Tough Enough

by Jayne Ann Krentz

  Stymied, Jim knew this wasn’t the time or place to question her response. Still, relief flooded through him. “I thought I’d overstepped my bounds with you,” he said. “I wanted to come over and apologize.”

  Reaching out, Rachel gripped his lower arm, finding the thick sheepskin of his coat soft and warm. “I’ve got some ghosts from my past that still haunt me, Jim.”

  The desire to step forward and simply gather her slender form against him was nearly his undoing. His arm tingled where she’d briefly touched him. But when he saw her nervousness, he held himself in check understood it. Managing a lopsided, boyish smile, he said, “Fair enough. Ghosts I can handle.”

  “I wish I could,” Rachel said, rolling her eyes. “I’m not doing so well at it.”

  Settling his hat back on his head, he turned and pointed toward a building near the barn. “How about I get started on this carcass? I’ll wrap the meat in butcher paper and put it in your freezer.”

  She nodded. “Fine. I’m up to my elbows in about thirty gallons of mashed potatoes right now, or I’d come over to help you.”

  He held up his hand. “Tell you what.” Looking at the watch on his dark-haired wrist, he said, “How about if I get done in time for dinner, I take you out to a restaurant? You’re probably tired of cooking at this point and you deserve a break.”

  Thrilled, Rachel smiled. “I’d love that, Jim. What a wonderful idea! And I can fill you in on my new office, which I rented today!”

  He saw the flush of happiness on her face. It made him feel good, and he smiled shyly. “Okay,” he rasped, “it’s a date. It’s going to take me about four hours to carve up that beef.” By then, it would be 7:00 p.m.

  “That’s about how much time I’ll need to finish up in the kitchen.” Rachel turned. “I’ve got sweet potatoes baking right now. Fifty of them! And then I’ve got to mash them up, mix in the brown sugar, top them with marshmallows and let them bake a little more.”

  “You’re making me hungry!” he teased with a grin. How young Rachel looked at that moment. Not like a thirty-year-old homeopath, but like the girl with thick, long braids he remembered from junior high. Her eyes danced with gold flecks and he absorbed her happiness into his heart. The fact that Rachel would go to dinner with him made him feel like he was walking on air. “I’ll come over here when I’m done?”

  Rachel nodded. “Yes, and I’m sure you’ll want to shower before we go.”

  “I’m going to have to.” Now he was sorry he hadn’t brought a change of clothes.

  “Sam McGuire didn’t take all his shirts with him on his honeymoon. I’ll bet he’d let you borrow a clean one,” she hinted with a broadening smile.

  “I’m not going to fight a good idea,” Jim said. He turned and made his way off the porch. He didn’t even feel the cold wind and snow as he headed back to his truck. Rachel was going to have dinner with him. Never had he expected that. The words, the invitation, had just slipped spontaneously out of his mouth. Suddenly, all the weight he carried on his shoulders disappeared. By 7:00 p.m. he was going to be with Rachel in an intimate, quiet place. Never had he looked forward to anything more than that. And Jim didn’t give a damn what the locals might think.

  JIM TOOK RACHEL TO THE SUN and Moon Restaurant. He liked this place because it was quiet, the service was unobtrusive and the huge, black-and-white leather booths surrounded them like a mother’s embrace. They sat in a corner booth; no one could see them and the sense of privacy made him relax.

  Rachel sat next to him, less than twelve inches away, in a simple burgundy velvet dress that hung to her ankles. It sported a scoop neck and formfitting long sleeves, and she wore a simple amethyst pendant and matching earrings. Her hair, thick and slightly curly, hung well below her shoulders, framing her face and accenting her full lips and glorious, forest-green eyes.

  Jim had taken a hot shower and borrowed one of Sam’s white, long-sleeved work shirts. Jim had wanted to shave but couldn’t, so knew he had a dark shadow on his face. Rachel didn’t seem to care about that, however.

  After the waitress gave them glasses of water and cups of mocha latte, she left so they could look over the menu.

  “That burgundy dress looks good on you,” Jim said, complimenting Rachel.

