by Cash Cole
Rance opened the massive shoulder bag he carried and pulled out items one at a time and tossed them on the bench nearest Jake. “A writing tablet and pen. Extra batteries for my cell phone. I take photos with the phone’s camera so that if I forget anything, I can backtrack through the photos to see where I’ve been.”
He laughed nervously. “I’m terrified of becoming lost, of getting off course. O-o-of losing my way or getting attacked or something.” He chuckled. “Big as I am, shit like that worries me. Do you know that I am one of the few legally blind—which I guess I’m not any more, I need to let authorities know so they can change my paperwork—that has a black belt in Tae Kwon Do?”
So much for thinking he’s just full of excuses, Jake thought. Nobody could make up anything that convoluted. “If you’re a black belt, why fear getting attacked?”
“Because all I’ve ever kicked are posts or mats. I’ve never had to actually fight anyone.”
Jake thought a moment. “Okay. Back to the car.”
“I ran from the boat in the direction—I thought I was running back towards my car, but I wound up at the cavern. Some man was in there, and he looked like he’d been digging. He had a shovel and was wearing gloves like people wear when they garden. Anyway, he told me where I was, and I called the cab.”
“From the cavern?”
Rance nodded. “Yes.”
Jake looked at the things Rance had retrieved from the knapsack. “You’d better put that back—a good wind could scatter some of it.” He still wanted to know how Rance had obtained his information. Even if Jake wasn’t Sean and Haley’s natural son, there was no doubt he was Native. Considering Sean wasn’t his biological father, there was a strong chance he was full blood, like Hawk and Daniel. Intriguing. More than that, it was perplexing that Rance purported to know so much.
“Okay,” Jake said, drawing on a thread of their conversation. “If you know so much about my sister and our conversation, tell me what she knows of my biological family.”
Rance didn’t appear to even consider before answering. “All Sarah knew was what she’d found out on her own when she snooped in Haley’s journals. Your birth mother went to a boarding school for Indians. Sarah felt she was one of the girls at the school since you were born there.”
Jake’s curiosity piqued. “I was?”
“You didn’t know?” Rance smiled, but his eyes had a faraway cast. “I see the birth certificate through Sarah’s eyes. But I don’t see the father’s name. I just see…no, that’s not right. It’s a delayed certificate, or a replacement. I don’t see the original. What I’m seeing is—I think it’s the doctor’s personal notes.”
Jake’s mouth went dry. “Who was the attending physician?”
Rance shook his head. “There wasn’t one. The girls—they all did this, helped with the birth. He recorded what they told him. This is some sort of file, probably your medical chart, and the notes are in diary form, something he just wrote down. Your mother—rather, Haley—has it somewhere, and Sarah found it.”
Rance cocked his head at an odd angle, as if trying to see or read something. “I see his signature. Dr. Mason Rogers.”
Then his brow furrowed, and he frowned, as if remembering something else. “He was the man, the other…”
“He was killed when my sister was shot,” Jake finished for him. “He was beside her. Her brother-in-law, Colin’s brother, was close enough to get hit as well, but Doc was right there next to her.” Then he took a deep breath. “Bullshit.” Like I’m buying any of this? C’mon!
Rance straightened his spine. “Excuse me?”
“So you’re saying that the man who was assassinated alongside my sister was also the doctor at my birth?”
Rance sighed. “He wasn’t present at your birth, not like you mean. Weren’t you listening?”
This time, Jake gave a hard, cold laugh. “You could have read about the murders in the newspapers.”
The blond’s gaze was unwavering. “I didn’t. I couldn’t even see at the time.”
“No, but you had plenty of time to read once you received Sarah’s corneas, didn’t you?” Jake’s tongue ran away with his thoughts, and he was past caring that he came across as rude. What he had just heard sounded ludicrous. He’d been willing to give the other man the benefit of the doubt, but what Rance had just suggested was too far-fetched.
