judge, it said, and gave his office address.
    So she wasn’t psychic and she wasn’t a mind reader. Her powers were strong, the vibration of his nerve endings attested to that, but she relied on normal answers just as any other mortal would.
    Mortal? Why had he even thought that? He was getting squirrely. What he needed was coffee and food. Surely this creature of his imagination atehuman food. He was going to have a hard time finding pomegranates and figs in the mountains of north Georgia.
    “Shall we have breakfast together? There’s a little place up the road where fishermen and hunters stop for a good meal. Nothing fancy, but it’s filling.”
    “Fine,” she said, and rewarded Rasch with a smile so warm that it brushed away the last of the gray fog in his mind. She was a woman, and he was a man. Perhaps that was enough.
    So maybe there were no figs and pomegranates in the North Georgia Mountains. Maybe she’d settle for coffee and doughnuts. Not food for the gods, but they were hot and sweet, and hot and sweet seemed just about right.

Two
    The Gold Rush Grocery and Café was tucked into a hollowed-out place in the side of the mountain. There were three parking spaces and room for one camper. This morning most of the regulars had already come and gone, so Rasch had no trouble stopping in front.
    He climbed out and started around the jeep to open the door for his hitchhiker. He took her pack and threw it into the back, then stopped. She knew who he was, but he still didn’t have a name to call her. The passenger door opened wider, and a bare foot extended itself and slipped to the ground with a tinkling sound. He’d heard that sound before. Then he saw it, an ankle bracelet with little silver bells. She’d been so still in the jeep that the bells hadn’t made a sound.
    “Is something wrong?”
    Her voice sounded like the bells, which sounded like her laughter. Every movement, every sound, wasa kind of music, and he smiled again without being aware that he was doing so.
    “Your feet,” he said. “You aren’t wearing shoes.”
    “No.”
    She closed the door