Books by Linda Conrad

by Conrad, Linda

  The look on Kody’s face told her that he didn’t believe either of those two scenarios. “Do you know the name of the other collector?”

  “Dad’s neighbor couldn’t quite remember. He said it was something like ‘Ahmed’or maybe ‘Hammad.’ Something…Middle Eastern anyhow. He was sure about that.”

  Suddenly, Kody’s expression changed from skeptical to a blank slate. “Middle Eastern, huh?” He grabbed her elbow and took off up the hill once again. “Come on, let’s go.”

  “Go where? Are you going to help me find my father?”

  “I called the rental car company this morning and told them to come pick up your car for credit,” he grumbled instead of answering. “Now you have two choices. You can do what I had originally planned for you, and leave. I’ll have someone drive you to the Albuquerque airport. You can fly home and let the authorities find your father. Or…”

  He stopped so suddenly Reagan almost ran up his back.

  “You called the car rental company? But how was I supposed to get around?”

  He turned to scowl at her, face-to-face. “You weren’t. You were going home.”

  Of all the nerve. “Who died and made you my boss? This is a free country and I can make my own plans.”

  “No, this is not a free country. You are standing on sovereign Dine land. And you will leave when we say you will leave.”

  Uh-oh. He had her there. She really didn’t have any legal right to stay here at all. Darn it.

  “Your second choice is to stay and assist us while we look for signs of your father.” His eyes were darker than she’d ever seen them. Dark and beyond dangerous, with sparks flashing warning signs. “But if you do stay, you will have to be accompanied by one of us at all times. The rule will be that you are never to roam around alone on the reservation. No exceptions.”

  “Well…” The noise that interrupted her thoughts was more like a vibration than a real audio tone. It was a sound unlike anything she’d ever heard before.

  Kody blinked once. “It’s daylight, dammit.” He’d mumbled the words absently, but then he quickly grabbed her by the arm and yelled, “Run, Reagan. Follow me.”

  Run? Where?

  But her questions were moot. After dragging her up the hill for a few yards, Kody swung back and circled her waist with his arm without missing a step. Before she knew what hit her, she was being swept along, her feet barely touching the ground.

  A second or two later they topped a rise and Reagan caught sight of his pickup parked in front of a big round log house. The noise grew ever louder.

  Kody moved fast. It all seemed like a blur. Within a precious few moments, he opened the truck door, threw her flat on her back in the front seat and then landed on top of her as the door slammed shut behind them.

  Immediately, the bright sunshiny day turned dark as night, and the roar of a strange clicking noise outside the truck increased, drowning out all possibility of speech.

  Minutes passed as she gulped for air underneath him. She should have been scared. Instead, all she thought about was the body of the gorgeous Native American man, lying so tightly against hers on this cramped seat.

  She could feel every one of his hard muscles and rough angles as they pressed her down. He seemed to be mumbling something in her ear, but she couldn’t make out his words due to the high clicking noise of whatever was outside the truck.

  As the whisper of Kody’s breath fanned her face, Reagan’s nipples hardened, her skin grew damp and her heart raced more furiously than it had during their run up the hill. They were so close their legs were intertwined. She tried to inch away from him, while the smell of their combined sweat tangled together in her nostrils and quickly heightened the rest of her senses.

  His essence surrounded her. Captured her.

  The noise outside began to subside, and she realized Kody was chanting what must be Navajo words. He wasn’t trying to soothe or stir her. She could not have understood what he’d said.

  “I can’t breathe. You’ll have to let me up now.”

  “Okay. Just a minute,” he mumbled against the sensitive skin of her throat.

  That was all she could stand. “Please. Now.” She pushed hard against his chest.

  He lifted himself up on his elbows, and his dazed gaze locked on to hers. “Have you made your choice yet? ’Cause if you haven’t, I know what I want. I want you to stay.”

  “What?” She couldn’t think and couldn’t believe what she’d heard. At least, not while the lower half of his body still pushed her down into the seat.

