Eagle’s Redemption
Cindy Spencer Pape
Book two in the Texas Passions series.
Dash Hyde is a former Chicago cop, scarred both inside and out. When he inherits a share in a Texas ranch, the last thing he expects is to meet a woman who can see past the scars to his very soul—even though she’s nearly blind.
Carmen Whitefeather loves taking care of wildlife, but the damaged man she finds on her doorstep with an injured eagle fascinates her even more. The spark between them is instant and overwhelming, and she’s determined to enjoy every second.
As Carmen and Dash explore the passion they find in each other’s arms, they both take the risk of getting burned. When an old enemy of Dash’s targets Carmen, Dash will have to face his deepest fears and walk into the flames to fight for the woman he loves.
An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication
www.ellorascave.com
Eagle’s Redemption
ISBN 9781419928826
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Eagle’s Redemption Copyright © 2010 Cindy Spencer Pape
Edited by Mary Moran
Cover art by Dar Albert
Electronic book publication June 2010
The terms Romantica® and Quickies® are registered trademarks of Ellora’s Cave Publishing.
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This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.
Eagle’s Redemption
Cindy Spencer Pape
Dedication
For animal rehabilitation staff and volunteers across the country, who work tirelessly to help undo the damage done by other humans to the creatures who share our planet. You get bitten, scratched, pooped on, peed on and puked on, and you still keep on going, even when funding is cut to zero. You’re all heroes in my book.
Trademarks Acknowledgement
The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:
Chicago Bears: Chicago Bears Football Club, Inc.
Johnnie Walker: United Distillers and Vintners, LTD
Stetson: John B. Stetson Company
Chapter One
“Is that an eagle?” The Texas sun beat down on the back of Dashiel Hyde’s neck, and he wiped his forehead with a bandana as he looked up at the sky. Then he lifted his almost-new black Stetson hat and wiped his shaved head as well. Moose, his big brown quarter horse, shifted slightly between his legs, forcing him to grip with his thighs to hold on, which hurt. Even after being here three months, he still didn’t quite have the hang of riding. The heat was taking some adjustment too—and it was only May, so it was about to get a whole lot hotter.
“Nope. Vulture,” his half brother Mac Moreno noted. Mac’s dark, Hispanic complexion was as beaded with sweat as Dash’s own. “See how the wings sort of make the shape of an M? Eagles’ wings curve up, more like a U.” The two men were riding fence lines in the northern pasture, checking for any broken spots in the barbed wire where the cattle might slip through. Dash had thought he knew all about fences, growing up dirt-poor on Chicago’s south side. There had been plenty of fences, most enclosing small spaces and designed to keep kids like Dash out, but here—here the damn things were put up to keep the cows in, and they ran literally for miles. The vastness of it all still blew his mind. Nothing but green as far as the eye could see, dotted only here and there by trees or cattle. Shaking his head yet again, he nudged his horse into motion, following his brother.
Though Mac ran a bar for a living, he was at home in the saddle, making Dash feel even greener. If his buddies on the Chicago police force could see him now, they’d be laughing their asses off. Still, he’d been coming to grips with the idea of living in Texas, and of having two more half siblings, ones a lot closer to his own thirty-five years than his mom and stepdad’s kids in Illinois. He still wasn’t sure how he felt about the father who had left him one third of the White Eagle Ranch. The gesture might have meant a whole hell of a lot more if Joe Morgan had bothered to contact Dash even once while he was still alive.
“Hey, I got a postcard from Leah and Shane today,” Mac said. “Sounds like they’re enjoying Hawaii.”
“Hell, I was surprised they even left their hotel room,” Dash said with a rueful grin. At Mac’s raised eyebrow he shrugged. “I got one too.” Their half sister Leah had just gotten married to Shane Duffy, the local vet. Of Joe Morgan’s three kids, Leah was the only one who’d been legitimate and had grown up on the ranch, so she was their unofficial leader. After she’d been hurt a few months back, Mac and Dash had stepped up and pitched in to keep the ranch going, just as they were now that she was on her honeymoon.
“Well, they’ll be home in a week,” Mac said. “Guess we’d better be able to tell Leah these fences are all in top condition, right?”
Dash chuckled. Their little sister was a perfectionist when it came to the ranch. “You said it.” He clicked his tongue, urging his horse to a faster pace.
Mac laughed. “Yeah, city boy, we’re gonna make a cowboy out of you yet.”
* * * * *
Carmen Whitefeather hummed an aria along with the CD player as she stirred the pot of chili on her stove. It was hotter than hell tonight and she’d planned to eat leftover salad for dinner, but for some reason she’d gotten the urge to cook. The scents of browning beef, onions, chili peppers and garlic filled the air of her cabin. She’d just finished shredding a couple of carrots, a nontraditional ingredient but one that would add both a touch of sweetness and some extra nutrition to the sauce, when Silverfoot stirred from his rug in the corner of the kitchen and started to whine loudly enough to be heard over the blaring stereo.
