She heard footsteps—knew it was Anica simply because there was no accompanying patter of dog feet. “Hey,” she said wearily.
“You’ve been busy,” Anica observed. “I’m not sure doing what. But then again, I’m not sure I want to know.”
“I’m not sure you want to know, either.” Meghan opened her eyes as Anica sat on the porch step.
“I’m not even sure you know.” Words that could have been hurtful, but for Anica’s carefully neutral tone. Unusual, for her.
Meghan laughed…no humor at all. “Yeah,” she said. “There’s that. Just doing my best.”
Anica propped her chin in her hand. “Never was much of one for woo-woo stuff.”
“Oh, right.” Meghan snorted. “So tell me, how’s it look in the barn? How are they?”
Anica’s brows drew together—not quite following that train of thought, but going along with it. “Three of them are emotional train wrecks, the rest are dealing. Sophie’s the worst, but I think we all expected that. Old Joe’s hock is completely blown up, but I think hosing and light walking will deal with it. Young Joe probably should have had stitches last night, but it’s too late at this point. We’ll just see how it goes. The new horse added some abrasions, but took the chaos remarkably well—Jenny thinks he was still shut down from what he’s been through. Buttercup’s off in the trot. Hard to pin down, the way shoulder and front foot mimic each other, but I’m pretty sure it’s shoulder.”
“Uh-huh,” Meghan said. She looked longingly at the steps beside Anica, but knew if she sat, she’d never get up again. “No X-rays, no vet and between the two of you, you’ve assessed a barn full of horses in a single day.”
Anica stiffened. “Hey, if you want to get a vet out here to double-check—”
Meghan couldn’t keep the weary out of her laugh. “No, of course I don’t. That’s the point. Dolan made it earlier today, too. None of us were ever quite the usual, were we? And now he’s here, and it’s in our faces. We can’t pretend anymore.”
Anica’s offense turned to annoyance; she pursed full lips. “You can’t,” she said. “I happen to know that Jenny and I base our conclusions on observation. Observation of minutia based on experience, but observation all the same.”
“Encontrados,” Meghan murmured. Found. She’d chosen that name; her mother and the family before her hadn’t bothered to baptize the place at all. The Lawrence ranch, that’s what it had been. She thought she’d named it for the animals here…now she wondered if something deep inside her hadn’t actually named it for the people.
“So let me get this straight.” Anica abruptly stood, facing her. “We’re a happy little functioning rescue organization. Normal as normal comes. Then your friend Dolan arrives, and you go racing off into the night—”
“I heard him call for help,” Meghan interrupted. “He was dying.”
“But you saved him with the same herbs you used on Jenny last night.”
“Not the same…”
Anica might know vet care, but she had no interest in herbs, and shrugged off the distinction. “And now suddenly you two are joined at the hip—and it’s obvious that’s not even a metaphor, just in case you were wondering—and we’ve got wards and magical woo-woo and treasure quests.”
Meghan shrugged. She wasn’t going to play word games with Anica. “Close enough. Call it my inheritance.” Not one she had any choice about taking, either. Not anymore. Not since she’d made that first decision to find Dolan in the dark.
“So this is the way it’s going to be now? We never get our normal back? Or are you going to wrap this problem up and then Dolan goes away? Because I can tell you that for certain—we won’t ever have normal as long as that man is around.”
Meghan sucked in a deep breath, making a tiny, hurt little noise.
Of course Anica was right. Dolan and normal everyday life were polar opposites. After years of assiduously building her own family, she’d suddenly put them in a situation where they couldn’t continue. Not as they had been.
“I don’t know,” she told Anica, which was only as honest as she could be. She couldn’t stand the thought of losing her made family—of the realization that she might create circumstances under which they couldn’t continue. And yet Dolan had become crucial to her on a whole different level. Even as she continued to discover him, she already knew the heart of him. The rebel not for rebellion’s sake, but because he, too, had devoted himself to a cause.