The blond’s hands waved expressively. “Do you have any idea how difficult it is to get one of these operations? Then there’s the long healing process. Graft failure can occur even years after the surgeries, and I’m on eye drops and medications for the rest of my life. I’d been legally blind for some time, so it’s not like I couldn’t cope with that. What I didn’t bargain on was the cellular memory, as it’s called. Feeling as if I was losing my mind. Wondering what the hell happened to the poor woman whose corneas I got.” He paced, and Jake could tell he was frustrated. “It’s not like I signed up for this, thinking, yeah, I’d just like to screw with somebody, because I’m bored and have nothing better to do now that I can see.”
Rance turned from him, obviously disgusted, his shoulders heaving with each intake of breath.
Jake felt a twinge of guilt. He didn’t need to be a bastard simply because he couldn’t wrap his own mind around what Rance was saying.
“I’m sorry.” He waited but got no response. “I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t be so judgmental.”
Rance turned to face him once more. “I don’t mind your preconceived notion that I’m loony. What bothers me is that you’re the one who is supposed to help me. Sarah chose you, and I don’t have a clue what it is I’m supposed to tell you so that we can finish this for your sister.”
“What do you mean?”
Rance continued. “I felt an instant connection with your mother, but the strongest is with you, and you’re the one who seems to dislike me the most. I don’t know what to do with that, because I still owe Sarah, and I still have something she wants me to do for her. I guess I’ll know when we get there, when the opportunity presents itself. Until then, we’re stuck with one another, because I’m not leaving until I’ve done what she wants.” He thumped one fist into his other hand. “Do you hear me? I’m not leaving until she’s satisfied.”
Jake’s hands shook, and he felt feverish. So close…yet so far away. Rance had no way of knowing the information he’d just shared, and Jake couldn’t come up with a logical explanation. But everything Rance had said had happened as Jake remembered. He wondered, though. Did Rance know the rest?
“Okay, white boy. What other Cherokee words do you know besides the one for phoenix?”
Rance held out has hands as if offering him a gift, only there was nothing tangible there. “I could hold all my knowledge of you and your family in the palm of my hand.” Then he touched his chest. “Or here. In my heart. I don’t know how many words—they’re just words. All I can tell you is that the feelings are innumerable, indefinite, defying any label or number you could assign them. What do you call what you do? I don’t know a word, Cherokee or English that describes the changes that occur when you transform from this…” Rance indicated Jake’s mortal body then let his fingers flutter upward. “To that, whatever it is you call your spirit animal. But you do it, don’t you?”
Now, Rance had his attention. Jake stopped steering and locked the column, since they were in the middle of the lake and there was nothing to hit. Going to Rance, he grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him close, staring into his eyes. “Are you real, or are you some demon who just looks like an angel or a god? What do you want?” He shook Rance.
Rance’s fingers locked about Jake’s upper arms, digging into his flesh. “I’m as real as you are, just as human. I’m not possessed, and neither are you. Although knowing what I now about you, you just might be a bit more odd than I am.” He laughed, a small sob mingled with an almost hysterical chortle. “Let me tell you about another memory I inherited with these eyes. You’re at the lake, swimming, h
aving such a great time. Then you slipped and hit your head on the side of the dock where you were running and diving, and you must’ve been in great pain.”
Rance’s eyes took on the gaze that both thrilled and chilled Jake.
“I heard you yell, and you went beneath the surface of the water. Then just as Sarah started running, you resurfaced, only…it wasn’t you…and it was. You were the bird.” Rance’s eyes grew rounder, his voice more animated. “You shot straight upward as if jet-propelled, and you circled, squawking like a wounded animal. Because you were.” He focused on Jake’s face, and his eyes softened.
“There’s no way you could know that. No way.” Jake shook his head.
Rance, as always, seemed to sense what Jake was thinking, which was unnerving in itself. “Jake, just kiss me, damn it. I am not Sarah.” He grinned, and it was the first genuine smile Jake had seen on him. “Think of me as a ventriloquist who never knows what his dummy is about to say.”