“What is it, boy?” She’d talked to her grandfather not half an hour ago on the phone and her cousin Leah was in Hawaii on her honeymoon. Nobody else ever stopped by Carmen’s snug little cabin tucked into the hills. Nonetheless, there was a sharp rap on the door, and Silver barked loudly in response.
“Just a minute,” she called. With a sigh, Carmen checked the heat on the stove, set down her spoon and picked up her glasses. Even with them, she couldn’t see much, but they’d let her make out the general size and shape of her visitor. Moving by memory, she crossed the open main room of her cabin to the front door with Silver’s nails clattering on the wood floor right beside her. Her unofficial leader dog, the big shepherd-wolf hybrid followed her pretty much everywhere she went.
“Hello,” she said, tilting her head up at the face of the man who stood on her porch. It was way up, and though she couldn’t quite make out his features, she recognized his voice as soon as he spoke.
The voice was deep and gravelly with a sexy rasp. “Hi. I’m Dash—Dashiel Hyde, Leah’s…brother. We met at her wedding. Your grandfather
told me you might be able to help me out.”
“Hi, Dash.” Oh yeah, she remembered him. Just one dance at Leah’s wedding and she’d practically begged him to take her home and fuck her—all that hard muscle and the musky, masculine scent of him when she’d had her cheek pressed against his suit coat. Why the heck had Grandfather sent him here? “What can I do for you?”
“I found a bird,” he said. “An eagle. I think it’s been shot, but it’s still alive. With Shane gone, I didn’t know what else to do, so I called Ken.”
Of course—she knew her grandfather Ken Nightwalker had taken the newcomer under his wing. “Come with me,” she said, stepping out onto the porch with Silver close at her heels.
“He’s in my car,” Dash said. “I’ll go get him.”
She hadn’t even heard a car, but then she’d had the stereo cranked pretty loudly. “The barn’s right behind the cabin,” she told him. “I’ll meet you there.” Gravel crunched beneath his feet as he strode off toward the driveway while she turned to follow the well-worn path to her barn, one hand resting lightly on the top of Silver’s head.
When she reached the barn, she flipped on the light switch then held the door for Dash, who’d caught right up with her, a large white container held cautiously in both hands. “Is that a laundry basket?” she asked, motioning him over to the stainless steel examining table her grandfather had installed for her to work on. About a third of the barn was sectioned off to make a big, open room with pine-paneled walls and a Saltillo-tiled floor. The worktable sat in the center.
“Yeah,” he admitted somewhat sheepishly. “It was the only thing I had big enough. I bungee corded a piece of plywood over the top, just in case he got feisty.”
“You think on your feet,” she said, getting out antiseptic, gauze and tweezers, along with her big magnifying lens and a pair of leather welding gloves. “That’s good. You said he was shot?”
“I was on my way back to my place when I heard the shot, and after what happened to Leah a few months back, I thought I should go check it out,” he answered.
Leah had been shot, nearly fatally, by an unscrupulous geologist trying to steal the mineral rights to the ranch. The thought of Dash, even though he used to be a policeman, going off single-handedly to catch the shooter made Carmen shiver.
“I found him lying beside the road, but there was no sign of the shooter.”
Carmen could feel him watching her. As soon as she was ready, he started unfastening the bungee cords. “Could you see a bullet wound?”
“Not specifically, but there was some blood on the left wing up close to his shoulder.”
The eagle started screeching when the wood came off the top of his cage. Carmen made shushing sounds and slipped on the gloves. Peering closely, she could see that the big bird was wrapped in a soft plaid cloth, as tightly as a swaddled infant. “Nice job, by the way. You’ve done this before?”
“No, but Ken gave me play-by-play instructions.” Not waiting for her, he tenderly picked up the wrapped bundle and lifted it out of the plastic basket onto the table. Since he didn’t scream, Carmen was pretty sure he’d managed to avoid the wicked yellow beak.
“Might’ve called me with a heads-up,” she grumbled. Typical of her grandfather—he only told her what he thought she needed to know. She grabbed another pair of gloves from a hook on the side of the table and handed them to Dash. “Here. You’ll have to hold her feet while I check her out.”
“His…feet?” Dash gulped, missing her use of the feminine gender. Carmen couldn’t see it, but she knew his eyes had gone wide. “You sure that’s a good idea?”
“Better to hold on to them than let them move around and find you.” Eagle talons could be dangerous as hell, and this was a big bird—maybe fifteen, sixteen pounds. “We’ll unwrap her feet first and you need to wrap one hand carefully around each of her ankles, holding her still.” She laid her left forearm gently but firmly across the bird’s breast, holding the angry raptor in place.
“Won’t she lash out with her beak?” he asked as Carmen began to carefully unwrap the soft flannel shirt. It was awkward—sometimes she had to wiggle the cloth out from under the arm holding the bird to the table, but she managed to get the eagle unwrapped without inflicting further damage.