  She touched the sleeve of her nubby velvet dress. “Thanks. It’s warm and I feel very feminine in this. I bought it over in England many years ago. It’s like a good friend. I can’t bear to part with it.” She liked the burning look in his eyes—it made her feel desirable. But she was scared, too, though. Jim was being every bit the gentleman. She hungered for his quiet, steady male energy. His quick wit always engaged her more serious side and he never failed to make her laugh.

  “I’m glad we have this time with each other,” he told her as he laid the menu aside. “I’d like to hear about your years over in England. What you did. What it was like to live in a foreign country.”

  She smiled a little and sipped the frothy mocha latte, which was topped with whipped cream and cinnamon sprinkles. “First I want to hear how we came by this gift of beef you brought us.” She set her cup aside.

  Jim opened his hands. “It’s the strangest thing, Rachel. For the last four months, about once every two weeks, a cat’s been coming down off the Rim and killing one of the cows. My father’s upset about it and he wants me to put together a hunting party and kill it.”

  “This isn’t the first time we’ve had a cougar kill stock,” Rachel said.

  “That’s true.” He frowned and glanced at her. Even in the shadows, nothing could mar Rachel’s beauty. He saw Odula’s face in hers, those wide-set eyes, the broadness of her cheekbones. “But I’m not sure it’s a cougar.”

  “What?”

  Shaking his head, Jim muttered, “I saw the spoor for myself earlier today. We finally got enough snow up there so we had some good imprints of the cat’s paws.” He held up his hand. “I know cougar.” Smiling slightly, he said, “My friends call me Cougar. I got that name when I was a teenager because I tracked down one of the largest cougars in the state. He had been killing off our stock for nearly a year before my father let me track him for days on end up in the Rim country.” Scowling, he continued, “I didn’t like killing him. In fact, after I did it, I swore I’d never kill another one. He was a magnificent animal.”

  “I saw the other night that you wear a leather thong around your neck,” Rachel noted, gesturing toward the open collar of his shirt, which revealed not only the thong, but strands of the dark hair of his upper chest.

  Jim pulled up the thong, revealing a huge cougar claw set in a sterling silver cap and a small medicine bag. “Yeah, my father had me take one of the claws to a Navajo silversmith. He said I should wear it. My mother’s uncle, who used to come and visit us as kids, was a full-blood Apache medicine man. He told me that the spirit of that cougar now lived in me.”

  “Makes sense.”

  “Maybe to those of us who are part Indian,” he agreed.

  Rachel smiled and gazed at the fearsome claw. It was a good inch in length. She shivered as she thought of the power of such a cougar. “How old were you when you hunted that cougar?”

  “Fifteen. And I was scared.” Jim chuckled as he closed his hands around the latte. “Scared spitless, actually. My father sent me out alone with a 30.06 rifle, my horse and five days’ worth of food. He told me to find the cougar and kill it.”

  “Your father had a lot of faith in you.”

  “Back then,” Jim said wistfully. “Maybe too much.” He gave her a wry look. “If I had a fifteen-year-old kid, I wouldn’t be sending him out into the Rim country by himself. I’d want to be there with him, to protect him.”

  “Maybe your father knew you could handle the situation?”

  Shrugging painfully, Jim sipped the latte. “Maybe.” He wanted to get off the topic of his sordid past. “That spoor I saw today?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m sure it wasn’t a cougar’s.”

  Rac
hel stared at him, her cup halfway to her lips. “What then?”

  “I don’t know what it is, but I know it’s not what my father thinks. I took some photos of the spoor, measured it and faxed copies of everything to a friend of mine who works for the Fish and Game Department. He’ll make some inquiries and maybe I can find out what it really is.”

  Setting the cup down, Rachel stared at him. “This is going to sound silly, but I had a dream the other night after we … kissed… ?.”

  “At least it wasn’t a nightmare.”

  She smiled a little nervously. “No … it wasn’t, Jim. It never would be.” She saw the strain in his features diminish a little.

  “What about this dream you had?”

  “Being part Indian, you know how we put great stock in our dreams?”

  “Sure,” he murmured. “My uncle Bradford taught all of us boys the power of dreams and dreaming.” Jim held her gaze. Reaching out, he slipped his hand over hers, to soothe her nervousness. “So, tell me about this dream you had.”