Jake felt his world tilt. He became aware of everything in his universe at once. The man he held, who clung to him. The sounds of water lapping at the black hull of his boat. Birds overhead. A fish jumped not far from them, and the small splash made a tinkling sound.
He felt the slight chill as the sun became covered by clouds, and his hands registered that Rance was shaking as well.
“I can’t.” He dropped his hands from Rance’s shoulders.
“Can’t kiss me?” Rance sounded disappointed.
“It’s not what you think,” he excused himself. “I don’t see you as my sister.”
Rance nodded. “Now, it’s my turn to call bullshit. First, I’m practically invisible, and now—”
“Mister, you were never invisible.” Jake felt the tightening in his groin as his cock registered a memory or two of its own, and his throat felt so constricted he could barely finish his thought. “For what it’s worth, I’ve always…seen…you.”
Rance nodded wordlessly.
“You came to fulfill some obligation to my sister, right?” Jake turned and went back to the helm. “Once you’ve accomplished whatever it is you need to do, we’ll deal with what’s between us. Okay?”
“If you say so.” Rance turned his face to the wind once more, ignoring him.
“Ah, hell.” Jake locked the boat’s steering once more with shaky hands then reached for Rance’s shoulders and turned him slowly around so that they were face to face. The blond’s electric blue eyes shimmered, and the look he gave Jake was one of unfulfilled longing, not one of brotherly affection.
Jake lifted the other man’s chin with a thumb and forefinger and traced his lower lip, feeling Rance quiver slightly beneath his touch. He dipped his head tentatively and touched his lips to Rance’s. So hard, yet soft, sweet. Unwillingly, he shuddered and wrapped his arms about Rance, drawing him closer, unable to slake his thirst.
If Rance hadn’t parted his lips invitingly, Jake might have been okay, but the sweet, wet warmth was his undoing. Jake’s tongue mated with Rance’s, sucking slowly, and his breathing became labored. One more kiss like that and he’d take Rance right there in the open for any bird, boater or nosy bastard who happened upon them to see.
Jake withdrew, aching for more. Their breaths mingled, and he slipped mindlessly into Rance’s arms for one more kiss, reeling from the shock that the stranger had snared him so quickly.
As they parted, Jake hoped Rance couldn’t see how he’d unnerved him—Jake, who was unflappable, according to Sarah. Total Indian with the wooden face, void of emotion. Well, the façade had cracked, because Jake hadn’t felt in complete control of anything since meeting Rance.
As his world shifted, he knew he’d begun trusting his instincts, and one thing was indefinable but undeniable. Rance knew about the phoenix, his spirit animal. No one except Hawk and Daniel knew that he was a shape-shifter, and Jake trusted them completely. There was no way either of them would betray him.
Thinking of his cousins, Jake picked up the microphone to radio them. “Phoenix to Hawk. Come in, Hawk.” When his cousin replied, Jake let them know he’d be south of the marina for a few hours and told them his destination. “Not sure why, but we’re headed for the Blackgum, Paradise Hill area,” he answered when Hawk quizzed him. “Lost car. That’s all I know.”
When Rance gave him a questioning look, he put Hawk on mute and explained. “We were supposed to go fishing later tonight if it wasn’t too stormy. Besides, it’s good to let them know.”
Chapter Three
Rance took a deep breath. Great, he chastised himself. You came here for closure of some sort, and instead you’re opening up doors that have been closed for years. When’s the last time you felt like this when you were kissed?
He kept watch, hoping to recognize the landscape, but it had been stormy and he’d been too shaken to take much notice the last time they’d gone through this passage.
“We’re coming up on the beach where I found you,” Jake said behind him.
Rance nodded, but he still didn’t know where they were.
“Do you have any idea where your car might be from here?” Jake asked, cutting the motor and steering toward a dock that looked as if it were in the middle of nowhere.
“I think it’s over there.” Rance pointed towards a thicket of trees. “Dirt road, leading to a sign that…hmm…” He thought a moment. “It said something like v-da-li, which I suppose is Cherokee?”
