Sentinels: Lion Heart

by Doranna Durgin

  But no. Her thoughts had tuned in to tracking even if her body hadn’t. So she had every intention of scooting in and out of the tiny casita shower, pulling on something casual, and then taking the ocelot for a quick jaunt to Mrs. Rosado’s place. Joe sent me to see if you needed anything. It would go over well enough, if it wasn’t too early in Mrs. Rosado’s day. And, of course, if the woman did need something, then Lyn would see to it.

  She had the feeling she’d be back before Joe managed to stagger out of his own shower. And if not…he’d do the polite thing, waiting for her to come to breakfast and plan their day.

  Not that there was much planning to do. Head back to the hotel. Hunt trace. Because they had to figure out where the fallback was—where Gausto was hiding his activity. Lyn was willing to bet it wasn’t within Flagstaff at all, but was somewhere remote—within the national forest, or at a rented warehouse at the edge of town. Might be time to cruise that back side of town again.

  By the time she’d worked her way through those thoughts, she was swiping a token towel across her body, smoothing lotion into her skin and pulling a big wide-toothed comb through her hair. A pair of loose linen cropped pants, a chocolate-brown shirt with a baby-doll neckline and crisscrossed swatches across the torso, and she opened the door into the freshness of dawn in the shadow of the mountain. The sky above shone a hard, bright blue from the sunlight heating up the east side of Flagstaff, but Lyn shivered in still-chilly air.

  No matter. She, too, could rejoice in taking her other form, in the ocelot. She stretched hugely in the doorway, defying the cold, and as her head tipped back, she closed her eyes for a quick check of local trace—hunting signs that anyone else might have been sniffing around the area, whether unknown Sentinel or amulet-tainted Core.

  Not that she expected to find anyone. But the day she neglected to check…

  With the area cleared, she quietly closed the door behind her, reached deep within and turned the ocelot loose. Her mind flickered brief blue lightning; her hands splayed, fingers reaching, stretching—

  —claws kneading, landing in the dirt to stir up dust and pine needles and oh! Lizard! There at the edge off her vision, startled by her transformation into skittering away from beneath the doorsill and she leaped and flipped it into the air and let it land and scoot away and pounced and played and rolled around the creature in a completely unnecessary gymnastic, thereby letting it escape.

  Whoops. With a mrrrp of embarrassment, she sat and gave the inside of her front leg a quick lick. Sometimes the whimsical ocelot nature took her that way, when no one was looking and the moment was hers to have. She pulled a pine needle from between her toes and glared into the woods on general principle—one never knew when the trees might be tempted to laugh—then shook the foot out and bounded into the forest.

  The terrain grew unexpectedly rugged between the two properties, giving the ocelot more of a chance to stretch her muscles—a giant bound between two massive rocks, a scramble up a steep slope she could have found a way around if she’d really wanted—and then she came across the track that Ryan must use when patrolling this area and fell onto it.

  She needn’t have wondered if Mrs. Rosado was an early riser. As she padded closer to the property, glimpsing the house through the trees by virtue of its unnaturally straight lines and hard corners, a mighty alarm shrilled through the woods—the ferocious yapping of one small but alert lap-warmer. She instantly froze into stalking mode—and just as quickly shook herself out of it. Not nice to eat the little old lady’s lapdog, Maines.

  Even if she had no trouble leaping lightly over the back corner of the tall fence into a huge yard full of trees and natural features, with plenty of cover between her and the back of the house. The mop of hair stared at her, mortified, clearly feeling the thin line between being predator and prey. She trilled a noise at him, reaching for the human—and as she stood, it turned to laughter. “Poor little guy,” she said. “That wasn’t really fair, was it?”

  His tail, cranked over his back and buried in hair, gave a hesitant twitch of a wag. She crouched, opening her arms. “You want a ride?”

  His legs might not show, but they were sturdy enough. They propelled him straight for her, all his dilemmas solved with that friendly invitation, and she scooped him up to play a game of little-pink-tongue-everywhere as she walked toward the house.