  Rachel sighed. His hand was warm and strong. “My mother, Odula, was a great dreamer. Like your uncle, she taught us that dreaming was very important. That our dreams were symbols trying to talk to us. Of course,” she whispered, amused, “the big trick was figuring out what the dream symbology meant.”

  “No kidding.” Jim chortled. He liked the fact that Rachel was allowing him to hold her hand. He didn’t care who saw them. And he didn’t care what gossip got back to his father. For the first time, Jim felt hopeful that his father wouldn’t disown him again. Frank Cunningham was too old, too frail and in poor health. Jim was hoping that time had healed some of the old wounds between them and that his father would accept that Rachel was a very necessary part of his life.

  “Well,” Rachel said tentatively, “I was riding up in the Rim country on horseback. I was alone. I was looking for something—someone … I’m not sure. It was a winter day, and it was cold and I was freezing. I was in this red sandstone canyon. As we rode to the end of it, it turned out to be a box canyon. I was really disappointed and I felt fear. A lot of fear. I was looking around for something. My horse was nervous, too. Then I heard this noise. My horse jumped sideways, dumping me in the snow. When I got to my feet, the horse was galloping off into the distance. I felt this incredible power surround me, like invisible arms embracing me. I looked up …” she held his intense gaze “… and you won’t believe what I saw.”

  “Try me. I’m open to anything.”

  “That same jaguar that caused me to wreck the car, Jim.” Leaning back, Rachel felt his fingers tighten slightly around her hand. “The jaguar was there, no more than twenty feet away from me. Only this time, I realized a lot more. I knew the jaguar was a she, not a he. And I saw that she was in front of a cave, which she had made into a lair. She was just standing there and looking at me. I was scared, but I didn’t feel like she was going to attack me or anything.”

  “Interesting,” Jim murmured. “Then what happened?” Noting the awe in Rachel’s eyes as she spoke, he knew her story was more than just a dream; he sensed it.

  “I felt as if I were in some sort of silent communication with her. I felt it here, in my heart. I know how strange that sounds, but I sensed no danger while I was with her. I could feel her thoughts, her emotions. It was weird.”

  “Sort of like …” he searched for the right words “… mental telepathy?”

  “Why, yes!” Rachel stared at him. “Have you been dreaming about this jaguar, too?”

  He grinned a little and shook his head. “No, but when I finally met and confronted that big male cougar, we stared at one another for a long moment before I fired the gun and killed him. I felt him. I felt his thoughts and emotions. It was strange. Unsettling. After I shot him, I sank to my knees and I cried. I felt terrible about killing him. I knew I’d done something very wrong. Looking back on it, if I had it to do all over again, I wouldn’t have killed him. I’d have let him escape.”

  “But then your father, who’s famous for his hunting parties, would have gotten a bunch of men together and hunted him down and treed him with dogs.” Rachel shook her head. “No, Jim, you gave him an honorable death compared to what your father would have done. He’d have wounded the cat, and then, when the cougar dropped from the tree, he’d have let his hounds tear him apart.” Grimly, she saw the pain in Jim’s eyes and she tightened her fingers around his hand. “Mom always said that if we prayed for the spirit of the animal, and asked for it to be released over the rainbow bridge, that made things right.”

  He snorted softly. “I did that. I went over to the cougar, held him in my skinny arms and cried my heart out. He was a magnificent animal, Rachel. He knew I was going to kill him and he just stood there looking at me with those big yellow eyes. I swear to this day that I felt embraced by this powerful sense of love from him. I felt it.”

  “Interesting,” she murmured, “because in my dream about this jaguar, I felt embraced by her love, too.”

  “Was that the end of your dream?”

  “No,” she said. “I saw the jaguar begin to change.”

  “Change?”

  Rachel pulled her hand from his. She didn’t want to, but she saw the waitress was taking an order at the next table and knew she’d soon come to take theirs. “Change as in shape-shifting. You told me last time we spoke that you knew something about that.”

  “A little. My uncle, the Apache medicine man, said that he was a shape-shifter. He said that he could change from a man into a hawk and fly anywhere he wanted, that he could see things all over the world.”

  “The Navajo have their skin-walkers,” Rachel said in agreement, “sorcerers who change into coyotes and stalk the poor Navajo who are caught out after dark.”