Jake repeated, only he spelled it, letter for letter, and said it phonetically. “Was that word followed by ga-li-tso-de?”
“I think so. Do you know where it is?”
When Rance turned to face him, Jake looked relieved.
“Yeah. Sounds like you were at Vera Rogers’s house.” His eyes darkened. “She’s the doc’s widow. “V-da-li ga-li-tso-de is pronounced uh-da-lee go-lee-cho-day, and it means Lake House. It’s only a few yards from the lake. We can walk there and ask Vera if she’s seen your car.”
“The doc,” Rance mused. “As in…?”
“Yep. Her husband was murdered alongside Sarah.”
Rance looked at the sky. Bright blue with only a few clouds except to the far south where the colors went from aqua to cornflower and white to gray. No ominous music, no horrific winds, and the earth didn’t quake, so why was he suddenly spooked?
He shook himself mentally. It’s probably anticipation, dumbass. You’re about to find your car.
Jake helped him disembark, and the two of them walked through shrubbery, following a narrow footpath that led from the dock to the woman’s back door.
Rance looked about but still didn’t recognize any of the landscape, and he didn’t see his car.
Jake knocked on the screen door and called out, “Vera? It’s Jake. You there?”
A short, stout Native American woman who looked to be about seventy came to the door. She wore plain cotton pants with an embroidered blouse, and she had large turquoise and silver rings on nearly every finger and a squash blossom necklace against her throat.
“Jake!” Her face beamed when she saw him, and she opened the door and threw her arms about his neck. “Long time. Who’s your friend?”
Jake seemed embarrassed. “Vera Rogers, this is Rance Clarke, and he thinks he left his car here last night. It’s a long story.” He shifted his weight and nodded toward the front of her house. “Mind if we take a look?”
The older woman seemed puzzled but shrugged. “Sure. I went to the store this morning, though, and I didn’t see any cars until I got to the highway.” She turned to Rance. “You sure you were in this neck of the woods? There’s lots of dirt roads leading from that main stretch.”
Rance chewed his lower lip. “I don’t know where I left it, to be honest. I wound up in a cave of some sort to get out of the rain, and…” His voice trailed.
Vera stepped back then looked at Jake. “Only one cave in these parts. It’s where Mason went when he wanted to be alone and try out some of his experiments. This land has been in his family a long
time—he grew up on it, and that cave was where he played as a boy. He kept the canoe and one of those old cast iron safes down there because it was too heavy for the floors in the house.”
She looked at Rance skeptically. “How’d you manage to get lost down there? Where you from anyway?”
Rance cleared his throat nervously. “Las Vegas.”
Vera’s pallor changed, and she clutched the necklace above her breasts. “Jake?”
“Vera, I wish I knew how to tell you everything this guy has said, but it’s impossible. I know we’re imposing, but he says he got lost here, and I believe him.”
“No, you come inside. You tell me before you look for his car. I want to know.” She ushered them inside and led them to the living room. “You sit, and tell me what brings you here.”
When Rance hesitated, Jake nodded for him to go on. “It’s okay. Vera won’t think you’re crazy. In fact, she may think I’m the one who’s nuts for not believing you.” He looked at the older woman fondly. “Vera is what we call Beloved Woman, a medicine woman, so she’s more in tune with spiritual things than most of us. The worst thing that’ll happen is that she’ll believe you.”
Rance felt oddly at ease. His hostess spoke with a definitive dialect, a clip to certain words that he’d heard several times since landing in eastern Oklahoma. And while the Cherokee Hills appeared moody and a harbor for secrets, the Indian woman was welcoming.
After Rance and Jake finished telling Vera what had happened during the past few hours, she sat back quietly, seeming to access the situation before speaking. “And you have no idea why you came here, to this area?”
Rance shook her head. “None. I started driving, and it was as if pieces of a puzzle started coming together. I’d recognize a building, a road, a tree, and before I knew it, I’d parked my car and wandered down to the lake.”