She wondered again about the fine scarring on his flanks. But not for long, because Anica straightened her back, looked Meghan straight in the eye and said, “That’s what I thought.”
And then she walked away.
Dolan came back late, the jaguar free to come and go with Jenny’s dog closed up in the casita. After the previous night, when the dog had survived only because he happened to be inside, Dolan wouldn’t be surprised if he waited a long time for another chance at nightly guard duty.
Outside the house, Dolan resisted the urge to use the entire porch post as one big stretching and scratching post and shifted back to the human, shaking a bit of rabbit fluff from one hand and making the decision to wash up well before Meghan saw him.
But Meghan, it turned out, was asleep. She’d been crying—her cheeks were tear-washed, her eyes puffy—and his sudden rush of concern took him unawares. It mingled with his instant desire for her—and to his own surprise, concern won the day.
Somehow, before this moment, he’d been able to close his eyes to the impact of his arrival here. He’d taken greedily from what it had created—their connection, her power, the incredible pleasure he found in her body…his ability to offer the same to her. But he’d been willfully blind to what it cost her.
Until now. Now, when he stood beside the bed, looking down on her where she curled up against the cold spring night, putting her face where it could catch the breeze from the cracked-open window anyway. Tentatively, already full of the hum of her presence, he made himself a little more open—a little more vulnerable. Emotions drifted his way—sorrow and loss, and the bittersweet understanding that the important things in her life now hung in the balance. Response to him, even in her sleep. Fear that she couldn’t do what was needed…that she’d fail both her purpose and his.
And there, layered over it all, her attraction for him wove through it all, laced with independently acquired regard. With true affection. With the very first tendrils of what could only be deeply rooted love.
He took a deep, sharp breath and stepped back from the bed.
And he watched her for a very long time.
Chapter 15
Meghan woke in the early morning and found herself oddly at peace.
The events of the past week were still impossible to absorb, and the events of the coming week were still impossible to predict, but she couldn’t do anything to change those things. And the Sentinels and the Core had been at odds for thousands of years; she sure couldn’t change that, either. Her friends—her made family—had trouble with who she’d turned out to be, and what she’d brought into their lives…and they’d either come to accept those things, or they wouldn’t. Her ranch had taken damage—
And that was the one thing she could do something about. Had done something about, building wards with Dolan, learning how to trace patterns in ward view, learning how to siphon power from the land that had so obviously and surprisingly claimed her.
As if it had been waiting. All this time, waiting.
She opened her eyes, already aware that the day, barely dawned, would be overcast and oppressive. The quality of light leaking in through the blinds told her that much, as did the extra ache in a body driven to extremes these past days. And the land told her that.
She found Dolan still asleep, leaning against the wall. His knees had been propped up before him at some point, but now they slumped sideways and he didn’t look particularly comfortable. His arms crossed loosely over his torso, twitching in sleep. She opened her mouth to say, “What
are you doing there? Why aren’t you in the bed? Or a bed?” and then, after a moment when no words came out, closed it again.
She needed this morning to herself. Even if it meant her mind was still filled with him, that her body felt bereft of him…wanted just to touch him. Just to be a little closer.
Not today.
But she had to amend that thought. Well, not at the moment.
Because it could be a long day before it was over.
She slipped out of bed and down to the laundry room at the back of the house, where folded laundry hadn’t yet been put away. She changed there, jeans and a snug T-shirt under a flannel shirt, far too aware that Dolan’s keen hearing would make it difficult to avoid waking him. A scrub of a warm washcloth over her face at the laundry tub, and she snuck into the hall bathroom long enough to grab a hair band. She’d use the barn facilities for other things.