  “That’s the nasty side of shape-shifting,” Jim said. “My uncle was a good man, and he said he used this power and ability to help heal people.”

  “My mother told us many stories of shape-shifters among her people, too. But this jaguar, Jim, changed into a woman!” Her voice lowered with awe. “She was an incredibly beautiful woman. Her skin was a golden color. She had long black hair and these incredible green eyes. You know how when leaves come out on a tree in early spring they’re that pale green color?”

  He nodded. “Sure.”

  “Her eyes were like that. And what’s even more strange, she wore Army camouflage pants, black military boots, an olive-green, sleeveless T-shirt. Across her shoulders were bandoliers of ammunition. I kid you not! Isn’t that a wild dream?”

  He agreed. “Did she say anything to you?”

  “Not verbally, no. She stood there and I could see her black boots shifting and changing back into the feet of the jaguar. She was almost like an apparition. I was so stunned by her powerful presence that I just stood there, too, my mouth hanging open.” Rachel laughed. “I felt her looking through me. I felt as if she were looking for someone. But it wasn’t me. I could feel her probing me mentally. This woman was very powerful, Jim. I’m sure she was a medicine woman. Maybe from South America. Then I saw her change back into the jaguar. And she was gone!” She snapped her fingers. “Just like that. Into thin air.”

  “What happened next?”

  “I woke up.” Rachel sighed. “I got up, made myself some hot tea and sat out in the living room next to the fireplace, trying to feel my way through the dream. You had kissed me hours before. I was wondering if my dream was somehow linked to that, to you.”

  Shrugging, Jim murmured, “I don’t know. Maybe my friend at the Fish and Game Department will shed some light on that spoor print. Maybe it’s from a jaguar.” He gauged her steadily. “Maybe what you saw on the highway that day was real, and not a hallucination.”

  Rachel gave a little laugh. “It looked pretty physical and real to me. If it is a jaguar, what are you going to do?”

  Grimly, Jim said, “Number one, I’m not going to kill it. Number two, I’ll enlist the help of the Fish and Game Department to track the cat,
locate its lair and then lay a trap to harmlessly capture it. Then they can take the cat out of the area, like they do the black bears that get too close to civilization.”

  Rachel felt happiness over his decision. “That’s wonderful. If it is a jaguar, it would be a crying shame to shoot her.”

  He couldn’t agree more. The waitress came to their table then, and once they gave her their orders, Jim folded his hands in front of him and caught Rachel’s sparkling gaze. Gathering up his courage, he asked, “Could you use another hand on Christmas Day to help feed the homeless? Things are pretty tense around home. I’ll spend Christmas morning with my father and brothers, but around noon, I want to be elsewhere.”

  “You don’t have to work at the fire department?” Rachel’s heart picked up in beat. More than anything, she’d love to have Jim’s company. Kate would have Sam at her side, and Jessica would be working with Dan. It would be wonderful to have Jim with her. She knew Kate was settling her differences with Jim, so it wouldn’t cause a lot of tension among them. Never had Rachel wanted anything more than to spend Christmas with Jim.

  “I have the next three days off,” he said. He saw hope burning brightly in Rachel’s eyes. The genuine happiness in her expression made him feel strong and very sure of himself. “So, you can stand for me to be underfoot for part of Christmas Day?”

  Clapping her hands enthusiastically, Rachel whispered, “Oh, yes. I’d love to have you with us!”

  Moving the cup of latte in his hands, Jim nodded. “Good,” he rasped. He didn’t add that he’d catch hell for this decision. His father would explode in a rage. Bo and Chet would both ride him mercilessly about it. Well, Jim didn’t care. All his life, he’d try to follow his heart and not his head. His heart had led him into wildfire fighting for nearly ten years. And then it had led him home, into a cauldron of boiling strife with his family. Now it whispered that with Rachel was where he longed to be.

  As he saw the gold flecks in her eyes, he wanted to kiss her again—only this time he wanted to kiss her senseless and lose himself completely in her. She was a woman of the earth, no question. He was glad they shared a Native American background. They spoke the same language about the invisible realms, the world of spirit and the unseen. Jim never believed in accidents; he felt that everything, no matter what it was, had a purpose, a reason for happening. And the best thing in his life was occurring right now.