  Neither she nor Mrs. Rosado really expected to see one another when the older woman opened the back door to call the dog, her hand going to her chest as she found Lyn rounding the tree nearest to the house. “Oh!” they said, pretty much at the same time. And then Mrs. Rosado looked anxiously around the backyard, her eyes following the fence line. “The fence isn’t down, is it? Or surely after all this time I didn’t leave the gate open and let my little Tigre out—”

  “No, no,” Lyn assured her. “I was on a morning walk and I couldn’t resist him—I came in to say hello. I hope you don’t mind too much.” She offered up an embarrassed smile, caught out—because the ocelot, still in impulsive mode, had brought her in here…she hadn’t thought ahead about encountering Mrs. Rosado from within the yard itself. “I’d wanted to stop by and make sure your sink was behaving, but I was afraid you might not be up yet, so I peeked around back and there he was….”

  “Well,” Mrs. Rosado said, as if she wasn’t quite sure what to make of the whole thing, “he can be terribly hard to resist.” She hesitated, concern and confusion quirking her brow. “Are you not cold, my dear? And…your feet?”

  Because of course Lyn hadn’t put on a jacket. And her feet…She looked down, wiggled bare toes against the ground. Just a little chilly at that, come to think of it. Well, damn. She’d been so stuck to her trail, so aware she planned to take the ocelot…she’d forgotten that little detail. She didn’t try to hide her embarrassment—she let it work for her. “I’m visiting from Tucson,” she said. Among other places. “I guess it still takes me by surprise, how cold it gets here at night. I didn’t realize it until I was well on my way. You could say it’s been a brisk walk.”

  It didn’t account for the fact that no one from Tucson would consider gallivanting around in bare feet anyway, given the prickly, spiny nature of everything that grew in the mid-desert, not to mention the scorpions, rattlesnakes, coral snakes…But Mrs. Rosado was too polite to voice that thought. She said, “You might like to come inside? I’m not ready for visitors yet, but I can find you a sweater, maybe some sandals…”

  The last thing she wanted was clothing that wouldn’t transform with her, but getting a few moments to chat…worth the inconvenience. “Maybe I should,” she said, letting her embarrassment linger. Embarrassment was easier than her guilt at misleading this nice woman, anyway.

  Mrs. Rosado stood aside, holding the door open, and Lyn found herself in the back end of the kitchen, her toes even colder on the tile than they’d been against the ground. She set the dog down and hugged herself for warmth, nodding at the sink as Mrs. Rosado pulled a mug from the cabinet and poured a second cup of coffee. “The sink’s doing okay, then?”

  “That Joe, he does things right,” Mrs. Rosado said, and smiled. “He’s feeling better now? He didn’t look himself the other day.”

  “You don’t think?” Lyn tried to keep her voice neutral. This was someone who knew Ryan, had known him for years. Had a perspective Lyn didn’t. She accepted the mug Mrs. Rosado extended to her, wrapping her hands around its warmth.

  Mrs. Rosado made a tsk sound and broke off a bit of toast from the plate by the sink, absently flicking it down to the dog. “Even a strong man like that shouldn’t ignore a summer cold. He’s been pretending it was no big thing, but…” and she closed her eyes, her lips moving as she counted days “…he needs to see a doctor, that’s what I think. Let someone else take care of him for a change.” And she opened her eyes to give Lyn a meaningful look.

  Lyn took a sip of coffee just to fill her mouth with something, and then had to fight to hide her reaction to the strong, bitter
taste.

  Mrs. Rosado laughed. “That Joe!” she said. “He’s got you spoiled on his fancy coffee already, doesn’t he? And my Leandro…he liked his coffee just this way. Cheap coffee, extra scoop. I never did like it…at least, I never thought I did. But then he was gone, and I couldn’t bring myself to make it any other way. That’s what our men do to us.”

  Lyn nodded vaguely. Our men. Oh my God. No, no, no.

  And to think she’d come here with some expectations of controlling this conversation. Or at least guiding it.

  “So,” Mrs. Rosado said, breaking off another piece of toast. “Are you heading to Elden Pueblo to watch the riders this afternoon?”

  Lyn must have looked as blank as she felt. Yes, this conversation was completely out of her control.

  “He must have mentioned it.” Mrs. Rosado frowned. “He always watches the riders come in from the Gray Mountain ride.”

  “Gray Mountain…” Who had mentioned Gray Mountain? Someone…just the day before…

  Had it really been only that long? Had she really been here such a short time?