  She looked deep into his eyes and saw the same passion burning there that she was feeling. So much for choices.

  Ah, hell.

  4

  P artially hidden by boulders and an aspen grove, the evil ones crouched in dappled sunlight, watching the Navajo FBI man and the troublesome bilagáana woman as the two stood on flat ground and straightened their clothing. Because it was broad daylight, the Skinwalker witches were still in human form.

  “Well, we found out a couple of things.” The one who, during the dark hours, could change himself into a snake turned to talk to his superior. “First, we now know we can control the insects and make them do our bidding even in daylight. That will be quite useful.”

  The other man, the headman of the Skinwalkers, the one who had rediscovered the ancient secrets and had learned how to use shape-shifting for gaining power, scowled.

  He made a noise that sounded like a growl, low and dangerous in his throat. The Snake’s human skin crawled at the sound.

  “Control is never a surprise, Snake. And soon we will capture enough power to laugh in the face of tradition and be able to change ourselves over in broad daylight.”

  “Yes, yes,” the Snake agreed. “But we also found out that the FBI Navajo, that Brotherhood bastard who tries to balance between two worlds, is definitely protecting the woman. It was no coincidence last night.”

  The Snake feared little on the reservation, but he was deathly afraid of the man squatting next to him. The man who was gossiped about in terrified whispers across the land. The Navajo Wolf.

  Waving away the Snake’s words, the Wolf scoffed. “Last night we only wanted to scare her off. Make her stop asking questions and leave Dinetah. She was not worth the time to kill.”

  “And that has changed today?”

  The Wolf raised one side of his human lip in a sneer. “Didn’t you see the attraction between the two? I could smell the animal musk from here. Sexual attraction is power. We can use it to our advantage.”

  “How?” The minute the word came from his mouth, the Snake knew he had made a mistake. He tried to back up a step, but his master wrapped a vicelike hand around his neck.

  “Do you fully follow the ancient myths and legends, reptile? Do you submit to the Skinwalker Way of making money, the way as given to us by First Man and First Woman and by Diving Heron?”

  Paralyzed with fear, the Snake could only grunt in response.

  The Wolf sniffed, sensed the Snake’s fear and drew in the power-filled emotion to make it his own. “We need time to finalize our deal with those Middle Easterners. The ones who have come to Dinetah are none too bright, but they can be deadly all the same.

  “So instead of a distraction for us, we will make that Anglo daughter a distraction for the Brotherhood. We will keep her and the FBI half-breed together, running in circles and interested only in each other.”

  He knew the Snake would never fully understand that power, and not simply money, meant control. And control was everything.

  “Perhaps the daughter can also help us control her father,” the Wolf continued. “After her usefulness as diversion for the Brotherhood is over, we will use her to force the father’s full compliance. Love is just another means of control. And all emotion feeds our need.”

  The Snake drew in a shallow breath as the Wolf relaxed the hold on his throat. But the Wolf kept one big hand draped loosely around the back of the man’s scaly human
neck in an unspoken warning.

  “Will we use mind control on the daughter?” The Snake spat out a hiss. “She is supposed to be very bright.”

  The Navajo Wolf leered at the smaller man with snake eyes. “No bilagáana woman is smart enough to beat our ancient black magic. Is that not right, Snake?” he demanded with a snap of his teeth.

  “I’ve been practicing.” The Snake’s voice shook as he squirmed under the other man’s light grip. “And I think mind control is much easier to accomplish than the old ways must’ve been. You know? Those traditional ways where you had to be right next to the victim.”

  The Navajo Wolf almost smiled. “By all means. Use your new powers. Find out how far away you can be and still control her mind. The more we use the power, the stronger we become.”

  He licked his lips and ran his thumbnail down the cracked skin on the back of the Snake’s neck. “I believe it would benefit us more if we begin eliminating the Brotherhood now rather than waiting until later. I’m convinced the Navajo FBI man is a weak link. It’s good that he will become our first target.”