Because today, she wanted to be on the land by herself. Today the ranch would be back in full swing—several midweek volunteers would be in to move hay bales, spread manure and schlep grain bags, and the farrier had a handful of therapeutic trims on the schedule. They’d all be surprised to find the sheep in the extra horse runs…but upon Meghan’s tentative suggestion that they refer to the charred remains of the old lean-to and corral as a gas weed whacker accident, Jenny nodded vigorously and Anica said, “Hell, yes!”
And now that the wards were up, here on the ranch was the safest place for any of them. At least, here at the main yard. Warded and double-warded…Dolan had admitted that something might well get through, but not without causing such a fuss as to reverberate through ward view and plain old worldview both. “They won’t do it,” he said. “Never mind how the Sentinels would come down on them for risking exposure to both groups—the Core itself would close in on Gausto with a lot less mercy than the Sentinels might be inclined to show.”
So they were safe. And now Meghan needed time to absorb it all—time without Dolan humming against her nerves or the regular bustle of a working ranch to distract her. And she wanted to inspect the rest of the land as she could. Practice some light warding, see if there were other signs of the Core…see if Gausto’s people were really working at a distance out of Sonoita, or if they might be closer.
Meghan grabbed a bagel, smeared a sloppy knifeful of cream cheese over it and took a swig of orange juice directly from the bottle on the way out, sliding sideways through the barely open screen door to avoid the squeal of its hinges. And she thought she’d gotten away with it, too—slinking out on Dolan, beating Jenny out to the barn—until Jenny’s quiet voice said, “What now?”
The bagel almost squirted from her fingers; she juggled it an instant, then clamped down again and turned to find Jenny on the porch rocker, curled up inside an old winter jacket that had been on the ranch as long as Meghan had. Her grandfather’s, maybe even a remnant of her disappearing father…everyone used it. All in the family. “What’re you doing there?”
“Couldn’t sleep. Just got to thinking.” Jenny looked out over the ranch buildings. “I like it here, Meghan.”
“That’s…I mean, good.” Smooth, that was Meghan in the morning. Real smooth. “Look, I’m…I’m sorry about all this. I didn’t think there was any reason to tell you all about my mother—or that you’d have any reason to believe me if I did. The Sentinels and their battle with the Core…they were never a part of my life, until they took my mother away. And then they were gone again. It was just…everything to lose, nothing to gain. No point.”
“You could have told us about Dolan when he came.”
“I chased him off,” Meghan said, but guilt settled heavily in her stomach. It didn’t mix well with bagel and cream cheese. “And then things happened so fast…”
“You know,” Jenny said, tucking the jacket sleeves over her hands for warmth, “I never fit in anywhere until I came here. I felt things no one else felt, and if I reacted to them I was rude or offensive or crazy. I never felt that way here.”
“I hope not.”
Jenny shrugged. “Now maybe I understand better why.” She looked off in the direction of the sheep pen. “I guess this is the price we pay for that, those of us who find their way to Encontrados.” She pushed her sleepmussed strawberry-red hair away from her face, clumsy with her hand still inside the jacket sleeve, and looked directly at Meghan—a startling departure from her normal quiet demeanor. “It’s going to take Anica longer. I’m not sure she’ll get there.”
“Neither am I,” Meghan said, but a tremendous weight lifted from her heart nonetheless. Not taking the guilt with it…there’d always be guilt. But if this little family could get past it…“I’m going out,” she said. “You’ll be okay here? With Dolan?”
Jenny snorted. “He’s hiding from Anica. And we’ll be fine. There’s plenty to do—those horses need followup care, and there’s a ranch to run. It’s not all that long till Games Day.”
“It’s never all that long till Games Day,” Meghan said wryly. Their bane and boon, the biggest donation draw of the year. Horseback rides for the kids, treasure hunts in the barn, demo rides by the staff, a petting zoo…every animal’s story told in simple, blunt terms and tacked up beside their stalls—too high for the children to read, low enough so the adults couldn’t miss them. Took the whole year to prepare for it, done right. “Hold down the fort, okay? I want to make sure everything’s okay out there.”