  Joe Ryan had no need to steal power from the Peaks. He clearly had all the power he needed, to have turned her life so around, so quickly.

  “The Save the Peaks protest ride,” Mrs. Rosado said, responding to Lyn’s confusion. “From that…desagradable plan to make snow with wastewater. For several years, the tribes have held this ride. Joe is always there.”

  “He mentioned it—I forgot it was today. Maybe we could still make it.”

  “If you don’t have anything else planned,” Mrs. Rosado said, a little too offhanded as she swiped some imaginary crumb from her light bathrobe. She sipped her coffee, gave Lyn a long, thoughtful look and apparently decided to say her lurking thoughts. “You haven’t known Joe long, I don’t think.”

  Mutely, Lyn shook her head—not liking the touch of possessive censure in the older woman’s voice, but forcing herself to listen. She’d come here for information, after all.

  “When he arrived here, he was an empty man. I don’t know the details of what happened in Nevada—maybe he has told those things to you. I only know that he came here with nothing.” She seemed to realize how that sounded, waved her hand in quick negation. “Not as with the house, the clothes, the things. In his heart. A tall, strong, handsome man who no longer knew how to breathe deeply of life.”

  “Why, Mrs. Rosado,” Lyn said, around a sudden tight crimp in her throat, “you have a poet’s soul.”

  “I’m Latin,” Mrs. Rosado said, quite matter-of-factly. “Of course I do. And so does your young man. Whatever happened in Nevada emptied it for a while, but this mountain filled it again—he showed us who he was, soon enough, with his little excuses for coming around to see if things were all right, his little errands and the way he made us all aware of one another here on this mountainside.” She crossed her arms over the pale lavender robe and regarded Lyn a moment. “And now, are you going to ask why I bring these things up?”

  Lyn coughed. She made a conscious effort to loosen her hold on the mug. Ceramics weren’t meant for Sentinel strength. “Actually, I was taking it as a warning of sorts. Be good to him.” Assuming a lot, that.

  Mrs. Rosado gave the matter a moment of thought, wrinkled eyes narrowing, and then apparently decided to let that one go. “It’s because of what else is happening here these past weeks. Before you came.”

  Lyn set the coffee aside. The ocelot—buried deeply within—slanted her ears back, twitched her tail. Some Sentinels dismissed the instincts of mundane humanity, but Lyn wasn’t one of them. Not when she was facing a woman as strong as this deceptively small, quiet widow. “Tell me,” she said.

  “Ah,” Mrs. Rosado said. “You already know. You can see, too.” She wasn’t an elderly woman in a faded lavender summer robe just then, her permed curls flattened on one side of her head and askew on the other and her glasses perched on parchment skin. She was someone in whom Lyn trusted…in whom she was quite nearly willing to confide.

  But if not quite enough, then she was someone to be heard. “Tell me,” Lyn said again.

  Mrs. Rosado nodded, just once. “Watch his face, when he thinks you aren’t. There is something hurting him—something distracting him. He should be a man with much laughter in his eyes—with sons he swings around by their ankles just to make them shriek with glee.”

  Lyn hadn’t even thought of it, but suddenly she could see it. Good God. There was that scary feeling again. She squinched her eyes closed. No no no.

  “You’ll see it,” Mrs. Rosado persisted. “Watch for it. And then ask him. I’ve tried, but he gives me his stupid-man look and pretends he doesn’t understand. Maybe you can get through.”

  “I’ve seen it,” Lyn said, pulling herself back to the conversation with a confession she hadn’t quite intended to make. She covered it quickly enough. “I’ve seen the stupid-man look, too. Trust me. I won’t give up that easily.”

  And that much was the utter truth. Lyn Maines, once on a track, didn’t give up at all.

  The only problem was, somewhere along the way she’d stopped thinking of Ryan as tracking work. Somewhere along the way she’d stopped thinking of him as any kind of work.

  Oh, no, no, no…

  Chapter 15

  J oe found her crouched by the side of the house, wrapped in an unlikely pink sweater, oversized flip-flop sandals on her feet with a jewel-encrusted butterfly on the thong between her toes.

  Also unlikely.