  The Wolf didn’t much care for having to depend on underlings, so he resolved to pay close attention to this project. Eventually, all of the subjects, both white and Navajo, would be dead. Perhaps even this idiot snake could disappear with the sands of time.

  “What was that all about?” Reagan asked Kody as she looked over her shoulder. “What were those creepy things?”

  Kody shrugged and walked around the truck’s hood. “Crickets. Some call then katydids. I wasn’t sure at first…”

  “Sure about what? And what the heck were you mumbling about back there?” Reagan tried hard to hide her trembling hands, jamming them into her pockets.

  The handsome lawman didn’t say anything more until he’d walked all the way around the truck. “Looks like everything is in order. Get in and I’ll try to explain.”

  “Sure, okay,” Reagan said as she plastered a phony grin on her face. She needed to sit and get her thundering heart back under control.

  But before she could put her foot on the truck’s running board, Kody moved beside her and held the passenger door open so she could climb in. When he took her arm to assist, she could feel the tension curling inside him. It moved through his fingers and flowed right into her. His face was a mask of calm, but she sensed his internal fight to gather strength.

  It made her even more nervous and shaky than she had been with the crickets. She couldn’t seem to breathe. Her throat was closing and a tremor ran through her body. Her feet were glued to the ground.

  While she systematically checked off her own odd reactions, Reagan began to wonder if she was in shock. “Crickets aren’t poisonous or anything, are they? I mean they don’t sting like the bees.”

  Kody shook his head, but seemed impatient to get going. In a surprise move, he circled her waist with his massive hands and lifted her into the truck’s passenger seat.

  Yikes! Now she really was shaking. All over. She felt a red flush, due not so much to embarrassment as from just being touched, move up her body to her cheeks.

  He must’ve felt it, too, because he stopped and stared at her with a stunned look on his face. His eyes. Those dangerous chocolate eyes seemed to see right inside her, unlocking all the dusty closed doors she’d thought were shut for good.

  It made her think back a few moments to when all his hard angles and steely muscles had been sprawled across her. Her pulse kicked up a notch or two with the memory. A sensual awareness pulsed in her veins, bringing smoldering fire to all her body parts. It stirred her blood, until her breasts became heavy and tender and she couldn’t seem to sit still.

  Was this also a symptom of delayed shock?

  No sense kidding herself. Almost positive that what she was experiencing was a form of pure, unadulterated lust, Reagan wished she was more familiar with those feelings. But she’d read enough about the physical manifestations of sexual desire to believe that’s what was happening to her.

  She grabbed her jacket lapels and pulled them across her chest, trying to hide the evidence of how her body was noticing him. Her nipples had puckered into tight little buds under her cotton T-shirt.

  Before she covered up, Kody apparently noticed, too. He flicked a glance to her chest, then back up to her face, finally focusing on her lips. What could he be thinking?

  Climb in and drive away was the only coherent thought Kody could manage at the moment. They had to get moving, for more reasons than one. He needed to force himself to back off from her temptation and promise. No woman had made him this crazed with desire, not since the divorce.

  And what about those crickets, swarming so late in the season? It was just too much of a coincidence, coming close on the heels of the bee attack. A black force must’ve stirred the insects from their normal places.

  Kody wanted the space and the leisure to consider all the possibilities. But with Reagan so close, he was having a hard time concentrating.

  Though he would enjoy exploring his fascinating attraction to her, now was not the time. And more, this could not be the woman who made him break his vows. He didn’t know enough about her. Was she some kind of enemy spy?

  As much as he might like to put miles of highway between them for the sake of his concentration, such an easy way out was not to be. He had to keep her close for the investigation.

  Slamming Reagan’s door, he walked around the truck and climbed behind the wheel.

  It was important for the Brotherhood to learn why the Skinwalkers had taken such a big interest in a stranger. The good guys needed to gather all the information they could on the enemy’s methods.