Jenny said, “Yeah. I’d like to know that, please.” Striking pale green eyes grew suddenly harder. “And if it isn’t, you tell Dolan that he and his Sentinels better fix it.”
But Meghan had no such intentions.
Here, out on her own and on the land, Meghan intended to fix things herself.
Practice.
She needed it; she wanted it. She had no idea what Dolan would do after this crisis ended; he seemed the kind of hard man who was perfectly capable of walking away from an inconvenient herb-and-power-christened relation—
No, she wouldn’t even call it a relationship. Just an intense interlude. And she wasn’t sure but that was okay by her, too. She’d have the memories and she’d have her life. Yeah, that’s convincing. She was well beyond that point and she knew it.
She needed to be ready, either way. This land was hers; it always had been. And yet…now even more so. It, too, seemed to have awakened to her since the event Dolan had so matter-of-factly called initiation.
He’d known what he was doing.
He should have told her, let her make the choice…
Except her inner, sensible voice reminded her that he hadn’t expected any significant change—that not everyone experienced it. That Dolan himself hadn’t—he’d grown into most of his power already.
She thought of his pride in her—how clearly she’d felt it when she’d handled Luka. She closed her eyes, crouching on the flat above the ranch with Luka’s reins in one hand, and remembered the feel of Dolan’s body beneath her—the reverberation of pleasure between them, his willingness to abandon himself to her. His unhesitating charge into the fray when the flame devil attacked, his strong presence at her back when she went after it. Emotions chased through her, strong and hot; even now she chafed at their separation, whether she wanted to or not.
She dug her fingers into the hard, pale alkaline soil, felt the grit of it like harsh reality. More than just an intense interlude. More than just an incantation-forced connection.
A round pen in the hot morning sun, a haze of evil on the horizon that no one else saw. Deep, dark blue eyes, a gaze fastened on hers with such intensity, such outright demand—
She’d felt it then. That moment. Days before her unwitting concoction of herbs and blood and life had sealed something between them.
And then there he was, an ever-present awareness on the periphery of her thoughts—growing a little louder, a little more insistent. Reaching out to check on her.
These past few days had taught her how little it would take to reach back to him, to turn bare awarenes
s into true communication. But she checked that impulse. She stood, dusted her hands off on her jeans and turned to Luka. She kept Dolan closed out, she mounted up and she rode on—alone, inside and out.
Because she had to know that she could.
Chapter 16
At first startled that he couldn’t reach Meghan, Dolan soon found himself grinning. He could sense her; he knew she was safe. And she’d chosen a good time, a natural time to reassert herself. He found himself wearing a little grin of pride—that she could keep him out, that she would think to try.
It had been nothing more than reflex, the reaching out. If she wanted her privacy right now, she could have it.
Besides, Anica had spotted him early in the day and silently pointed at the remains of the sheep shelter, handing him a pair of heirloom overalls that lived in the barn—probably had done so for generations.
Overalls. Surely not.
But a glance down at his own clothes had convinced him. They were all he had; they were the only clothes that would shift with him. Jenny donated an oversized flannel shirt and he slipped the overalls on over his pants, stripping off his shirt right there on the porch.
Jenny gave his side a pointed look. “Meghan know about those?”
He looked down, his arms already poking through the sleeves of his borrowed shirt. Fine, nearly invisible scars, parallel and thin and sheening just enough to see them in the sun. He and Meghan had shared many moments of their lives the night she’d saved his, but he didn’t remember this being part of it.
Tiberon Gausto, Core drozhar, wielding a sharp blade and a sharper smile.
“I don’t know,” he told Jenny, dropping his voice into the cold tone that intimidated even the brash and the bold.
Jenny looked straight at him—neither brash nor bold, and not intimidated. Beyond it, perhaps, with the changes he’d brought into her life. “Don’t play games with us,” she said simply, and left.
Sentinels: Jaguar Night Page 13