  “You raided Mrs. Rosado’s closet?” he asked, bemused, not realizing until too late that she was deep in tracking and had no idea he’d even approached.

  She squeaked, an undignified sound that—in some equally unlikely way—suited the pink sweater and the jeweled flip-flops. She also startled backward, which didn’t work out as well; she fell, arms splayed out, legs askew. She lost a sandal. And she glared.

  “Sorry,” he said, and bit his lip, and briefly looked heavenward for strength in the straight-face department. It was hard to feel entirely guilty, given that he’d emerged from his shower to find her gone, gone, gone, and that she’d stayed gone through the morning chores—feed the cats, purr at the cats, water plants and of course the litter box basics. She’d stayed gone through the first cup of coffee, through his morning e-mail—finally, a formal communication from brevis, touching base on the missing report and the missing request for same—and now he’d found her out here with clear evidence that she’d gone visiting.

  While Mrs. Rosado wouldn’t have guessed why a grown woman would show up in the chilly post-dawn hours without a jacket or shoes, Joe pretty much knew what had really happened. “Your coffee got cold,” he told her.

  Guilt suffused her features. This, he thought, was an improvement. Two days ago, she simply wouldn’t have cared. “I thought you would take longer.”

  He offered a hand; she took it. He pulled her up with enough force that she bounded to her feet with some surprise, bounced slightly on the balls of those feet—one in a sandal, one not—and finally steadied. “I couldn’t figure out a way to turn her down without looking like a crazy woman,” she said, smoothing down the front of the sweater. “Maybe we can drop them off later today.”

  “Sure,” he said easily, hoping himself sly as he inhaled the freshness of her scent, allowing himself the luxury of remembering—feeling—her body against his. Later for that. “But first things first. What’s up with my mulch?”

  Just like that, her work face slid back into place. Serious, contained…not giving much of herself away. “I got to thinking, as I was talking to Mrs. Rosado…those men she mentioned. That business card. We never really followed up on that. At first, I assumed they’d been scouting you, that they had no intention of making contact. But that was sloppy. I should have checked.”

  “Lyn…” He couldn’t help his own frown. “That was weeks ago.”

  She shot him a mildly annoyed glance. “And?”

  His turn for surprise. “Yo
u can follow trace that old?”

  She crossed her arms, cocked her head and looked up at him with that slanted glance. “Did you think that trace at the top of the world was recent?”

  Um…yes?

  Probably not the right answer, boy-o.

  So he didn’t say anything at all.

  Not that she didn’t notice. She raised an eyebrow at him, her arms crossed over the sweater, her composure regained—the single sandal not withstanding.

  “Okay,” he said. “What did you find?”

  Composure fled. “Nothing yet,” she admitted. “I was just realizing that I need to go ditch this sweater.” His lack of comprehension must have shown; she gave him a wry grin. “Mrs. Rosado is quite the strong personality. She may not be a Sentinel or carry amulets, but she manages to leave her own kind of trace. Hold on, will you? I’ll be right back.” She put an unthinking hand on his arm to steady herself while she hunted down the errant sandal and threaded her toes into it; he grinned quietly to himself at the feel of her small hand. Oh, yeah, memories.

  “Men,” she said. “Is that all you can think about?”

  “All I can think about?” He gave that some serious thought. “Hell, no. But it’s what I want to think about.”

  She gave him a cross look, as expected. But he wasn’t so sure he didn’t see the faintest bit of panic behind that expression. Whoops, that wasn’t good. Back off, boy-o. Deep within, she apparently did realize she’d given some part of herself to him, something she couldn’t just take back. And, oh yeah, it had scared her.

  But not so much that she didn’t do the also expected thing and step out past him, strides as long as those legs could make them, sandals flipping loudly against her feet—headed for the casita, if he guessed right, and if he was guessing right, she’d be right back. Because Lyn Maines wasn’t the giving-up sort, and she obviously hadn’t finished here.

  So he waited. He rocked back on his heels, let his gaze wander uphill and let his thoughts follow. He couldn’t see the top of the world from here—he couldn’t see the Peaks at all, beyond the curve of the rising land and the pines climbing through the thick ring of white-trunked aspens. But even if he hadn’t followed the previous night’s power surge to ground, he knew it had come from above.