“Not typically. Their talons are their weapons of choice. But I wouldn’t put my finger in front of her face either—not if I wanted to keep it.” While her left forearm and hand held the right wing and breast in place, she eased open the nearly three-foot-long left wing and slipped off her right glove. With a featherlight touch, she traced the bones of the bird’s extended wing.
There. Right up close to the shoulder, she found the wound—just a graze, but the shock from the shot would have been enough to knock her from the sky. There could be spinal trauma or any number of internal injuries as well, but Carmen’s gifts told her otherwise. The poor thing had a wounded wing and she’d been stunned but would otherwise be fine. “The bullet just grazed skin and muscle,” she told Dash as she reached for the antiseptic. “It missed the bone, thank goodness. She’ll be flying again in a few days.”
“That’s great.” He sighed his relief. The man actually cared about the poor bird, she had to give him that. Not bad for a city slicker. “But I have to ask, if you don’t mind—how do you know? I mean, I know you can’t…”
“Can’t really see?” she said matter-of-factly. “No, not much.” Though she pulled the magnifier over and used it to clean the shallow gouge. “It’s just something of an instinct, I guess. Leah works with horses. I can sense injuries in wildlife. I’ve never really tried to make sense of it. It’s just a part of my life.”
She sensed rather than saw him shrug. “If you say so.”
There was a little more to it than that, but she didn’t want to explain that to a virtual stranger. She felt the sting in her own shoulder as she absorbed some of the damage into herself to speed the eagle’s healing process. Meanwhile, she dabbed antibiotic ointment onto the wound then wrapped it in a heavy layer of gauze. “Try not to rip that off before morning,” she told the bird, who screeched back angrily as if she disagreed.
Dash watched in amazement. Every movement Carmen made was quick and precise even though he’d been told she was legally blind. Her pop-bottle-thick glasses obscured her big brown eyes while she worked, but Leah had mentioned that even with them, her cousin could only see shapes and colors, not detail. When he’d first moved out to the line shack on this end of the ranch, Leah had made it very clear that her visually impaired but otherwise gifted cousin was strictly hands-off as far as Dash was concerned.
And that was probably a good idea. Carmen was a knock-out, with rounded, womanly curves overlaying a frame of healthy muscle. Her long, straight hair was the same rich dark brown as the polished cherry wood table at the ranch house. Creamy tan skin was dotted with just a few freckles scattered across the tip of her turned-up nose. Strong cheekbones and a pointy chin gave her a heart-shaped face, and she had lush lips that just begged to be kissed. Yeah. Keeping her away from losers like Dash was definitely the smart thing to do.
Oh, how his body disagreed though. When Ken had guilt-tripped him into dancing one dance with the older man’s wallflower granddaughter, Dash had argued. He was still in lousy shape, with a leg that would never be one hundred percent after a bullet had shattered the femur and shredded the nerves. Not to mention the fact the burn scars on his face and hands would make any sensible female run screaming for cover. But Ken had reminded him that Carmen couldn’t see the scars. And that she wasn’t much of a dancer either, so she probably wouldn’t mind Dash’s gimpy leg. So they’d danced. She’d come just up to his chin and he’d spent the next ten minutes inhaling the fragrance of rose-scented shampoo and warm, soft woman. He’d gone hard as a rock, which hadn’t helped his already crappy dancing a bit.
Now in this barn that looked more like a high-end vet’s office, spotless and gleaming with tile, wood and steel, Dash followed Carmen�
��s instructions and kept an iron grip on the eagle’s wicked-looking feet. He’d never seen one outside of a zoo before and sure as hell not this close up. When he’d wrapped the bird up, swaddling it like an infant, it had been unconscious. Now though, it looked as if it could easily—and happily—rip off what was left of Dash’s face.
“How do you know it’s a she?” he asked Carmen as she finished tying off the gauze. Using one hand to hold down the eagle’s broad chest, she tucked the shirt sleeve back around the injured wing, closing it so the bird was once again more or less the shape of a football.
“You can let go now. She’s too big to be a male,” she said, picking the bird up to cradle her carefully in both hands. “Birds of prey are different from other birds and most mammals. The girls get a lot bigger than the boys.”
“Huh.” Yet another thing he’d never known. Once upon a time, he’d considered himself a pretty knowledgeable guy, but that had been before he’d come to Texas. It seemed everything out here was different. He’d never even noticed that birds had a scent before, but he could definitely smell the eagle—sort of a dry, powdery odor over the tang of the disinfectant.
“Open up that cage over there, will you? Top one, left-hand side.” Her voice was low for a woman’s but rich and full. Remembering the opera he’d heard blaring in her cabin, Dash wondered if she could sing.
Forcing his concentration back on to the task at hand, he immediately stepped ahead of her to where a bank of wire cages in various sizes were lined up along one wall. The top left was the biggest and he could see she kept them clean and lined with fresh newspapers for when patients arrived. He stepped aside as Carmen laid the bird in it then unwrapped his shirt and stepped back. The eagle immediately clambered to her feet and let out a screech.
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