  And he was the best choice within the Brotherhood organization to handle this investigation. The mention of Middle Easterners had made that clear. All of a sudden his FBI investigation had become intertwined with his Brotherhood obligations in a very real way.

  Like it or not, he was stuck with Reagan for a while. He steeled his resolve, vowed to reacquaint himself with the stoicism he’d apparently misplaced, and gingerly drove his truck down the gravel driveway. Without another glance in Reagan’s direction, he sped right past his mother’s house.

  “Aren’t we going to pick up my bags?” Reagan asked.

  “Not yet. Maybe later.”

  He noticed the way the early morning sunshine gleamed on her hair. The rose and yellow rays gave those auburn curls a mellow, glowing effect. And now that he was noticing things, he could see her chin was strong but also feminine and fine at the same time. Her full lips, though naked of any makeup, seemed satiny soft and eminently kissable.

  He chastised himself for once again giving in to the tantalizing distraction, and turned back to watch the road.

  “You didn’t answer me before,” he began, still facing forward. “But you have decided to stay in Navajoland until your father’s disappearance is resolved, right?”

  “I guess if you’re willing to help me search, I’d be foolish not to take you up on it.”

  Kody sensed her hesitation and discomfort as she squirmed slightly in her seat. “I can’t promise anything, Reagan. If your father is involved in any kind of artifact theft, he will be treated like all criminals.”

  “But—”

  “But I’m willing to give him every opportunity to prove his innocence before we jump to conclusions. I’ve thought it over and it seems to me quite a coincidence that a man with no previous record is suddenly under suspicion of being both a traitor and a thief.”

  Actually, there were a couple other strange coincidences that Kody didn’t trust, either. He intended to follow up on all of them before he allowed Reagan to leave.

  “Oh. Okay,” she said. Folding her hands in her lap, she stared out the side window as the green pines and blue spruce began to give way to ruddy-colored sandstone spires dotted with gray sage.

  “It’s pretty here,” she said, sounding amazed. “Not at all like the desert I drove through in New Mexico.”

 
; “Dinetah landscape is as varied as its people. But I personally love the mountains and the steep cliffs. As we travel, look around and appreciate the beauty you see.” He smiled to himself and decided to give her a lesson. “The People walk in beauty. It’s part of our tradition, keeping everything in balance. Our art, our architecture. The land around us. Sometimes, we pay too much attention to beauty and forget that there are ugly things in the world.”

  As the words left his mouth, Kody was reminded of how out of balance his mother had been lately. She had turned her back on her art in a most non-traditional way.

  In fact, the whole of Dinetah seemed to be moving out of balance since the Skinwalker raids had begun. Rubbing his hand across his jaw, Kody wondered if he was moving too far afield with Reagan. Balance and moderation had not lately been his strong suit, as much as he had tried to keep the lessons in mind. He dropped the Navajo Way discussion and vowed to stick to his investigation.

  Lost in thought and staying quiet for too long, Kody should’ve expected Reagan to break the mood.

  And she did. “Where are we going?”

  “I want to question a few people who do business near the canyon’s visitors’ center. See if anybody there knows of your father.” Kody resisted the urge to turn and look at her. “In particular, one of the reservation’s original trading posts. In Three Eagles.”

  His head tilted toward her, despite his best efforts to avoid looking in her direction. “You wouldn’t need a good pair of moccasin boots, would you?”

  “Well, maybe.” Reagan shifted in her seat. “Oh. I get it,” she said after a moment’s silence. “We need an excuse to stick around and chat with the locals at this store. I’m not much of a shopper…at least not in person. I get most of my clothes off the Internet. But trying on boots might be fun. And if they will help ward off the snakes, I’m all for it.”

  Kody couldn’t stop a smile. “Tell me what your life is like back home, Reagan. I’m guessing you don’t spend a lot of time outdoors.”